Actor here, I'll one more thing to this brilliant article:
The first rule of writing is that all the rules are there to be broken - but first you must know and be able to obey those rules before you can break them.
Most modern film/TV skips that rather important step, and the result - trash.
For reference to some of those rules:
Causality in time travel (see The Licaniua Trilogy)
The three act structure
The laws of magic (see Branson Sanderson's essays on the subject)
But the BEST stories should feel like they are inevitable conclusions of the actions of the characters therein, have just finished book 3 of the Tyrant Philosophers and that's absolutely the case in those books.
I have seen the Sanderson essay; it was a hotly discussed topic among the heterodox film critics I follow on Youtube recently. If I remember correctly it was in response to the Rings of Power.
I’m definitely going to read the one on the rules of time travel as I have been serialising my recent novel that centres on time travel and I’m interested to know how much I butchered it… 😅
More than turning away from the three act structure, I think they have turned away fro Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. There’s very few satisfying arcs where a hero overcomes adversity and grows as an character. They are all either shells of an archetype or stereotypes that just serve to move the plot along, or they are (particularly in the case of ‘bossgirl characters) already perfect as they were but just needed to learn they were perfect all along.
I am hopeful that the entertainment industry has finally acknowledged this though and is slowly turning a corner.
Thank you again for your comment… and absolute pleasure…
Growing up among boys, I’ve always had a “different” taste in shows. My favorite superhero has always been Batman, and I know Star Wars in and out, as well as Marvel, in which my favorite character is Daredevil, the one from Netflix. I hated that Agatha show. I didn’t even finish it. Not because I don’t enjoy a rom-com, but because of the feeling of being stuffed with a political agenda in the most annoying possible way.
By the way, where do you find the time to watch any TV? 🤪
As always, I couldn’t agree more with you. Thank you! 😊
I don’t sleep much and catch up with movies/TV shows when the family go to sleep. My evenings are when I catch up on my hobbies. One night I’ll read. One night I’ll play video games. One night I’ll watch stuff. One night I’ll write for Substack. One night I’ll compose music. Etc.
I'm perpetually tired because of this double ended candle burning lifestyle but I enjoy all that stuff so much I don’t mind being a zombie most of the time…
Wow! I’m too concentrated into catching up with all the reading I didn’t do in my younger years. I ended up canceling all the streaming platforms because I was throwing money down the drain. If I want to watch something, I just rent it and it still cheaper than paying monthly for something I wasn’t using. Also, my son, who used to watch with me, one day decided he didn’t want to watch anymore TV.
Anyway, you can watch all the tv you want but please don’t stop writing. 🙏🏻☺️
Think about it this way: you're making them rich! We, the ones that have the least amount of money, are the ones making them rich. We think what we pay is not a lot of money, but it accumulates in their pockets, and they govern us and decide how our lives will be. So, stop giving them more than they need. You should only pay for what you use.
I believe there’s another issue at play here, too.. As an artist, I’ve noticed it for years, and it’s become particularly extreme since the advent of the internet. There are “perception standards,” or the old adage: “What the donkey doesn’t know, it won’t eat.” When something is genuinely different (I won’t say “original,” since that ship sailed about a hundred years ago), it seems almost invisible to the masses. This applies to both men and women.
Over the years, I’ve learned to distinguish between two types of observers: those who compared my work to what they already knew (“Oh, this reminds me of Dali” or “Giger”), and the rare few who actually looked closely, shared what they felt, and connected with it. Nowadays, this phenomenon has crept into every area of creativity. As soon as something becomes successful, the concept is milked to death. And some ideas have been dead for decades, prompting the constant addition of "new" components.
“Hey, what if we made 007 a Black woman?”
“Hey, let’s also make her a lesbian!”
“Oh, perfect. Then no one will notice we’re selling the same thing we’ve been peddling since 1970.”
Except some do notice. The issue is that there are far too few people with the courage to embrace the unknown and the different. Such films, books, and music do exist, but you have to seek them out. Meanwhile, the mainstream will latch onto any outlandish idea to ride a trend.
In other words, the market is oversaturated. If you’re looking for moments of genuine inspiration, your best bet these days is to explore independent productions.
