It’s Your Thing

As somebody who appreciates and understands arts and entertainment the right way, it can be frustrating being surrounded by an internet full of people who are all doing it wrong. But occasionally it gives me the opportunity for even more profound insight, like the following:

The more you work to have a unique voice, the quicker and more likely people will be to dismiss it.

Earlier today I was reading a thread of people goofing on the entertainment news that Mike Flanagan is developing a version of The Mist. Specifically, that he’s promising it won’t be a remake of the Frank Darabont movie, but will be “going in a different direction.”

As almost always happens in online “conversations,” the thread started out playfully poking fun at the idea, and then the responses quickly started coming, increasingly missing the point, and then becoming increasingly dismissive and outright hostile.

I’d never thought that much about how the cycle of responses to an artist or entertainer always has the same pattern:

“This work is a bold and refreshing new take from an emerging artist with a unique voice”

This thing has a lot of obvious similarities to the last thing they did

Here’s a parody playfully poking fun at this artist’s style

Geez, not this guy again

That guy is a total hack

See also: Wes Anderson, and the weirdly personal attacks on Emerald Fennell’s movies. (Mysteriously, David Lynch appears to have been mostly immune, often parodied but pretty much universally beloved without ever compromising his voice).

The more of yourself you put into your work, the more it invites derision. Some of that is patently obvious; the more specific and unique your vision is, the less likely it is to be universally appealing. That’s not just inevitable, but good, actually.

I think the more interesting aspect of this is the idea, which I hadn’t really considered before, that the more of a unique voice you bring to your work, the quicker a receptive audience of fans will be to conclude that they’ve got you all figured out.

I do it all the time, pointing out commonalities in an artist’s work because it helps make sense of their viewpoint and how to interpret what they’re trying to get across. Or sometimes I just plain like it. When I say “oh here comes Mike Flanagan again, with the glowing eyes and jump scares and Kate Siegel and/or Rahul Kohli,” it’s not at all to be dismissive, but because I really do love seeing an artist being successful making projects that feel personal. Like there’s a reason he wanted to do it, more than “they’re paying me quite a lot of money.”

It helps explain how I’ve always hated the idea of auteur theory, but still often refer to something as “a Coen Brothers movie” or “a Sam Raimi movie,” etc. “Auteur” suggests that everything in a work is the direct result of a single person, which is almost never the case. More often, it’s that an artist has a strong enough sense of their own vision that it comes through no matter who they’re collaborating with. (And that they choose the right people to collaborate with, and understand exactly how to use their work to its fullest potential).

It also helps me recognize when I’ve got blind spots. Recently I was reminded of a big one when I read about another artist I like taking on a reboot: Ryan Coogler leading an X-Files reboot and the news of casting Danielle Deadwyler as a lead. My gut response was “Hell yeah, bring it on. We need more black voices in popular science fiction, and as much as I love the original series, it was extremely white.”

Which is still my take, but it’s awfully reductive. It’s kind of like when people kept expecting Jordan Peele to keep making Get Out over and over again. I went into Us and Nope trying to stay on the lookout for any metaphors to make sure I didn’t miss or misinterpret them. Instead, I wish I’d gone in remembering, “You know you can totally have black characters in a story that has nothing to do with their being black, right?”

And even worse than that, the take “Hooray! The X-Files for black audiences!” is astoundingly stupid because it ignores the fact that that exact thing already exists, and it’s called The X-Files. Just because everybody on screen was white doesn’t mean everybody in the audience was.

But even after years of watching Key and Peele, enjoying the sci-fi freak show concept albums of Janelle Monáe, and hearing Thundercat make songs about Dragonball Z and then appearing on a Star Wars show, I still have this dumb, lizard-brain idea that black nerds aren’t a thing.

Some of that is just because as a lifelong nerd, I generally consider it a compliment not to lump other people into the same demographic as me. But I also feel like along with the two wolves, there’s some White Male Ad Exec From 1992 inside me, clinging to outdated or downright false ideas of What People Like. Constantly lying in wait, liable to spring intrusive thoughts like “is this even made for you?” and “how does this play to the ‘urban’ demographic?” at random moments.

Anyway, having better representation in nerd spaces will help get rid of that mindset, and hopefully have the ripple effect of making fewer assumptions about each other. Part of what makes Coogler such a great filmmaker is that he’s able to make stuff that’s conscious and relevant without ever sacrificing the kick-assedness of it. I’m looking forward to seeing the result, even (or especially?) if it doesn’t conform to a single one of the things I think I know to expect from his work.

Maybe it’s ultimately a reminder not to conflate business with art, to understand the distinction between a brand and a voice. A brand will wear off as the novelty dies out, and its relevance only lasts as long as people can market it and profit from it. The voice is the part that actually connects with people and resonates with them. The stronger the voice, the fewer people it will connect with, but that connection will be a lot more powerful and meaningful.