1/Not sure why, but I kind of want to rant about art and culture today.
American movies and TV seem to be doing a worse job of telling the stories of everyday Americans these days than in past decades...
American movies and TV seem to be doing a worse job of telling the stories of everyday Americans these days than in past decades...
2/In previous decades, I felt like I was seeing a lot of movies and TV about "ordinary" Americans.
Of course, these movies and shows weren't really realistic, they were fantasies, but their focus was on average folks in realistic situations.
Of course, these movies and shows weren't really realistic, they were fantasies, but their focus was on average folks in realistic situations.
3/Just take the 2000s as a comparison. In terms of TV I'm thinking of The Office, Parks & Recreation, and a bunch of comedies like that. With movies it was usually indie films like Punch-Drunk Love (not sure why that one came to mind), or maybe rom-coms.
4/For some reason I don't feel like I see as much of this sort of "average person" story these days. Maybe it's because movies are shifting to big-budget Disney blockbusters, and TV is shifting to streaming? I don't know.
5/Or maybe my sample size is just too small? I can definitely think of some recent examples of "everyday American" stories on TV, like Atlanta or Crazy Ex Girlfriend. And a few movies, like Sorry to Bother You.
So maybe it's just me, and there's no actual trend there.
So maybe it's just me, and there's no actual trend there.
6/Or maybe digital effects have just become so cheap that it's finally possible to make as much fantasy and sci-fi as we've always wanted to make, and that's just crowding out the "down to Earth" stories.
7/But anyway, whatever it is, whether sampling error or technology shifts or market shifts or some nebulous cultural change, I feel like there are tons of everyday Americans whose stories just aren't getting told in movies or TV.
And I want to see their stories get told.
And I want to see their stories get told.
8/An example here is "Girls". I know people like that in NYC. They're just mostly not white. I want to see TV tell the stories of kids of immigrants from Bolivia and Tunisia and Korea living in Bushwick and holding down programming jobs while doing drugs and sleeping around.
9/I want to see more stories about the service class. "The 40 Year Old Virgin" was great because the depiction of Best Buy workers felt so down to Earth. Can I get a movie or TV show for clerks at the CVS? Shoe store salespeople?
10/Can I get some stories about shut-ins who sit around and shitpost about politics all day? Can I get a show about small-town meth users that doesn't have them turn into glamorous crime lords?
11/Anyway, I feel like this sort of down-to-Earth faux-mimetic storytelling is a key part of what binds our culture together. Stylized versions of the stories of the kinds of people we don't interact with on a day-to-day basis make us want to get out of our bubbles more. Maybe.
12/Anyway, this is part of a larger phenomenon of me feeling too disconnected from the realities of my culture, despite being a pretty social person who goes out a fair amount. Art isn't a true window on the world, but even a stylized window helps.
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