The FUTURE of STORY with Dominick and Virginia

Have you ever considered that the tales we tell are the very threads that weave the fabric of society? Virginia and Dominick explore this notion, unraveling the complex relationship between storytelling and its pervasive impact on both personal growth and cultural evolution.  Language of the Soul's latest episode is an eclectic mix of discussions around the essence of art, the intricate balance between artistic freedom and societal responsibility, and the subtle ways in which implicit biases color our everyday interactions.

Join us as we speculate about the elusive definitions of artistic integrity and literary value. What truly defines transformative content? We're reluctant to abandon the traditional tenets that celebrate the potency of storytelling, yet cannot ignore how technological advancements and cultural shifts are reshaping them. We challenge the listener to consider distinctions between literary and commercial fiction, between STORY and mere CONTENT and the waning currency of the human touch and artistic merit in the face of Generative AI.

Equally threatening to both freedom of expression and art for art's sake are forces like sanitization, whitewashing, revisionist history and cancel culture. What is at stake when the mainstream loses the sophistication to parse between transformative story and propaganda? The stakes could not be higher in the face of impending fascism. The question is: what are we going to do about it? What types of stories are we going to tell, moving forward? How can we actively co-create with pendulum swings in human dialectic and shape the future we aspire to? In short, what is the FUTURE of STORY?

LOTS One-time Donation
Your donation, however big or small, will help us build our platform. Click Here to Donate!

Patreon
As a patron, you're joining a community of like-minded individuals passionate about the stories.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

The Future of Storytelling

Speaker 1 0:00

Hi guys, and welcome to Language of the Soul, where life is story. For those of you that have tuned in before, welcome back. We feel really good about the community we've created here. So thank you so much, and if you're tuning in for the first time, I think it's worth saying you know, we're all about basically the power of storytelling to transform the individual and then, by extension, evolve society.

Speaker 1 0:27

But we all know a story just takes so many forms, right from literature and the cinematic realm to advertising and propaganda and political campaigning. It is all around us, all day, every day, and we're taking it in like fish breathing in visible water. We're just. Our world. Views are being shaped daily by the stories we internalize. So we're just kind of all about an awareness of that and maybe on the part of creatives, you know, a little bit of responsibility I think that's going to come up today the responsibility that comes with putting out stories into the world. Okay, that said, we would love for you to follow us or subscribe, and we're on all the podcast platforms. Of course, our Buzzsprout website is maybe where you found us, but we do publish to Amazon music. This is where I always have a brain fart. Help me out, virginia.

Speaker 2 1:27

Apple podcast, amazon music, spotify. I heart radio. Yeah, all of them.

Speaker 1 1:37

Okay, and I guess the cat's out of the bag. This is our producer, virginia Welcome.

Speaker 2 1:43

Thank you, I'm so new to today's show.

Speaker 1 1:48

Well, I'm glad we're doing this. This is an episode that we've been really excited to do and just haven't had the luxury of getting to it but every single week and we'll lay this out really nicely for you but certain things just come up every week. We've had a lot of really great indie authors come on, some filmmakers, even actors and actresses and certain themes in a very good way come up and we get to see different angles on them. And you know not that we're here to learn or be didactic, but repetition is the key to learning. So I think it says a lot that these things come up pretty regularly. But in that spirit, you know, we're more and more convinced these are kind of hot topics that are worth talking about, especially when it comes to the responsibility we hinted at earlier of telling stories. So we want to just put everything together in a nutshell here and talk about the future of storytelling. So the way I'll put it is right.

Speaker 1 2:45

Traditionally, story has served a certain role in society. Just wrote a 375 page book about exactly how it serves the individual as catharsis, but then, by extension, hopefully has an impact on not just worldviews and paradigms and thought forms but the policy that results from those movements. So it ain't no small thing. So the way I want to lay the groundwork for the future of storytelling is to talk about the role it has traditionally served and you can jump in at any time, virginia, but I'm just going to try to lay it out and then talk about OK, but what is threatening that traditional role of story at this moment? And I do feel it's worth diagnosing. To put it really in strong terms, I think we would all agree it's a little bit of a fascist feeling on the horizon across the board, and the arts and freedom of expression are more important to protect now than ever. Do you feel that way, virginia, or am I overstating the matter?