From my perspective, most of the women who watch these "male-centric" shows are either tomboys or females who form a minority of women who are into "male-centric" hobbies like sports or action movies.
Therefore, from my point of view, the people who are trying to promote woke whitewashing of these naturally male-centric shows are PR ladies or college Phd female bureaucrats who are like 1% of the female population, while the 99% just live on their lives like any other normal woman. The "childless cat ladies" of fact, JD Vance was right at least in this specific topic.
I married a man who loves sci-fi and fairly recently was introduced to the Dr Who’s (the newest ones, the old ones are not for me!) It’s now completely unwatchable, absolutely terrible such a shame, that’s the BBC now tho. Agree 1000% about mindhunter too, excellent programme such a shame they didn’t commission another series!
I never could get into Doctor Who myself but I know fans of the show and they all say the same…That it’s become increasingly unwatchable of late. The ideological capture of the BBC by the mind virus is remarkable… They are nothing more than the propaganda wing of the radical left nowadays… I abhor them.
But I often hear, in response to your point about keeping it real, “yeah right… in a world where people fly and zap something big with their x-ray eyes!’
I remember watching ‘The Villainess’ a Korean film, I think… and never thinking once about the hero’s sex or ethnicity. She slammed anyone in her path, often groups of men out to kill her.
I just hadn’t seen her character before. She wasn’t the female Korean version of a male black/white etc character.
For me it comes down to the difference between ‘realistic’ and ‘believable’ when it comes to world building.
For instance, in Harry Potter say, we see all kinds of magical powers and fantastical elements that are in no way ‘realistic’ by any sense of the word. But they are logically consistent with each other and the pre-established lore of Rowling’s universe, so we believe they make sense within the world. Our ‘suspension of belief’ allows us to accept all the unrealistic stuff because they all fit the world and characters they inhabit, and are thus ‘believable’.
Many of the powers they use seemingly appear randomly whenever they are needed by the plot, even if they would have been useful earlier in the story. The truth is the writer didn’t think of them until then.
Sometimes this can seem like a ‘deus ex machina’ cop out, but most of the time we just accept them as expanding lore like Luke Skywalker being able to ‘force jump’ and Obi-wan appearing in the material world as a visualised ‘force ghost’. They weren’t seen in the first movie… Again, suspension of disbelief.
However, if Hermione randomly said she was dropping out of Hogwarts to pursue her lifelong dream of driving F1 cars professionally, people would be up in arms about it. It would be completely out of her character and that of the universe. Even though it would be a possibility for her to do that, unlikely as it is. It would not be internally consistent, and therefore ‘unbelievable’.
It’s not only that they are trying to appeal to a different audience, but not succeeding and alienating the audience they had. But they are trying to manipulate their audience. I’m disgusted.
I’m a woman who loved and grew up on Star Wars so I AM the mythical audience that this stuff might be targeted to and I hate it. And then when I do want something more female-typical and try to watch Bridgerton they are pushing the idea that polyamory is normal and that if you’re not a vapid woman only interested in your looks then you must be gay. No thanks! Just stick to the story people came to see.
Thank you for this. It is always great to hear from women who are fans of this kind of male targeted, nerdy, genre, entertainment too. I find they often, like you, also hate the ‘Message’ appearing in these projects.
I’d love to pick your brains one day as to why you enjoyed Star Wars as a woman, and any other women who were fans of the franchises I list in the piece before they became ideologically captured. I have theories about why they might appeal to the feminine mind that I’d like to test…
I was 5 years old when the original movie came out, and it’s one of the first movies I remember seeing in the theater. I was awed by it but a little young to really appreciate it, but by the time Empire Strikes Back came out I was the right age. I think for me it was the classic good vs evil story and the classic character archetypes that appealed to me. Leia really was an amazing character to a little girl - she was smart, funny, took no crap from anyone, matter-of-factly did what needed to be done, but still had a vulnerable side and romance. She was very different from how women were usually portrayed in movies at that time and that had a big effect on me. I can honestly say that character played a part in my character development and my image of the type of woman I wanted to be. And Luke was so earnest but clueless, and Han was so cool and smartass but still had a hidden vulnerable side… I just loved the characters. Even now I go back and watch the old movies and of course the special effects are hilariously dated but the story and characters still seem timeless. And I still think Leia was more truly progressive (in a positive way) than female characters are typically portrayed even today.
