A writer's grief over the stories we tell, and don't tell
The things I write tend to strike an optimistic tone. But in the spirit of modeling what I always advise my Mighty Forces clients — which is to be real, and to stop putting pressure on themselves to always be upbeat or have this patina of assuredness in everything they share — I’m being real with you, here, today. It’s uncomfortable. But here we go.
I am a writer who has built a career adjacent to my writing, rather than centered around it — and lately, my grief around this choice has been intense. And as I soak up so many conversations around storytelling this week at SXSW (if you aren’t familiar, South by Southwest is an annual creative festival and conference in Austin, TX, spanning interactive media and technology, filmmaking, and music), I find myself feeling cynical, which is not a place I want to be.
My “writing table” on the patio of my Airbnb in Austin, where I’m attending SXSW
There is so much wrong with how our media and entertainment industries tell stories. And there are so many people like me, who want to tell different kinds of stories, but haven’t yet won the lottery of industry access, despite the scripts and pitches and manuscripts and proposals we’ve submitted. Which, sure, may be a reflection of talent, or pitching ability, but is also certainly a reflection of our cynical corporate systems and who they do and do not consider a safe bet (and, also, of pure luck).
I used to work at PBS, and we would talk about how, unlike corporate media, we saw the people for whom we were creating media as citizens, not consumers. The public media system was in need of significant overhaul back then, and it still is today, if it is going to truly be a thriving media system that represents the American public — but at least this ethos is pointed in the right direction.
What would it take to really change the ethos of media and entertainment, of storytelling, in this country?
the 47-year-old breakthrough talent?
My dream is to write for TV. I am also writing a book that I am very passionate about, but if I could choose my lottery prize, it would be to make one of the original series I’ve developed, and/or be part of a writers’ room for a show I believe in.
I’m 47 years old. And I’m married, and I’m a mom.
A couple of years ago I submitted an original TV script of mine to Sundance’s Episodic Lab, and it advanced to the final round. That was thrilling! But since then I’ve submitted scripts to a number of other outlets, to no avail — including a challenge designed for mothers over the age of 40. That one particularly stung.
To state the obvious, not a lot of screenwriters break into “the biz” at my age. Is it possible? Sure. Julia Child started the career we all know her for in her 50s. But is it likely? It is not. I don’t live in LA, I’m married, I’m a mother, and my family’s way of life depends on me earning a certain income. I’ve also spent 20 years developing a professional network outside of Hollywood, so I don’t have time-tested relationships with people who could open doors for me there. So moving to LA to, what, become an assistant and work my way up?, is not a compelling option, nor is allocating time away from my income-generating work to a sufficient extent that I have the time I need to spend writing, pitching, and networking in a new industry.
Me, in a more hopeful moment at SXSW, because, sunshine
The other day a younger colleague mentioned new research showing that most Americans are hungry for more authentic depictions of motherhood and caregiving in general on-screen. I told her that I’d actually written the pilot of an original TV series that depicts moms living in Brooklyn after the 2016 election; her eyes lit up, and she was so enthusiastic. As we chatted about how me getting an opportunity to write for TV at this point would be like winning the lottery, she said, “You should pitch THAT! A 47-year-old mom who moves her family to Hollywood to pursue her dream….”
And I like that. I do! But I’m not willing to ask my family to overhaul their lives on the off chance I win PowerBall.
Of course, I can pursue my dream from NY’s Hudson Valley, where I live, but it’s hard enough to break in when you live in the town where most decisions get made. And, as I’ve said, there is only so much time and energy I can spend refining scripts and applying to contests that I lose, while also running a business and raising a child. My husband and I have built a life in the HV, an area we adore, and our daughter is thriving at school. My parents, who are in their mid-70s, live on the East Coast, and I’m an only child. In a Hollywood script, picking up and moving to LA might sound dreamy (the music would swell! I’d gaze out the airplane window at the Hollywood sign as our plane descended!), but in an indie script, dream endings are less likely.
the gospel of diversifying the stories we tell isn’t wrong; it also isn’t new
Beyond by identity as a writer, I am a long-time advocate for more diverse and authentic storytelling (see: working in public media in the early aughts, and founding and running a business for six years that was focused on amplifying women’s stories).
As I’ve said, I am not a cynical person. But I am struggling to remain uncynical amid so many conversations here at SXSW about the need to change how we tell stories — about women, about mothers, about teens, about the end of life, about fathers, about all caregivers. For one thing, it starts to feel pointless, because how long have we been having these same conversations? It also starts to feel like an absurd game: Isolate any aspect of your identity and you could likely make a convincing case that we need to change the way we tell stories about it.
What does this reveal about our culture, on a deeper level?
Why do we listen to all the experts on Hollywood storytelling panels when the stories they are filling our culture with fall so short? Obviously, there are exceptions, but they are exceptions, with no sign of becoming the rule.
Looking for the hopeful spin
As I write this, I’m reaching for the hopeful spin: It’s good that so many people see the need to change the narratives that course through our lives. And it’s good that so many people are taking action in service of this vision for change.