Speaker 2 3:50

No, I absolutely agree, and I don't you know, I'm not not, not even on a political scale Like it's exactly what you said across the board. It doesn't matter where you stand.

Speaker 1 4:01

It's so funny too, because it's easy to politicize things. One of our guests by the way, a friend of mine who's going to come on said yeah, I'm a little sheepish because I don't like to be political, and I said well, neither do I, frankly, but anything can be politicized, and this is a human topic, right.

Speaker 1 4:20

Some things are just human conversations and politicize them if you like, but sometimes it's just about preserving our humanity and in this case, maybe preserving the really integral role that story serves for humanity, and I would go on to say in our march toward human potential. But far be it from me to overstate anything, anyway. So again, jump in if you like, but I'm just going to try to lay it out as best I can for our listeners. So, as we've talked about every week really, and in the book I go into it quite a bit that storytelling has not evolved out of us, right? I think we would all agree that since oral tradition around the campfire, it's served us in some way because it simply hasn't gone away. So, in the spirit of today's episode, I would say you know Aristotle, through Shakespeare, all the way through Hemingway and now cinema.

Speaker 1 5:14

Writers have been telling stories since the dawn of time.

Speaker 1 5:18

Some, like Aristotle, as we were talking about earlier Virginia, were pretty aware of the function that storytelling served, and in that case it was the Greek tragedies.

Speaker 1 5:28

So he was aware of exactly what it was serving in culture and frankly, at that time it was in peril. Fascism was on the horizon, not unlike now, and so he very much made a case, by coining the term catharsis, for exactly how he was transforming audiences by taking in these stories, so how the patron actually transformed and then, one hopes, society evolved. So I feel like there's a parallel there, but a lot of times artists just told their stories without really being too lucid about the role that it played on a macro scale for the collective. So we left it to academics whether it was liturgical tradition or literary criticism to speculate after the fact about the role that storytelling served for the collective. I feel like Ein Rand get a lot of lip service when it comes to how we were saying earlier, virginia's storytelling holds up a mirror to society and it exposes our values, and then we even kind of hinted at. But does it reflect or does it dictate?

Speaker 2 6:38

That is how powerful story is.

Speaker 1 6:41

It reflects the times, but it also serves as the handbook for the future. So I would say after that, you know, young and young psychologists had very strong opinions on how archetypes encapsulated the human condition and therefore conflict resolution imparted something very valuable about the human condition. Thomas More and all of comparative religion went further, analyzing the common threads, the templates that exist independent of culture, that demonstrate our interconnectivity, and the wireness Is that?

Speaker 1 7:20

a word, our wiredness for story. So then I would say, you know, without being too specific, western storytelling structure absolutely is a formula that best imparts transformative thematic content. The way in which a conflict resolves is, you know, not necessarily a didactic message or a moral, but the value that we walk away with. Would you agree with that? So far, Virginia.

Speaker 2 7:50

Oh yeah, absolutely, and I think it also you know kind of going back a little bit to when you were talking about young and you know does and story, you know how much of it is reflective versus you know kind of helping to influence society. I mean, you think about it. It's probably also one of those things where when we think about, like you said, you know sitting around the campfire in the early times of you know when stories started being shared, and then of course, you know, as we know, oral history was shared. You know through story, I mean it does help kind of culture, define its values, its knowledge, its collective memories from one generation to the next.

Speaker 2 8:33

I mean stories just got so many layers to it.

Speaker 1 8:36

I was going to say it's so vast. And you know.

Speaker 2 8:38

Thank.

Speaker 1 8:39

God. We have a kind of a different slant to each week, because there's so many ways in which it not only defines who we are, but it dictates who we will become.

Speaker 2 8:49

Yeah, yeah.

