Storytelling is dangerous. It’s important. It’s filled with wonder and wisdom and responsibility. I feel bad that I often can no longer JUST appreciate a STORY. Tales have WEIGHT.
It’s taken some of the joy out of going back and rewatching the X-Files. I Loved it, I Love rewatching the overarching mythology episodes, I Love the chemistry between Mulder and Scully (though the way he treats her as almost a pet-sidekick through many episodes hasn’t aged well) – but it feels like the paranoia, “just asking questions” and conspiracy theory explorations have a lot to answer for in the modern world, and that the “trust no-one” (and bring your sidearm) mantra has begun to feel irresponsible.
We watched They Cloned Tyrone last night. Awesome movie. A lot of fun. I enjoy the Blaxploitation funk aesthetic a lot, especially the more modern, self-aware take of movies like Black Dynamite and They Cloned Tyrone and Dolemite Is My Name… mixing that up with science fiction this way is definitely right up my alley and its tense, hilarious, strange, and terrifying in all the right ways.
As the They Live + Black Dynamite + Lost movie I never knew I needed, it’s got all the right sci-fi notes too. It approaches ideas in a way that hopefully makes people think, creating sympathetic characters out of people that would otherwise never be able to take the guise of heroes, putting us in shoes (be they heels or highly stylish alligator pumps) that most of us could never wear.
But with race relations, as with conspiracy theories, I always worry where the line is between a good story and responsible information. I’ll try to remain obscure enough as to avoid spoilers, because I really recommend this movie to anyone who thinks they can maintain a sense of humour about it, but when you posit a “what-if” that alludes to or references real-Life scenarios (police brutality, the Tuskegee experiments, white supremacy) is there a responsibility for the storyteller to provide a way forward?
In my own songwriting, I don’t want to just point out a problem. I don’t want to simply complain. It’s part of my toolset for SOLVING problems or moving them forward. And in our Lives today, since disinformation and false histories are one of the BIGGEST problems facing our world, stories that provide semi-reasonable narratives without some clear sense of … fantasy? I don’t know… seem dangerous to me, ESPECIALLY if there’s no sense of hope. I guess specifically in the case of shows where race is a huge part of the narrative, leaving absolutely no hope for American / racial reconciliation troubles me.
In a story where the Big Bad is the very real threat of White Supremacy, I worry about narratives where there’s no room for any white character who’s not part of the threat.
And sure, that can be a symptom of my own fragility, my own “not ALL guys, right?”ness that I feel I try to leave unsaid – you act and let your actions speak louder than complaining that you’re getting lumped in with all guys being shitty, all whites being Trumpers, all straights being this, all long-hairs being that, all musicians being late… Just try NOT being shitty, Trumpy, this, that, or show people you can be places on TIME… but I do think there’s a difference between someone saying a sentence or three, vs saying those same sentences through the megaphone of social media, vs the far more powerful stage that is a well-written narrative with solid visual effects, great acting and a catchy, bad-ass sound track.
I Loved this movie. I Love movies like it. I hate that we watched an interview afterwards where a kind of stereotypically clueless-sounding social media influencer type asked the director if he thought that the conspiracy in his movie was REALLY HAPPENING and he DIDN’T straight up say “no, it’s a metaphor, it’s a warning, it’s a story you should take to heart but no, please don’t grab a gun and look for elevators in your closets…” Instead he replies “yes, aliens are real”. Which… wasn’t really on point.
Stories are powerful, and I worry that storytellers don’t GET to tell stories without a moral / morals in them any longer lest they be misconstrued, amplified horribly, and Q-Anon gets itself a new narrative*.
Remember children and other gun owners, it’s all fun and games till you shoot up a pizza parlor!
I wish I could bracket ALLLLL of the above thinking in my head and collapse it into something to be discretely (separately) thought about and examined. Because damn it, sometimes I just want to enjoy a damned good movie with a well-written narrative, solid visual effects, great acting and a catchy, bad-ass sound track without worrying someone is out there saying “well, what if….”
*okay, I know this isn’t a really new problem. Life would probably be a LOT better if one of the translators / peeps who shuffled all the weird stories together to form the Bible had said “oh, btw – this part’s a metaphor, this part’s a bed time story and this part I overheard some drunk raving about in a bar…”