Loved Mindhunter - not so much The Silo but wanted to thank you for expressing your views clearly and authentically and with factual balance. More please :-)
I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it, at this rate probably until the end of time. Films have been political for decades. The difference lately is in how they convey that message. It’s not particularly the message itself I can’t stand, it’s the lack of creativity in the way it’s written in. Hollywood writers have been pigeonholed into hitting a “quota” of sorts, forced by the studios and producers to include particular messages no matter whether it fits into the story or not (most of the time it’s the latter). And with the stifling of that creativity, comes the rotten eggshells with which they’re now forced to work. As a writer and film lover, it breaks my heart.
The amount of TV I have watched is so close to zero in the last few years. I have never been one to binge-watch tv shows and there are many I've been told I need to watch, but I never feel the urge to start subscribing to countless streaming services. I chose to spend my time reading books and comics. The last few shows I watched were superhero related. Daredevil and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. . It is a miracle that the latter actually was granted 7 seasons and a proper finale at that. I still have little faith in Disney's upcoming Daredevil revival.
TV's gone off the rails as you pointed out, I only wish some measure of sanity could be found again, women should have their own shows and genres or sub-genres, just as men should. There are Times when I think we need tried and true authors of one group to preside over shows for that group/genre, and keep everything hyper focused on the core audience but dunno if that's a silly notion. Modern television is pretty toxic these days.
I disagree about every writer having ideology though, I tend to think of the likes of Dickens and think that he didn't have any real ideology, he wrote because he needed to to make a living and out of love of literature, same goes for Geoffroy de Troyes.
Thank you for your (as always) shrewd observations.
I resonate with your assessment of Dickens creative motivations, too. I too just wish to create things that I love and feel like it is just a logical next step to try and turn it into a vocation. I don't particularly revel in the idea of 'selling' my work, but I want to eat, pay my bills, etc and to also have time to continue writing/composing so... making money out of my work would kill both birds with one stone it seems.
My urge to create is not ideologically driven per se; and my desire to monetise it is more driven by expedience than status seeking ambition.
I never had any interest in Dickens until now, mon ami. In that domain, you have succeeded where many a professor and indeed my own mother failed...
Hahaha bienvenue, I must admit my favourite Dickens’ novel is Christmas Carol where he really does a great job showing some of the problems with a thoroughly capitalistic mindset without morality.
I got rid of Apple TV, although Separation and The Morning Show were excellent, and now I have YouTube Premium (not YouTube TV, which is expensive). They have history, the have musical documentaries and interviews, they have almost everything ever made. Fictional TV is mostly garbage now.
Lots of truth here. *Barbie* and *Wicked* were labeled as "woke" (I'm not even sure where people draw the line in calling a story "woke") but definitely didn't go broke, they were wildly successful. But they were faithful to their existing target audience and existing source material.
On the other hand, the sci-fi and fantasy shows that recently failed were viewed as trying to lecture or change the target audience. Also, both men and women found them to be just plain boring. Inserting ideology into a previously neutral franchise turns off audiences. Not to be confused with just diverse casting, which has been around for decades with many beloved movies and shows.
If the story about a decades in planning, "long march through the institutions" to foist a message on a captive audience is correct, it's a kind of a hilarious mission failure because the internet is a thing and audiences have other options! Such as the foreign, classic, and independent media mentioned here.
Actor here, I'll one more thing to this brilliant article:
The first rule of writing is that all the rules are there to be broken - but first you must know and be able to obey those rules before you can break them.
Most modern film/TV skips that rather important step, and the result - trash.
For reference to some of those rules:
Causality in time travel (see The Licaniua Trilogy)
The three act structure
The laws of magic (see Branson Sanderson's essays on the subject)
But the BEST stories should feel like they are inevitable conclusions of the actions of the characters therein, have just finished book 3 of the Tyrant Philosophers and that's absolutely the case in those books.
