And Television
I left a pitch meeting today, where the subject was same as it usually is in these things. Though not identified as such, packaging mediocrity for the lowest common denominator is hard work. There are meetings, and more meetings, email chains, conference calls; sexual favors are usually dispensed, or taken non-consensually. Popular culture is raped, too, for the formulas for successful programming must be exploited and repeated. And these Hollywood clones want something that is exactly what sold well last season, but it has to be unique, visionary, forward. Who are these people? Minions, they are. Minions with a lexicon. Minions with career trajectories. These are people who shouldn’t have any authority at all, so fortunately they work in television, where nobody can really get hurt. Unless of course you count the mental anguish that dramatic sludge posing as entertainment causes to people with too much time on their hands.
The world is divided into three sections here. There is the audience. That’s most of the world. They need to be lulled into a sense of complacency so you can sell them soap and boner pills, anti-depressants and processed cheese products. They like a good hero, and a love story, and sometimes something that gives them a sense of humanitarian wisdom. But not too much, because then they get too scared of reality to buy soap and boner pills. That’s what these meetings are for, to figure out how to lull the audience into being better consumers. But nobody in the meetings knows it. They’ve been weaned on this shit so they just know what to mimic.
Then of course, there is the talent. These are your celebrities. Celebrity is pretty much every fifteen year old girl’s dream. They have no plan to attain it, or any real sense of taking action in general, they just know it would be cool because attention feels good, and when you are a fifteen year old girl, your religion is pretty much solipsism, so there you have it. Actors are incredibly insecure, and they require constant affirmation. They can act like they’re confident, but criticize their performance and they go ape shit. But quietly, inside. Try it sometime. There must be a community theater near you. It’s fun, and you can get laid, too.
And lastly, there are the behind the scenes people. These are the ones that learned quickly that their chances of fame were statistically against them, but they figured if they can light a famous person, or mic them, or write what they utter, or paint the environment they act in, well, that’s real power. This is more power than the executive branch, because nowadays nobody takes government seriously. That is a different form of entertainment. That is designed to stir up rage and hostility so you’ll turn on channel 4 and go to sleep.
But the minions bought it, and I am getting paid. Night night.