Creating art can be an act of resistance, which is maybe one of the major reasons to do it.
Art can show us new ways of thinking, new ways of understanding an idea. Maybe we’re afraid of something and we read a story in which the object of our fear, a spider or a snake or Death itself, is transformed into something cool, precious, or friendly. Death of Discworld is a perfect example; he likes humans, he’s curious and compassionate, he wants Justice to mean something, and he does his job with as much kindness and empathy as an immortal non-human being can muster. Pratchett readers all over the world and from every possible background choose Death as their very favorite ever Discworld character. He’s cool enough to ride a motorcycle, and yet he’s quirky enough to build a tree swing for his granddaughter, Susan, which is attached to two opposing branches and goes through a massive hole where there should be … trunk … but it’s okay, the laws of physics aren’t really Death’s thing. You can’t help but adore a character like that.
A fictionalized character based on mythology. Not a real person, but someone made up, and then made … better by a master storyteller. But the affection we feel for Discworld Death is utterly, totally real.
Stories are where the power is. Tell me a good story and you’ve got me.
I think this is why I can’t get excited about a lot of things lately. The stories are either non-existent or crap. Don’t tell me to vote for you because the other guy is terrible – I know he’s terrible, and I’m not going to vote for him. But please at least give me a reason to be happy about voting for you. How are you going to make my family healthier and happier? What are you going to do to make it not hurt to go to the grocery store?
Tell me the story of a future where homeless people aren’t criminalized and women are autonomous people who are equal to men in rights and responsibilities, where children are fed no matter what even if they can’t pay their fucking school lunch fees.
Tell me a story where healthcare won’t bankrupt us and our parents don’t have to lose everything they own just to live in a place where they can safely circle a drain until they die.
Tell me a story about every child being wanted and death having dignity and what’s in between isn’t so painful that the majority of us turn to drugs and alcohol to escape.
Tell me a story about a world where women don’t have to think about their physical safety every time they walk out the door.
We need to start telling better stories. Life doesn’t have to be dystopian to be interesting. Apocalypses have been done to death, don’t you think?
What makes a story compelling? Usually, we meet a Protagonist, we’ll call them Proty for short, who encounters a problem that they have to solve in order to save the world/get the thing/marry the dream human/save somebody’s life/ etc. And they have to face terrible things and endure fierce hardship and sometimes great physical pain and personal sacrifice to do it. Those hardships drive Proty through some serious personal growth and character development, as hardships often do. But the landscape Proty moves through is often a futuristic hellscape, or a dictatorship where alien overlords exploit us like they’re some kind of giant Amazon warehouse …
Yeah, okay, I get it. Adversity is our greatest teacher. But … isn’t there a way to normalize making slow and steady progress toward a sustainable future while struggling through difficulties with dedication and passion?
I’m a science geek and a documentary nerd, and those two things often combine with phenomenal storytelling to create incredibly moving art. Watching the landing of the Perseverance rover on Mars, seeing the worry, the hearts in the throatness, of the whole room full of geeks at NASA unable to tear their eyes away from the video feed, and then erupting into exultant joy when Perseverance landed safely and was able to communicate – I cried harder than I have ever cried watching any movie. It was real, it was high stakes, it was cutting edge excitement. That was some good television. Fight me.
Hard work, discovery, cooperation, trusting your co-creators, being able to see a long long labor of love come into being and go out into the freaking Solar System to do its job … That’s a Hero’s Journey that can take humanity to new worlds.
I know, every story can’t be about high-level science and the drama that comes with that level of achievement. There have to be simple human stories, love stories, personal growth and achievement stories, too – but can’t we tell them with the same joyful intensity? Do half the cast of characters have to die horribly, or be tortured, or abducted by bad guys, or terrorized … Bad news sells advertising. Humans just love a good disaster, especially of the all too human kind. Schadenfreude is almost as powerful as gravity. But we know there’s a better way.
If we’re going to create the future we want, we have to start telling the stories that will allow us to imagine it, so it can become. Let’s tell the best, sweetest, most loving and joyful stories we can.