What I Learned From Watching Netflix's Six Triple Eight
13 Mar 2025 #writingIf we look at the world as creators, there’s content everywhere.
I put on my creator’s glasses and watched Six Triple Eight, a Netflix movie about the only battalion of American Black women in Europe during WWII.
Here are the storytelling devices I noticed:
#1. The story starts somewhere in the middle, not at the beginning of the events. It starts with a scene of a plane being shot down in the middle of WWII. Then, it takes us back to the days before that incident and builds from there.
#2. This battalion ran the mail operation for the troops in the frontlines. So we follow a letter covered with blood from the first scene all the way throughout the movie.
#3. Apart from delivering letters, it tells us other stories:
- The story of Major Adams, the officer in charge of the battalion. Based on a real character.
- The discrimination Black women faced inside the Army.
- Lena, our protagonist, falling in love with the pilot from the first scene.
#4. It follows the problem/tension/climax/resolution technique:
- It starts with the battalion facing an impossible mission (delivering the mail)
- Being Black women in the Army, nobody believed in them.
- They completed the mission ahead of time.
- They earned the respect of the people who used to bully them.
#5. The entire story is told from the point of view of a single woman, Lena, our protagonist. Based on a real character too.
#6. Like any other movie inspired by real events, it wraps up with the real footage of the real Six Triple Eight battalion entering in Europe.
#7. The movie starts with a love story and ends with another love story. It ends the same way it started.