I can’t remember when I first heard Angus MacPhail’s word “MacGuffin”, the term for the object at the center of a story. In the early days of Hollywood, Pearl White called it the “weenie”. Cultures that strive for Capital-A Art might give it a fancy name, like l’objet d’le coup (I made that up), but lucky for us, Hitchcock popularized the term MacGuffin. I like it because “MacGuffin” is itself a placeholder (like “Whatshisname” or “Bugalugs”) and reflects the object’s essential fungibility.

The Wikipedia page on the word “MacGuffin” reveals some disagreement over whether the audience has to care about the MacGuffin. I think the distinction in that argument hinges on whether they’re talking about the structure of the story or the ability of the story to grab the audience.

From the standpoint of story structure, if a story can stay the same whether everyone is chasing a box of diamonds or a bottle of super rocket fuel or a briefcase filled with Illudium Phosdex, I think you have a proper MacGuffin. That’s what I meant by “fungibility”. You can swap the Maltese Falcon for the Burmese Lion and have the same story. Joel Cairo still smells of gardenia and Brigid O’Shoughnessey is still going over for it. On the other hand, you can’t swap the Maltese Falcon for the Eiffel Tower or the Brooklyn Bridge. That has to be a different story.

But from the standpoint of story telling–capturing the attention of the audience–I think the MacGuffin does need a connection. Otherwise the audience doesn’t get why the characters want it. Western audiences can identify with Caspar Gutman as he waxes romantic about the Templars. With a little tweak, they could identify with his enthusiasm for mysterious tales of the first Dalai Lama and a MacGuffin called the Lotus Of Tibet. But what about Gutman chasing the trinkets that Peter Minuit used to buy Manhattan? The Bronx Rabbit just isn’t “the stuff that dreams are made of.”

My personal favorite MacGuffin is Illudium Phosdex, the shaving cream atom. It’s silly. It’s absurd. And we need it desperately because Earth’s supply is alarmingly low. Meg and I use the phrase all the time–“Our supply of coffee creamer is alarmingly low.” In my interpretation of Pulp Fiction, the briefcase contains Earth’s last 600 grams of Illudium Phosdex, and Marcellus Wallace needs it to shave his head (as indicated by the band-aid).

My second favorite MacGuffin is the plaid bag in What’s Up Doc? It’s kind of an ober-MacGuffin that drives the hijinks by concealing the regular MacGuffins.

Then there’s Rosebud. Several articles cite Rosebud in Citizen Kane as a MacGuffin, but I disagree. Yes, Rosebud is fungible–it could have been any object from his childhood. But Rosebud isn’t part of the plot. It doesn’t motivate anyone. It’s irrelevant for all but a few seconds of the film. Rosebud is a thinly contrived mystery that brackets the biopic. Without Rosebud, the final moment of the story is boring: “…and the old shit died. The End.” Rosebud is a flourish, not a MacGuffin.

My least favorite MacGuffin is unobtainium. The name doesn’t even fit because they’re actually obtaining it. They would have done better to call it “maguffium”. “Why is it called that?” “We don’t know. Does it matter?” Then at least they could have gotten a laugh instead of an eyeroll.

[Edit: In 2025, I couldn’t help tweaking my old writing. I think this version is better.]