Are We Afraid of New Stories?

J.K. Rowling said, “There’s always room for a story that can transport people to another place.”

But is there? J.K. Rowling herself has become an icon of what I think of as “Cancelhood” by expressing an opinion that was not popular among…who? Twitterers? Gen Z? I don’t even know. But they “canceled” her so they have as much power as the men in black, the alternative state, the dark government.

The Cancelers.

I’m digressing a bit. I’m worried about storytelling. I’m worried we are no longer open to new ideas. Are there any new ideas?

It’s not a totally new thing that we are more comfortable with the stories we know. Look at how old Cinderella is. Is there anyone who doesn’t know that story in one iteration or another? We may all think of the Disney version, or the more educated may even know Charles Perrault’s version, but the story goes back much further in Greece and Asia.

Women have been losing shoes for freaking forever, man.

And bored royal men have been fetching them for us.

I’d never thought of Cinderella as a women’s empowerment tale until just now.

But again, I digress. I saw a news report today about the spectacular failure of Pixar’s latest movie (probably only spectacular failure because it was Pixar and Pixar is supposed to not fail). The report went on to examine the current hits, all of which are sequels, remakes and adaptations featuring familiar characters.

I’ve been watching a lot of Korean television recently. “K-dramas” as we Americans call them, aren’t necessarily new stories (they’re mostly soapy love stories or about lawyers or doctors—very familiar territory), but they are told from a different point of view in a different setting, sometimes in very unique ways. (I’m looking at you, “Extraordinary Attorney Woo”!)

The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic slice of truth, wisdom, is dying out.

Walter Benjamin

I hope that’s not true. It’s definitely getting harder to tell new stories as the routes of communication are closing in on themselves. Disney owns Pixar and ABC, FOX owns CNN, let’s not even get started on the lack of publishing houses. It’s easier for the megacorporations to churn out more and more of the same stuff the public has consumed for years. But in doing so, they’re taking away the superpower of communication, stripping away mankind’s ability to see beyond what is to what could be.

As storytellers, maybe it’s up to us? Find a way to make stories that are new but introduced in a familiar way. Or a way to tell old stories in a very new way. Maybe we have to risk being canceled to break through walls now. Maybe we have to tell stories that aren’t comfortable to hear or read.

Maybe we need to lose a shoe and see who brings it back to us?

Stories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here.

Sue Monk Kidd

My book of “love poems” will be available soon. Copyright 2023 Michelle Garren-Flye