Storytelling vs Propaganda
Last week we talked about the Hays Code and how it controlled story outcome by reflecting the conservative Catholic morals of 1930s USA. The modern movie grading system, does not control story outcome - but a select group of people do.
This select group is usually the people in charge of the either the movie studio, or production company. In the case of books - a publishing company.
There are plenty of books, scripts, movie makers and potential technology for films to be made, but only a select few ever make it to the final stage. This select few are filtered through a system. And its nothing sinister - its based on what the select few will think will sell to the biggest audience, and who these characters will be played by, or what kind of attention can be raised.
Here’s a video on the process:
(How Hollywood Selects Scripts by the Flipside)
To give an example to make this clear…
I’m a writer. I have to come up with content. The content can be anything, but it has to be present in a form of basic idea. (I wanted to say in a form that makes sense - but I’ve seen too many movies where nothing made sense, so that rule is quality issue for me, not always big budget productions.)
So, I take my basic idea and arrange the moving pieces and people into a series of events that have a beginning, middle and end. That’s a story. Then I edit it. Then I publish it.
The old method before self publishing was to go get an agent, who is someone who you pay them because they knew people. The agent would go to various big names with your story, and try to get the big names to buy it.
Once the big names bought your story - it could be handed off to someone who might trash 90% of it. And then it might sit on the shelf for a couple of decades. And someone else might trash another 90% of it. And finally after 30-60 years… someone might dig out the story, and go… oh… This would be a good movie. Let’s change a few more details. And those changes would happen as the team would be looking for locations to film in, people to play the characters, and places that were willing to show the movie once its complete.
The whole process from those final script changes, finding the right actors, filming, editing and then to gathering people in the theaters - that would take a couple more years.
By this point, the original author wouldn’t recognize their script - if they were even alive to see it in a theater.
To give you an idea… There was a Gunsmoke western script called The Pig Farmer. Marshal Matt Dillon is injured and hides out on you guessed it… a pig farm. And there’s a kid involved who he has to protect.
This script sat for several decades and became… Witness. A crime thriller romance about a cop who has to protect a little Amish boy who witnesses a murder. The cop also falls in love with the little boy’s mom, and we see the massive culture clash between the peaceful Amish and a police officer who can’t stand bullies.
Script 2 looks nothing like the original script. And these were all changes to the story which created a successful film. But they were made a select group of people who may or may not have shared the same creative vision or worldview.
Moving this from story content to agenda based content - Hollywood has embraced diversity of roles and are bringing agendas to the table. These agendas are not part of the story, but are often forced into the entertainment in expense of the story. And people are starting to catch on… because instinctively, we all know when a story doesn’t work. When a story doesn’t make sense, or we’re not relating to the characters, we lose interest in the story. This is how humans work with stories. Stories are a form of empathy and engagement. And they’re brain training.
And the people who have the big budgets know this. In fact, they’re getting angry at the original fan bases who popularized the movies - and saying the fans are awful hateful people. The fans are coming back with rants, reviews, and online fan pieces which showcase better storytelling than the big budgets.
This is a form of gaslighting. The big budget gatekeepers who own the entertainment pieces are not listening to the fans. The big budget gatekeepers are actually turning on the fans and slandering them.
What do the fans want? Good storytelling. Authentic characters.
There is a way to solve this. Its by listening and then delivering the content the fans want. Some franchises have been successful at this and its grown the franchise. (Star Trek is one of the few.) Most have not. And that’s because the big budget gatekeepers were interested in their agendas, and sacrificed the story to tell that agenda.
To be clear - I’m not against diversity of roles - I’m a writer. If my character is a black female, I’m going to treat her with the same respect as if my character was a white male. I choose my characters for my story needs - not to cater to an agenda. I believe most audiences do the same thing.
What I have issue with is a knowledge filter - where a select few decides to force their ideas onto everyone else. That’s not storytelling - that’s propaganda.
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