Thank you for this and you kind words.
I have seen the Sanderson essay; it was a hotly discussed topic among the heterodox film critics I follow on Youtube recently. If I remember correctly it was in response to the Rings of Power.
I’m definitely going to read the one on the rules of time travel as I have been serialising my recent novel that centres on time travel and I’m interested to know how much I butchered it… 😅
More than turning away from the three act structure, I think they have turned away fro Campbell’s Hero’s Journey. There’s very few satisfying arcs where a hero overcomes adversity and grows as an character. They are all either shells of an archetype or stereotypes that just serve to move the plot along, or they are (particularly in the case of ‘bossgirl characters) already perfect as they were but just needed to learn they were perfect all along.
I am hopeful that the entertainment industry has finally acknowledged this though and is slowly turning a corner.
Thank you again for your comment… and absolute pleasure…
Thank you too!
I needed to write more than a mere comment, so I quickly bashed out a post on the "rule" of causality in writing 😅
Growing up among boys, I’ve always had a “different” taste in shows. My favorite superhero has always been Batman, and I know Star Wars in and out, as well as Marvel, in which my favorite character is Daredevil, the one from Netflix. I hated that Agatha show. I didn’t even finish it. Not because I don’t enjoy a rom-com, but because of the feeling of being stuffed with a political agenda in the most annoying possible way.
By the way, where do you find the time to watch any TV? 🤪
As always, I couldn’t agree more with you. Thank you! 😊
I don’t sleep much and catch up with movies/TV shows when the family go to sleep. My evenings are when I catch up on my hobbies. One night I’ll read. One night I’ll play video games. One night I’ll watch stuff. One night I’ll write for Substack. One night I’ll compose music. Etc.
I'm perpetually tired because of this double ended candle burning lifestyle but I enjoy all that stuff so much I don’t mind being a zombie most of the time…
Wow! I’m too concentrated into catching up with all the reading I didn’t do in my younger years. I ended up canceling all the streaming platforms because I was throwing money down the drain. If I want to watch something, I just rent it and it still cheaper than paying monthly for something I wasn’t using. Also, my son, who used to watch with me, one day decided he didn’t want to watch anymore TV.
Anyway, you can watch all the tv you want but please don’t stop writing. 🙏🏻☺️
You’re too kind. I too should cut the cord with the streaming services. I’ve known that for a while but I still haven’t yet.
As far as writing goes… Thank you and I pinky promise that I’ll never stop…
Think about it this way: you're making them rich! We, the ones that have the least amount of money, are the ones making them rich. We think what we pay is not a lot of money, but it accumulates in their pockets, and they govern us and decide how our lives will be. So, stop giving them more than they need. You should only pay for what you use.
I believe there’s another issue at play here, too.. As an artist, I’ve noticed it for years, and it’s become particularly extreme since the advent of the internet. There are “perception standards,” or the old adage: “What the donkey doesn’t know, it won’t eat.” When something is genuinely different (I won’t say “original,” since that ship sailed about a hundred years ago), it seems almost invisible to the masses. This applies to both men and women.
Over the years, I’ve learned to distinguish between two types of observers: those who compared my work to what they already knew (“Oh, this reminds me of Dali” or “Giger”), and the rare few who actually looked closely, shared what they felt, and connected with it. Nowadays, this phenomenon has crept into every area of creativity. As soon as something becomes successful, the concept is milked to death. And some ideas have been dead for decades, prompting the constant addition of "new" components.
“Hey, what if we made 007 a Black woman?”
“Hey, let’s also make her a lesbian!”
“Oh, perfect. Then no one will notice we’re selling the same thing we’ve been peddling since 1970.”
Except some do notice. The issue is that there are far too few people with the courage to embrace the unknown and the different. Such films, books, and music do exist, but you have to seek them out. Meanwhile, the mainstream will latch onto any outlandish idea to ride a trend.
In other words, the market is oversaturated. If you’re looking for moments of genuine inspiration, your best bet these days is to explore independent productions.
