The newly returned CEO of Disney recently spoke about how he was going to get the company back on track and to begin again to “respect the audience”. Disney critics and fans alike (often the same people) seemed to take this as a validation that Disney was going to abandon their “woke agenda” or at least tone it down. A victory perhaps for those who want Disney to get back to making good old fashioned family content.
But what caught my attention was the use of the phrase “respect the audience”.
Put simply, they can’t respect the audience… you and me. And I don’t say that in reference to any culture war stuff or woke agendas or anything like that. Pretend for a moment none of that existed. Fundamentally, Disney nor any of its entertainment mega-corporate conglomerate rivals are capable of respecting us.
And it has to do with the nature of stories.
The Nature of Stories
I recently taught a film analysis class and one of the ideas I attempted to drill into the minds of my students is that movies are magic. The combination of sound, images and social cues are a potent mix. In the hands of skillful magicians, films can be used to bend reality and change hearts and minds.
But movies are only the most technologically sophisticated version of a story. Stories, first spoken or sung, later written, and now streamed are the most ancient and useful magic man has ever devised. Stories transmit meaning, bind us to or disconnect us from other people and allow us to experience at least the shadow of every possible human emotion.
No matter how entertaining or lighthearted, stories are nothing short of conversion. They are meant to possess you long after you encounter them. You feel this when you see a movie or read a book you like or play a video game or even watch a sport. You quote it, you mark your good feelings and nostalgia by it. You revisit the story to trigger the meaning and emotions you crave. You eagerly await the time your kids are old enough to experience the story as you do. You share it with friends who you feel do not yet understand all they need to until they encounter this story too.
In the past, cultures around the world gave their young people a predetermined set of stories. These stories told a boy who he was, what he was supposed to do and how to measure his worth. They connected him to his land or country, his future, his ancestors, and his gods. The stories were meant to possess him and direct his life. The stories were his identity. In fact, maybe “story” is just another word for identity.
Effective cultures reproduce this story possession each generation; like a friendly ghost inhabiting the family line from father to son forever. And if it sounds a little haunting, it’s because successful stories quite literally are a haunting: a lingering feeling in the mind and body you cannot easily shake.
And just because we are modern and drive cars instead of ride horses, turn on lights instead of light torches, it doesn’t mean that the magic of story possession is any lessened. Indeed, it has been perfected! Using a myriad of tricks and techniques, Disney’s (or any other entertainment company’s) stories have been fine-tuned to possess you. And this is why they cannot respect you, no matter how sincerely they may want to. You need not believe that modern entertainment is a satanic conspiracy to see with plain eyes that corporate stories are designed to possess us not to a unique, life-giving family identity, not to great deeds and purpose, not to cultural continuation, but to fandom. If families are how cultural identities survive, fandom is how corporate identities survive.
Too many people are so possessed by someone else’s intellectual property that they look and act like fleshy incarnations of their favorite corporate content. Their personality, their interests, their opinions, their words, their dress, their hobbies, their spending, their emotions, their calendars and their schedules are controlled by a corporate ghost.
What Stories Will My Children Know?
When I held my firstborn son in my arms I was filled with overwhelming feelings and thoughts and questions like any new dad would be. One of the chief questions in my mind was this: “what stories will he know?” Surely our media friends make it easy on us as parents: countless hours of age-appropriate content at our command, and at low monthly prices! Endless stories to deploy depending on the interests of our children, with content warnings to protect the innocent, and morality tales to guide them to make good choices.
But are these the primary stories I want my kids to know? Stories in which I had no hand in the making, no voice in the telling? Which teach them little to nothing about their family or their future? But stories that will nevertheless seal their identities; stories that will mark their upbringing, and later fill them with nostalgia; stories they will lean on to understand all aspects of the human experience both tragic and beautiful.
Knowing that our stories are one and the same with our identities should at least give us pause before we push “play”. Our children need our stories. They need stories they can participate in. They need a coming-of-age story that tells them something about themselves. The creation and realization of these kinds of stories of course requires significantly more effort than streaming entertainment. The very thought is overwhelming.
But true identity is not a cheap thing.
A common defense of indulging in corporate stories is that it’s “escapism”. A release and relaxation from the day’s stresses and cares. And surely, we all need amusement, breaks, fun, excitement, and humor in our lives. But why turn to the least satiating version of these things as the escape from the drudgeries of modern life? It would be like saying “I eat a bag of potato chips every day because I don’t want to starve to death.”
Sure, the potato chips will keep us alive. And sure, we can find a bit of ourselves in the journey of Luke Skywalker or Tony Stark. But trying to live off the potato chip version of stories will only leave us craving for more. Hungry and unsatisfied, finding no meaning in our own stories, we’ll desperately lick clean the plates of someone else’s stories… whatever we need to swallow to feel something real.
Having no stories, we are no people. Having no stories, it is impossible to know who we are.
Who Are You?
To have your own stories is to answer the following questions without referring to someone else’s intellectual property: Who are you? Who is your hero? Who is the most powerful being in the universe? What does the ideal future look like? Who is an example of a tragic figure? What does it mean to come of age? Who do my kids need to emulate? What am I most nostalgic for? What is my favorite thing to do? What do I turn to when I’m bored?
It means knowing and sharing tales of bravery, adventure, misfortune, humor, triumph, tragedy and just plain living from your family’s story and from your own life.
To have your own stories is to explore your imagination. Not necessarily with the purpose of selling your ideas or even creating good stories. But for the sheer joy and release of creation. There is no escapism like the one you build.
To have your own stories is to be excited to have your children be old enough not to just watch your favorite movie or play your favorite video game or go to your favorite stadium but to participate in your own family’s custom, tradition or adventure.
To have your own stories means to turn off the corporate stories for a while and to be set free from marketing “creations”, corporate “families” and brand “identities”. And instead to be defined by our loyalty and relationships to real people.
To have your own stories is to be patient with yourself. When a corporate story no longer entertains us we quickly switch to something else. In the making of your own stories you must have much, much more patience. Your first version is not your final product.
Lastly, to have your own stories is to feel meaning from and connection to your past and to a future you know you’ll never see.
When it comes to stories, I think often of my firstborn son, who is now nearly a teenager. It is not too much to say that when he is an old, old man, at the end of his life, the final make of his heart and of his mind; the sum of his time and the memory carried on by his loved ones will be the stories which possessed and powered him.
With that in mind, I’m going to get to work on my story.