But in this moment, I can’t authentically shift my gaze to solutions. Every glimpse I get of how our culture’s gatekeepers choose the stories that do or do not get told makes me so incredibly depressed. At a panel about how we depict the end of life on TV and in film — panelists included an ER doc-turned-show runner, Zoanne Clack; screenwriter/playwright/director/producer Scott Z. Burns; and a palliative care nurse who is also a social media influencer, Julie McFadden — the familiar theme emerged of how Hollywood sees storytelling as a matter of drama and heightening, rather than truth-telling; as one of Lily Tomlin’s Laugh In characters, Bobbi-Jeannine, liked to say, “It’s not called Show Art. It’s Show Business.”
A great example of Hollywood cynicism: Burns shared that when he was about to pitch the movie Contagion to Warner Brothers, Steven Soderbergh told him, “Whatever you say, at the end, you should pause, and say, ‘But really, it’s a story of hope.’”
Improv lessons
Meanwhile, as someone with a background in improv comedy, my mind goes to OUR gospel: Truth in Comedy. I learned, as an improv student, that nothing is more compelling than the truth — you just need to trust it. Don’t posture for laughs; instead, commit to making true choices and trust that in so doing you are creating compelling theater, and maybe some deep laughs of recognition.
But of course, the corporate mechanisms that drive our media don’t operate in trust, or in truth. They blow stuff up and amp up the sex, they serve up click bait and sequels, and the lonely American public, steeped in our human experience, wonders why we don’t feel more connected to each other.
The risk of telling the truth
Back to the end-of-life panel: On social media, content that Julie McFadden, the nurse/influencer, shared, depicting real-life end-of-life moments, went viral; but in a Hollywood meeting, the question would be, “Will it sell?” — and if it hadn’t already sold a thousand times before, then 9 times out of 10, the answer would be, “Too risky.”
As Oscar winner Cord Jefferson, writer and director of the excellent movie “American Fiction,” said last night when accepting the Oscar for best adapted screenplay,
“I understand that this is a risk-averse industry, I get it...But $200 million movies are also a risk. And it doesn’t always work out, but you take the risk anyway. Instead of making one $200 million movie, try making 20 $10 million movies. Or 50 $4 million movies.”
Jefferson went on to say, “I want other people to be able to experience this joy,” and I felt so appreciative. I want that joy, too. (Not necessarily the joy of making a movie, but of making one of the original TV series I’ve developed.)
Media industry to the rest of us: “You can’t handle the truth”
You could say — and I have said, many times — “Oh, well, at least we can choose our own stories to tell online.” And it’s true. We can be real with each other there (er, here). Of course, fear and bias and social conditioning and so many other things get in the way, but at least the possibility is there, for those who seize it.
Still, I’m tired of living in a world where people who don’t share my values — who see audiences as consumers rather than fellow human beings — get to spend millions and even billions of dollars creating media that is cynical instead of hopeful, and that amplifies inauthentic tropes and outdated narratives. And then you have content creators telling true stories struggling to break through.
I wish my point were more sophisticated than, “It’s not fair,” or, “It’s not right,” or that I had some elaborate strategy mapped out for transforming Hollywood and publishing, all of it. I don’t.
I long for a world where we don’t have to fight against the stories that cynical corporate interests aggressively advertise to us. I long for a world where we can easily access diverse, rich, authentic stories from fellow humans of all identities and backgrounds. I long for a break from the tyranny of the hero’s journey as a formula, and from content that doesn’t trust me to handle complexity.
AMPLIFYING POWERFUL INDIE STORYTELLING
A glimmer of hope: Yesterday, at an event here at Southby hosted by a collective of advocates for inclusive technology called The Tech We Want, I met Emily Best (founder of the ever-hopeful fundraising platform for creators, Seed&Spark) and Sara Watson, who run a collective storytelling project called A People’s History of Tech. They’re crowdsourcing people’s personal memories and experiences with technology as a way of shifting narrative power away from corporate interests. I love this. The challenge of course is how people will find their way to this body of work; which is where those hundreds of millions of dollars of studio money would come in handy as advertising budgets for indie creators.
There are so many examples of indie films at SXSW alone that would benefit from this boost. One that I’m particularly interested in is called We Can Be Heroes from filmmakers Carina Mia Wong and Alex Simmons, about a live-action role-playing (LARPing) community for neurodivergent, queer, self-described nerdy kids in New York’s Hudson Valley, where I live; it’s called The Wayfinder Experience. I was at a wonderful panel the other day about teens, screens, and wellbeing, and what Wayfinder is doing to foster belonging, connection, and community for kids who have traditionally struggled to find those things is something so many people would benefit from knowing about. But how many people will hear about it?
From the We Can Be Heroes Instagram account (@wecanbeheroesdoc)
These laments aren’t new, not at all. Which is why it feels uncool and even lame to name them; calling out this disparity between meaning and market is hardly a “hot take.” And yet, right now, what feels true for me is owning up to the pain that this broken system causes.
Yes: We need to change the way we tell women’s stories, caregivers’ stories, the story of tech, all of it. Maybe the key to making this shift is to stop focusing on the aspects of our identity that separate us,. Maybe advocating for more authentic stories by category or demographic divides us even further, instead of uniting us as proponents of truth-telling. As for how to get these diverse, uncynical, unformulaic stories that are not into more people’s orbits, I just don’t know.
What do you think?