Good point, well made… Thank you
From my perspective, most of the women who watch these "male-centric" shows are either tomboys or females who form a minority of women who are into "male-centric" hobbies like sports or action movies.
Therefore, from my point of view, the people who are trying to promote woke whitewashing of these naturally male-centric shows are PR ladies or college Phd female bureaucrats who are like 1% of the female population, while the 99% just live on their lives like any other normal woman. The "childless cat ladies" of fact, JD Vance was right at least in this specific topic.
I married a man who loves sci-fi and fairly recently was introduced to the Dr Who’s (the newest ones, the old ones are not for me!) It’s now completely unwatchable, absolutely terrible such a shame, that’s the BBC now tho. Agree 1000% about mindhunter too, excellent programme such a shame they didn’t commission another series!
I never could get into Doctor Who myself but I know fans of the show and they all say the same…That it’s become increasingly unwatchable of late. The ideological capture of the BBC by the mind virus is remarkable… They are nothing more than the propaganda wing of the radical left nowadays… I abhor them.
Thanks for the comment…
I’m with you.
But I often hear, in response to your point about keeping it real, “yeah right… in a world where people fly and zap something big with their x-ray eyes!’
What say you to this?
Thanks for a solid article.
Not at all…. Thanks for taking the time.
I remember watching ‘The Villainess’ a Korean film, I think… and never thinking once about the hero’s sex or ethnicity. She slammed anyone in her path, often groups of men out to kill her.
I just hadn’t seen her character before. She wasn’t the female Korean version of a male black/white etc character.
Madame Web or She Hulk, however….
Good to share ideas. Thank you.
Thanks for the comment and a great question.
For me it comes down to the difference between ‘realistic’ and ‘believable’ when it comes to world building.
For instance, in Harry Potter say, we see all kinds of magical powers and fantastical elements that are in no way ‘realistic’ by any sense of the word. But they are logically consistent with each other and the pre-established lore of Rowling’s universe, so we believe they make sense within the world. Our ‘suspension of belief’ allows us to accept all the unrealistic stuff because they all fit the world and characters they inhabit, and are thus ‘believable’.
Many of the powers they use seemingly appear randomly whenever they are needed by the plot, even if they would have been useful earlier in the story. The truth is the writer didn’t think of them until then.
Sometimes this can seem like a ‘deus ex machina’ cop out, but most of the time we just accept them as expanding lore like Luke Skywalker being able to ‘force jump’ and Obi-wan appearing in the material world as a visualised ‘force ghost’. They weren’t seen in the first movie… Again, suspension of disbelief.
However, if Hermione randomly said she was dropping out of Hogwarts to pursue her lifelong dream of driving F1 cars professionally, people would be up in arms about it. It would be completely out of her character and that of the universe. Even though it would be a possibility for her to do that, unlikely as it is. It would not be internally consistent, and therefore ‘unbelievable’.
That’s how I see it… Sorry for the long answer.
It’s not only that they are trying to appeal to a different audience, but not succeeding and alienating the audience they had. But they are trying to manipulate their audience. I’m disgusted.
I’m a woman who loved and grew up on Star Wars so I AM the mythical audience that this stuff might be targeted to and I hate it. And then when I do want something more female-typical and try to watch Bridgerton they are pushing the idea that polyamory is normal and that if you’re not a vapid woman only interested in your looks then you must be gay. No thanks! Just stick to the story people came to see.
Thank you for this. It is always great to hear from women who are fans of this kind of male targeted, nerdy, genre, entertainment too. I find they often, like you, also hate the ‘Message’ appearing in these projects.
I’d love to pick your brains one day as to why you enjoyed Star Wars as a woman, and any other women who were fans of the franchises I list in the piece before they became ideologically captured. I have theories about why they might appeal to the feminine mind that I’d like to test…
Thank you for the comment
I was 5 years old when the original movie came out, and it’s one of the first movies I remember seeing in the theater. I was awed by it but a little young to really appreciate it, but by the time Empire Strikes Back came out I was the right age. I think for me it was the classic good vs evil story and the classic character archetypes that appealed to me. Leia really was an amazing character to a little girl - she was smart, funny, took no crap from anyone, matter-of-factly did what needed to be done, but still had a vulnerable side and romance. She was very different from how women were usually portrayed in movies at that time and that had a big effect on me. I can honestly say that character played a part in my character development and my image of the type of woman I wanted to be. And Luke was so earnest but clueless, and Han was so cool and smartass but still had a hidden vulnerable side… I just loved the characters. Even now I go back and watch the old movies and of course the special effects are hilariously dated but the story and characters still seem timeless. And I still think Leia was more truly progressive (in a positive way) than female characters are typically portrayed even today.