Artistic Integrity and Literary Value

Speaker 1 8:50

And that's what today is all about, but without getting too far off track. I guess I wanted to talk about, sometimes, these elitist or romantic notions about what does constitute literary value or artistic integrity, because I do think they're in peril. I think the average person on the street unfortunately really can't parse between content and story that transforms. I'm just going to let that land for a second. So again, elitist or not, the iron rands of the world, the eldest Huxleys of the world, even people like Maya Angelou, I would say. Or Rilke Letters to a Young Poet, that's the handbook that we were told is a must read for all artists, whether you think they're romantic or elitist or not.

Speaker 1 9:39

There were very specific things that constituted even though it's in the eye that we hold her literary value and artistic integrity. And sure, like we said, things evolve all the time. Maybe our archetypes are evolving, the images that existed pre-language, that are the language of our dreams. Maybe those archetypes are evolving because we're evolving. However, I'm not ready to throw out the baby with the bathwater and give up on the traditional definitions of literary value, meaning the power of story, just yet. I'm gently offering that because some of these things are not on the pop culture radar. They might still exist in fine art circles or maybe in certain literary circles or the publishing realm. The average person wouldn't know transformative story if it smacked them in the face. Is that overstating the matter of Virginia in?

Speaker 2 10:36

pop culture? No, not at all. So here's the way to go back to the essence of human connection and the origins of storytelling. I guess the best way to think when I think of when people are going oh, you're kind of being elitist about it or I'm not into literary fiction, it's whatever. But if you think about what traditional storytelling is it was not that I don't think our ancestors meant it to it was like they're going, oh, because they knew we were going to have the technology and all the stuff we have now, the way society is. But really, if you look at it and how it has come about and what is considered that traditional founding, it transcends that mere entertainment because it's got a fundamental message that serves to be passed down in some form of a knowledge or cultural values, like I said earlier. And that's where I think people forget what it's.

Speaker 1 11:41

Well, that's why I want to be real sorry if I interrupted you?

Speaker 2 11:43

No, you're fine.

Speaker 1 11:44

That's why I want to be real specific, because we're throwing around some generalities here that sound really good, but I want to be specific about what was imparted to me in art school. Now, granted, art history went in one ear and out the other for me. I've just never been able to retain it much like regular history. I just didn't retain much, but I do know I went to art center called Design and again call it elitist, but I was really taught how to think. The art world was very conceptual. It wasn't necessarily about foundational skills like composition and light, logic and color theory and perspective and figure drawing and plain air painting. It was really. You were being taught how to think.

Speaker 1 12:27

And one upcoming guest, greg Spelenka, was at the forefront of what's called conceptual editorial illustration. They did the Time magazines, the sports illustrated the Playboy covers, and it was a whole movement that really encapsulated the concept of a story in a single image that invited you to participate. It was interactive and not only did it intrigue you to want to read the article, but it was what's called conceptual. So, again, some of these terminologies may not be on anyone's radar who went to art school recently, but this is what I was raised on so really quick, because it's all on the eye of the beholder right. Well, you may remember, in the 90s there was like a big upheaval about where is public funding going for the arts, and I think it was the I almost said NRA.

Speaker 2 13:19

I don't remember who it was.

Speaker 1 13:20

I'm not going to remember the name of the I've applied for these grants, it's just not coming to me. But you know, there was a moment where a cow was bisected and then there was a piece called Piss Christ, which was a crucifix submerged in urine. So I think the public had every right to question where their tax dollars were going in that case. Right, but it couldn't have made it clearer that art, or artistic integrity or the value of art is in the eye of the beholder. So, to be specific though, I know for a fact that when you separate commercial fiction, for example, from literary fiction, there are no-knows.

Speaker 1 13:59

Right, some sentimentality, didactic or prescriptive writing is no, it robs the work of literary value. Why? Because it actually lapses into propaganda at that point. So I know for a fact most, again, publishers or column elitists if you want, but most publishers would agree that the thematic content can show the good, the bad and the ugly, all sides of an issue, without being didactic or moralistic, and there analyze the value, the moment. Right, it seems really good to not have any attachments to outcome. Right, that sounds great Like. Let's not be sentimental, because you're spoon feeding to the reader and you're breathing down their neck and manipulating them. Let's maintain some kind of objectivity, but the real reason is because it actually becomes propaganda when you prescribe. Does that sound about right?

