Hello Jenn Zuko. I read your last three posts and I really like what you say (and how you say it). I could have commented on them all, but the subject is similar, so I can comment on all of them here.
Martha Nichols sent me; well, she recommended you, and I followed. Martha is probably looking at your writing expertise, while I am looking at your social commentary. (Actually you have stimulated me with tons of things to say, but I'll try to limit it with some focus.) I have become interested in theater only very-very late in life. In part, I lived where there wasn't any. And I have shunned movies and videos for many decades. But then this idea (below) came to me:
So often we define who-we-are by what we have done, our "Linked-In" profile. Our trail meandering through the past. Then I thought, but who we are is our range of self-expression in the present, (right now). Our past is a reservoir of self-expression to draw upon, but how are we using it right now?
That's when I thought an accomplished actor is a master of self-expression. Am I right or wrong? Maybe an actor is just confused, with so many roles rumbling through the corridors of the mind; What is authentic? So my intuition depends on the ability to choose. To choose the self-expression that is appropriate for my objectives in this moment. And that of course means that I can formulate an objective. (I CAN).
From that I would think you are a giant of a woman, with a giant range of self-expression.
The history of entertainment is that everyone was both a consumer and a performer. Grandpa had a fiddle, sonny a banjo, or back a little further they called it "chamber music". Now the corporate world has taken over entertainment. Someone will get a part in "the movies", but 100's of hopefuls will get your mythology of the "Next Time". Something is wrong with this picture.
Entertainers are part of our culture. Therefore cultured families will prod their children to develop these extroverted skills. Your mother said it, "hard work", (there is also talent, but that is a big discussion that I'll save for later). Aren't all top performers in the arts or in sports pushed by their parents? But the corporate is the valve (constriction point), where these performers are released into a meaningful job.
So it is out of balance. A million parents develop their children's skills, experience and talent, but only hundreds of them have a prospect to hit it big. That leads to a lot of miserable lives and a lot of abusive compromises. So in a sane world, a school for the performing arts would have a huge section about how to produce a new theatrical venue, how to wrest entertainment away from the limitations of Hollywood.
That presupposes that Americans want to see more original talent. I sincerely doubt it. Americans are content to spend their whole life on Youtube, and they will never run out. So is that what is left for you? You can make a Youtube clip, and hope that it is funny. It is the same as Hollywood isn't it? Five people get a million views and 5 million people made 70 cents on their last clip.
And Substack? I wouldn't read anything that I couldn't comment on.
Hello Jenn Zuko. Thanks for following me. I did post a piece from the theater, the last post on the stack. It is easy to read but maybe difficult to digest or accept, or know what to do with it. The theater and drama have a way to transmit a message that direct writing might not capture. I would be interested in your feedback.
Another great chapter, Jenn. I really like the way you connect typecasting in theater productions - even when those in charge insist they aren’t doing that (what a joke!) - to other forms of gaslighting. I can think of so many others in the elite literary world - Percival Everett’s “Erasure” (and the movie “American Fiction” based on it) makes clear how racial stereotypes drive expectations for writers - just one of many examples in which race and gender are routinely gaslighted by those in charge. You see it playing out now, too, in media assessments of Kamala Harris, and I speculate that she was routinely gaslit by Biden and his close male advisors - and still is.
Thanks Martha. Yeah, it was that passage in Herb’s book paralleling a cult or an abusive partner to the adjunct institution that first got me, and made me see all these abuse parallels then through the whole narrative as I went through.
Hello Jenn Zuko. I read your last three posts and I really like what you say (and how you say it). I could have commented on them all, but the subject is similar, so I can comment on all of them here.
Martha Nichols sent me; well, she recommended you, and I followed. Martha is probably looking at your writing expertise, while I am looking at your social commentary. (Actually you have stimulated me with tons of things to say, but I'll try to limit it with some focus.) I have become interested in theater only very-very late in life. In part, I lived where there wasn't any. And I have shunned movies and videos for many decades. But then this idea (below) came to me:
So often we define who-we-are by what we have done, our "Linked-In" profile. Our trail meandering through the past. Then I thought, but who we are is our range of self-expression in the present, (right now). Our past is a reservoir of self-expression to draw upon, but how are we using it right now?
That's when I thought an accomplished actor is a master of self-expression. Am I right or wrong? Maybe an actor is just confused, with so many roles rumbling through the corridors of the mind; What is authentic? So my intuition depends on the ability to choose. To choose the self-expression that is appropriate for my objectives in this moment. And that of course means that I can formulate an objective. (I CAN).
From that I would think you are a giant of a woman, with a giant range of self-expression.
The history of entertainment is that everyone was both a consumer and a performer. Grandpa had a fiddle, sonny a banjo, or back a little further they called it "chamber music". Now the corporate world has taken over entertainment. Someone will get a part in "the movies", but 100's of hopefuls will get your mythology of the "Next Time". Something is wrong with this picture.
Entertainers are part of our culture. Therefore cultured families will prod their children to develop these extroverted skills. Your mother said it, "hard work", (there is also talent, but that is a big discussion that I'll save for later). Aren't all top performers in the arts or in sports pushed by their parents? But the corporate is the valve (constriction point), where these performers are released into a meaningful job.
So it is out of balance. A million parents develop their children's skills, experience and talent, but only hundreds of them have a prospect to hit it big. That leads to a lot of miserable lives and a lot of abusive compromises. So in a sane world, a school for the performing arts would have a huge section about how to produce a new theatrical venue, how to wrest entertainment away from the limitations of Hollywood.
That presupposes that Americans want to see more original talent. I sincerely doubt it. Americans are content to spend their whole life on Youtube, and they will never run out. So is that what is left for you? You can make a Youtube clip, and hope that it is funny. It is the same as Hollywood isn't it? Five people get a million views and 5 million people made 70 cents on their last clip.
And Substack? I wouldn't read anything that I couldn't comment on.
.
Wow! So many great thoughts here to look at. Thank you for this—I’m a go compose a response and I’ll get back to you.
Hello Jenn Zuko. Thanks for following me. I did post a piece from the theater, the last post on the stack. It is easy to read but maybe difficult to digest or accept, or know what to do with it. The theater and drama have a way to transmit a message that direct writing might not capture. I would be interested in your feedback.
https://whynotthink.substack.com/p/5-p-lets-diverge-from-our-usual-into
.
Another great chapter, Jenn. I really like the way you connect typecasting in theater productions - even when those in charge insist they aren’t doing that (what a joke!) - to other forms of gaslighting. I can think of so many others in the elite literary world - Percival Everett’s “Erasure” (and the movie “American Fiction” based on it) makes clear how racial stereotypes drive expectations for writers - just one of many examples in which race and gender are routinely gaslighted by those in charge. You see it playing out now, too, in media assessments of Kamala Harris, and I speculate that she was routinely gaslit by Biden and his close male advisors - and still is.
Thanks Martha. Yeah, it was that passage in Herb’s book paralleling a cult or an abusive partner to the adjunct institution that first got me, and made me see all these abuse parallels then through the whole narrative as I went through.