A wonderful comment… Thank you for this.
Loved Mindhunter - not so much The Silo but wanted to thank you for expressing your views clearly and authentically and with factual balance. More please :-)
Thank you. You are too kind. There is more on the way and plenty more already up on my page.
I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it, at this rate probably until the end of time. Films have been political for decades. The difference lately is in how they convey that message. It’s not particularly the message itself I can’t stand, it’s the lack of creativity in the way it’s written in. Hollywood writers have been pigeonholed into hitting a “quota” of sorts, forced by the studios and producers to include particular messages no matter whether it fits into the story or not (most of the time it’s the latter). And with the stifling of that creativity, comes the rotten eggshells with which they’re now forced to work. As a writer and film lover, it breaks my heart.
The amount of TV I have watched is so close to zero in the last few years. I have never been one to binge-watch tv shows and there are many I've been told I need to watch, but I never feel the urge to start subscribing to countless streaming services. I chose to spend my time reading books and comics. The last few shows I watched were superhero related. Daredevil and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. . It is a miracle that the latter actually was granted 7 seasons and a proper finale at that. I still have little faith in Disney's upcoming Daredevil revival.
TV's gone off the rails as you pointed out, I only wish some measure of sanity could be found again, women should have their own shows and genres or sub-genres, just as men should. There are Times when I think we need tried and true authors of one group to preside over shows for that group/genre, and keep everything hyper focused on the core audience but dunno if that's a silly notion. Modern television is pretty toxic these days.
I disagree about every writer having ideology though, I tend to think of the likes of Dickens and think that he didn't have any real ideology, he wrote because he needed to to make a living and out of love of literature, same goes for Geoffroy de Troyes.
Thank you for your (as always) shrewd observations.
I resonate with your assessment of Dickens creative motivations, too. I too just wish to create things that I love and feel like it is just a logical next step to try and turn it into a vocation. I don't particularly revel in the idea of 'selling' my work, but I want to eat, pay my bills, etc and to also have time to continue writing/composing so... making money out of my work would kill both birds with one stone it seems.
My urge to create is not ideologically driven per se; and my desire to monetise it is more driven by expedience than status seeking ambition.
I never had any interest in Dickens until now, mon ami. In that domain, you have succeeded where many a professor and indeed my own mother failed...
Hahaha bienvenue, I must admit my favourite Dickens’ novel is Christmas Carol where he really does a great job showing some of the problems with a thoroughly capitalistic mindset without morality.
Well said.
I got rid of Apple TV, although Separation and The Morning Show were excellent, and now I have YouTube Premium (not YouTube TV, which is expensive). They have history, the have musical documentaries and interviews, they have almost everything ever made. Fictional TV is mostly garbage now.
Lots of truth here. *Barbie* and *Wicked* were labeled as "woke" (I'm not even sure where people draw the line in calling a story "woke") but definitely didn't go broke, they were wildly successful. But they were faithful to their existing target audience and existing source material.
On the other hand, the sci-fi and fantasy shows that recently failed were viewed as trying to lecture or change the target audience. Also, both men and women found them to be just plain boring. Inserting ideology into a previously neutral franchise turns off audiences. Not to be confused with just diverse casting, which has been around for decades with many beloved movies and shows.
If the story about a decades in planning, "long march through the institutions" to foist a message on a captive audience is correct, it's a kind of a hilarious mission failure because the internet is a thing and audiences have other options! Such as the foreign, classic, and independent media mentioned here.
Tv is only good for falling asleep b
Kathleen Kennedy is an abomination. And quite dim.
She should be deported.