Speaker 2 14:54

Yeah.

Speaker 1 14:55

Absolutely yeah. So let's say that's been the mentality for a while and let's say, in my world anyway, that inspiration is the crux of the creative process. So if literature is art and art relies on the creative process, inspiration really is at the crux of it. I'm calling that concept right, the conceptual basis we were just talking about. There's all kinds of experiential art, right. There's maybe flash fiction. That's just an experience you're creating for the reader. Maybe it doesn't have this Western storytelling structure, maybe it doesn't have thematic content, but as art you're creating an experimental experience for that patron. The same way, in a film, an experimental film might just be an experience. It may not have that structure, but do you see what I'm saying? These are kind of tried and true identifiers of, maybe, artistic integrity or literary value. They may be on their way out, but I think those are the traditional ones. Was there anything you would add to that? As far as how certain schools of thought identify artistic integrity merit, that's a really nice judgmental word or literary value.

Speaker 2 16:11

I think definitely morality comes into play a lot of times too when it comes to that line of thought.

Speaker 1 16:19

If it's moralistic, then it robs the literary yeah.

Speaker 2 16:21

No, no, it does it. It adds to. It adds to the fact that that's a component that's important. I think that's sometimes people kind of shy, I think, with a lot of at least in my thing, when you look a lot of the mainstream kind of stuff. They don't want to talk about the deep. So, for example, for me I was thinking a lot of people like the Stephen King. They always focus on the fact that he does horror. He's the horror, the Godfather of horror.

Speaker 2 16:48

But what drove me to love Stephen King as a reader is if you really look at some of his books, I mean heck, he did Shawshank Redemption. I mean hello, not a horror story. But if you really look at all the stories and like a really hard one was under the dome, under the dome they did it. The TV show is not the book, guys, but the book under the dome. It's got some really horrific things that happened to in that book. But he really strips down.

Speaker 2 17:18

If you get away from the commercial side of what everybody talks about, stephen King's works like he literally goes down to the bare bones of what is humanity. Like you know, human behavior is really. What is at the crux of his stories is, if you're in these situations, how will humans behave? And he looks at the good, the bad, the ugly every time. So I think, when you look, when I think of, you know, the literary fiction realm or art, I think that's literally what at least my mind as a creator, you know, I'm looking at. How do I make sense of the world in which I live in and humanity Right?

Speaker 1 18:03

I do love Stephen King. I think he's amazing. I'm not as deep into him as a lot of my friends. Actually have a friend that read thinner. Do you remember thinner?

Speaker 2 18:11

Yeah. Back in the day.

Speaker 1 18:13

So I've just dipped a toe, but I do like his writing. I would say he's still a genre writer for the most part. I think redemption was literary fiction by definition.

Speaker 1 18:23

Yeah, absolutely I think he's, for the most part, a genre writer, but I think, yes, of course, he speaks about the human condition. So, yes, the Western storytelling structure has certain components that, academically, are identifiers of a story with merit, right, and then the thematic content that does impart something not necessary, a didactic something. But you know, I think one of the agreed upon things is, well, it has to speak of the human condition using relatable characters, and in my world actually and this is what I want to get to is it does create cognitive dissonance that begs to be resolved. Therein lies the transformation, right. So, in a way, art is meant to provoke, because it's meant to unsettle you in a way that requires some kind of resolution.

Exploring the Definition of Art

Speaker 1 19:16

So one of the things that we've talked about, that sort of threatens, this function of art is the sanitization. When you remove all those opportunities for growth call them crucibles, crisis slash opportunities, moral dilemmas from individuals, paths, where right is the growth? Where is the spiritual evolution? Where is the emotional maturity? So, a moment ago you hinted at moralism, I think, as being one of the indicators of merit. I would agree only in that you know how it's really easy to dismiss anything that's too pornographic as well. That's not art, and I think that's what you were hinting at, like even when. What is the name of that agency? Someone Google that.

Speaker 2 20:02

Yeah, think of the name of it NEA.

