Credit where credit is due

I just got back from Norwescon 36. Great event and I know because I helped put it together. Had some great discussions on film and narrative structure, race representations in the media, and gender relations as represented by fiction aimed at both children and adults. And there was one thing that I heard several times this weekend and that I have been hearing for years now, from both content producers and content consumers alike: if there is change to be made in how content is made/presented and blame to be laid for why we still produce the most racist, sexist, backwards ignorant media around the world, it lies squarely on the shoulders of the content consumer. I have always and will always have a massively huge problem with that concept. So let’s take a look at why it's a truly horrible idea to blame the consumers instead of, and before the creators.

1...”If people didn't buy it, then the creators wouldn't have a market and they would be forced to make something else." To illustrate the reason why this idea is backwards and horribly broken, I present a metaphor: Let’s say in an urban area there is a drug dealer, and EVERYONE knows where the dealer lives, what the dealer does and who the dealer sells too. The cops have enough evidence to arrest and charge the dealer but they figure that by arresting and charging the dealers client base the dealer will be forced out of business and have to rely on his accounting degree. You wouldn't accept that as a functional form of crime prevention, so why are you accepting it as a functional way of changing content creation? It's because you’re lazy and, yes. It’s insulting, but it’s also true. You might not even realize just how lazy you are and it’s because you've lived your whole life agreeing to a bargain you never knew you had a chance to turn down.

2. "If the Consumers would just pay more attention to independent cinema and projects on the internet then they would find content that the mainstream media would never have the balls to air." This is sort of like saying that if everyone just started their own gardens and raising their own cattle, then McDonalds would have no choice but to make healthier food to stay in business. We each have our own little lives and only so many hours in a day. I love media, and the internet is my often very diverse and very scary holy ground, but even I sometimes just want to come home, turn on How I Met Your Mother and zone out for a few hours. We live in a world that is built on an infrastructure that is, by today's standards, ancient; and while, yes there are some things that each of us can do to live healthier and more conscientious lives, that often takes more energy and more time away from things like our families, our bills, our homes, our jobs, and all the other little contracts that we have entered into that make our world go round. Yes, we as consumers need to be more aware of alternatives, but the alternatives also need to be more aware of consumers. It feels like a victory just to get finished work on the internet, but if you don't have twenty minutes of sneaker ads every hour chances are your parents make up half your audience. Yes, there are content producers on the web that break this mold, but you are talking about a hand full of people who got lucky on Kick starter and are awfully lonely out there in the great big world of studio productions. For an example of this we all know that Veronica Mars got Kick started, but how many people have heard of The Gamers or Project London? Spend all the time you want seeking out new creative life and new cinematic civilizations, but it will be YEARS before anything you discover has the kind of distribution and word of mouth to equal to the staying power of even a crappy network show.

America is a consumer based society. We spend all our time and all our money on wanting and having things, from esoteric and ethereal things like love and college degrees, to simple comforts like porn and shoes. We are consumers born and bred, and to then turn around and blame us for doing what we have been taught to do since birth is dishonest and insulting to people who work hard, and try to live decent lives and just want to get lost in a story for a little while. And when you consider the same issue from the point of view of a creator, it is just as insulting to assume that the only way a creator can learn to create something new and different is by having people ignore them or dismiss the work that they already have done. This is not only heart breaking to a class of people who work hard, but doesn't say much for our national intelligence level. When people ask “Why is our content so sexist, racist, classist, and ignorant?" I tell them that we, as Americans, will pay attention and money to an entertainment provider as long as they say things that make us feel better about who we are, why we are here, where we have been, and where we are going.

Which leads me to the points I always consider when thinking about this topic, and recently, about media in general.

1: There are things that consumers CAN do to make slow changes to the library of content offered up for them to consume. THINK about what you are seeing. Not endlessly and deeply, but at least a little. Ask yourself if Full House would have been as popular if the family was black (Family Matters), or if Lost would have been such a huge hit if the characters actually looked like normal people do when they don't shower for months on end and wear rags and live on a deserted island. Would you still watch How I Met Your Mother if Ted was gay? Would Breaking Bad be as big a hit if the main character were a man of Middle Eastern descent? You can learn a lot about yourself, your culture and your content if you just THINK about what you're seeing and why.

2: Create. Not all the time, and it doesn't need to be the center of your life, but make something of your own. It can be short stories, or paintings, or bird houses, or knitting, or whatever strikes your interest. We grew up being told by the media that only an infinitely small fraction of our country and planet are lucky/talented enough to create. And that is WRONG. What would the world be like if only the best birds sang? I'm not saying live your passion every day loud and proud. What I am saying is that, if you ever get the inkling to try something outside your normal set of skills/life experiences, TRY IT. Be creative. There are four hundred million plus people in the United States, and most of them think Wipeout and Jersey Shore are the height of American culture; but I guarantee you that we are ALL the silent majority, wondering when something we love will come along and capture our hearts and minds. And nothing ever will, at least not on the level that popular media needs it to happen to be considered a "financial success." There is no single story, no single TV show or movie, no single book or hobby that will interest all the people all the time. We, as a consumer base, MUST REALIZE THIS, because it’s the job of the financiers to make as much money as possible as often as possible, and it’s the job of the creators to create and the consumers to consume, and for a really, really long time the money guys have been looking for the biggest bang for their buck, the largest body count for the lowest cost, and it’s time for them to unleash the creators to make as much content as humanly possible. There never has been, and never will be, the show/book/movie/song/play/idea that captures the whole nation; but what there are is an infinite number or stories that will move SOMEONE and, once moved, they want to be moved again. Creativity is not supposed to be an atomic blast. It's a series of carpet bombs that blanket our hearts and minds, and anyone can make something that touches someone else in a meaningful way. All they have to do is follow through on the impulse to create.

There is a quote: "90 percent of everything is Crap." That quote has made my skin crawl, both as a creator and as a consumer, for most of my adult life because it’s a selfish, egocentric way of seeing someone else's hard work. I prefer "90 percent of everything is NOT FOR ME." These things do not happen magically. The movies that are made for the love of making movies are just as hard to make as the ones made for a paycheck, and someone out there was motivated enough to make them. Yes, the 'mainstream" is close-minded, sexist, racist, classist, and often completely soulless, but we as consumers are not at fault for decisions made by the corporate masses. Yes, there are hundreds if not thousands of things out there to read, see, and listen to, but we as consumers are not at fault for not searching hard enough. We cannot stop consuming media, just like we can't hurt the oil companies by refusing to buy gas for twenty four hours. What we can do is add to the conversation, increase the noise level, counter program, distort the feed, question the system, and raise the level of discourse. Just because we are consumers does not mean we cannot create, and just because we create does not mean we must never consume. And most of all, just because we want to make a living from our work does not mean that we must first sell our souls. We are always, and will always be better than that.