Speaker 1 20:05

I was National Endowment for the Arts I was trying to say NRA earlier NEA in the 90s was up against Piss Christ, which obviously ruffled some feathers and bisecting a cow. And the thought was well, anyone could bisect a cow. And how is that art, right? You can't just put a toilet on a pedestal and call it art no-transcript. I would say, well, that had to happen in the dialectic of art history, because we're redefining art all day, every day. So of course a urinal had to be put on a pedestal at some point.

Speaker 1 20:38

But the question is whether the public wants their tax dollars going toward that. But what I'm getting at is, you know, madonna says, oh no, I'm an artist, and others will say no, but that's pornography. That is not art, that is a line people draw, right. And so I think, when we see violence, if it's just titillation, we dismiss it right as smut, whereas if it seems integral and it's helping illustrate a larger point, we accept the violence, because you can't recognize the good without the bad, or the light without the shadow, right, right. But that's the only way in which I think moralism belongs in this artistic equation. What I'm invested in, frankly, is that art is there to provoke.

Speaker 2 21:24

Right.

Speaker 1 21:25

Art is meant to provoke and make you uncomfortable, especially in certain circles. So when I guess I just was trying to get to the point of as best we can defining this merit that's so elusive, this artistic integrity or literary value that's so often is in the eye of the beholder, because only then can we talk about here what is in peril through this whitewashing and the revisionist history, the erasure, what is in peril when we talk about the threat of AI, which is on everybody's mind. So, yeah, we can't go down the road of defining beauty or art, we can't decide what's art and what's not. But I do agree with you. The public draws a line with morality, right. They tend to dismiss things that are too pornographic or that actually make them uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 22:14

I have a lot of friends that will come out of a movie and say, oh, I didn't like it because it made me ABC and D. I thought, oh, then they did their job. Right. If that made you uncomfortable, that is a great movie. If it lived with you and haunted you for a couple of days, that's called a great movie. But they'll call it a bad movie because it made them uncomfortable. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 22:31

No, it makes sense. Yeah, and that's why I think so important is you can't just dismiss things based off what you've. That's where I was going with this what you define as art and not art. You have to look beyond, like you just said, what the beauty of art is, you have to look at. Does it make you stop and think? Does it make you reevaluate your thought process? What makes you comfortable? What doesn't make you comfortable?

Speaker 1 23:00

Yeah, I think the pleasure principle right, we were so driven by the pleasure principle, but that's why I? Kind of said it's a little bit about your exposure and your education. Because, I think people that have an art background wouldn't make that comment that oh, it was bad because it made me uncomfortable, like they just wouldn't. But maybe it's a good moment. Actually, I'm going to play High School of VeloDictoria and, as I warned you, read some definitions, just so we're on the same page.

Speaker 2 23:27

Okay.

Speaker 1 23:28

But yeah, we'll never define beauty or art. I don't think, but for fun I did. I consulted Cambridge and Wikipedia and Miriam Webster dictionary. Here's an interesting one and the funny thing is it's such a circular conversation because it always comes back to oh, it's in the eye of the beholder.

Speaker 2 23:51

Our favorite words right, right. It's the non-answer answer, right.

Speaker 1 23:56

But all it's about life, right? Life is in the eye of the beholder. Artistic merit, the artistic quality or value of any given work of art music, film, literature, sculpting or painting. So then you're like okay, but the artistic quality, so what is art, Right? So the conscious use of skill and creative imagination, especially in the production of aesthetic objects. Or two the making of objects, images, music, etc. That are beautiful or that express feelings. So now you need to look up beautiful, right? So there's the whole realm of aesthetics, there's a whole branch of philosophy devoted to aesthetics. And then three was an activity through which people express particular ideas.

Speaker 1 24:45

So another interesting definition literature, Writings in prose or verse, especially writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest. And then Cambridge said written artistic works, especially those with a high and lasting artistic value. That's actually what led me to define artistic merit right, which required us to look up art, which required us to look up beauty. So it is a self-serving and circular conversation. It's kind of like in law, whenever you hear there were reasonable right, Like reasonable dot dot. It's like in whose opinion.

Speaker 2 25:27

Yeah, it's always up to interpretation, right.

Speaker 1 25:29

Absolutely. Anyway. What was the thought that it?

Speaker 2 25:32

So what I'll say as you're talking about. So of course you know I'm thinking like so being, you know, back when I was first learning the whole process of being, you know, a writer and storytelling and all that. It's like the whole thing, like, well, you have to find new ways to engage your audience, and when that was visual, you know textural, you know audio elements, you know. So, using your all your senses to create like these multi sensory narratives, which is such a double-edged sword because it presents those challenges for opportunity. Yet at the same time you're trying to mirror, you know, society and or like shifts in society, and so it just becomes kind of like this very complex thing and you kind of stop and think, well, how do I do that and not dilute the whole storytelling art?

Speaker 1 26:23

Well, you said multi sensory, right yeah? And yet is that different from trying to encapsulate the human condition, is it?

Speaker 2 26:32

Well, I'm saying like, if you're trying, to yeah it becomes overwhelming, like you know, when you're trying to do I'm saying when you start to think of like as when you're a new person and you're like trying to understand art and like storytelling and and conceptual concepts and all that, like you can you can get overwhelmed because there's like all these things that you can. You know it can kind of become soup.

Speaker 1 26:54

That's why I mean, I don't know if I'm following 100% or if this is related, but that's why I always go back to inspiration, Because I feel like when somebody isn't a live wire, that's delivering what the universe demands from them via inspiration. And I do feel that way and I'll explain that better in a minute. But if, if you're a self identified artist who has accepted the calling and you're a live wire and the universe demands something from you and it's nothing less than that when we talk about inspiration, then you just serve that. I think all creative processes, whatever the form of art is, are pretty much the same you just execute and you serve that initial inspiration right. And maybe those people that get overwhelmed by that may not have much to say and they're sort of mimicking a craft rather than serving the concept. You know what I mean Doing what?

Speaker 2 27:47

it demands Exactly. But yeah, so, and I think that's where you do have those differences, in what is more of that, you know traditional, literary, tried and true storytelling that does inspire, that does become. You know the catharsis that helps us process.

Speaker 1 28:07

And actually, strangely, that puts us right on the topic of AI. Right, there are plenty of people that just grew up watching films and have a love of Steven Spielberg. I grew up with ET and you know Poltergeist and Steven Spielberg alone is responsible for making me want to be a filmmaker, you know, and you can just want to be a part of that tradition and tell stories, just like Steven. You can find your voice. You can really get in touch with your worldviews and what it is you have to say in the world. That can happen.

Speaker 1 28:39

But I think for the most part, if you're just mimicking a genre and I think even Kubrick would say you know, until you put pen to paper, you don't really discover what you have to say You've got to do it to find your voice.

Speaker 1 28:53

So it is mimicry if you're just really not yet in touch with what you have to say in the world, but you're trying to mimic form or style or voice, right or function. So that is frankly what AI is doing at this point. It's getting better and better. But, as you know, when I read over the AI description of our episodes, I do a lot of editing because it seems like word salad to me. So you can mimic form all you want, and I guess I am going to take this transition you can mimic form all you want, but if it's, if there's nothing driving that form or that technique and at this point that that something needs to be the human element in my book, then it is just mimicry and it is not going to transcend, let alone transform, people. So I think we put things a little bit out of order here.

Speaker 2 29:51

Yeah.

Speaker 1 29:53

If we agree to these fuzzy definitions right, fuzzy definitions of art and merits and artistic integrity and literary value, if we're kind of on the same page, then I wanted to make a case for several things that actually strangely fall under this fascist movement that seems to be a foot, and one is AI. Now, I guess I'll say I found it tedious to talk about AI for a while because you can't stop the March of Technology. Frankly, adapter die and a million reasons. You know, years ago, when lawnmower man was in theaters, some people came to our center and did a presentation on virtual reality not AI, but virtual reality.

Speaker 1 30:43

Even back then, you know, they predicted oh, you can do exploratory surgeries without the stakes being so high, you can go see that refrigerator in your living room without putting out the money or until you're convinced. But they also predicted, ominously, that we kind of like in Wally, the animated film Wally, that we'll never leave home, we'll all be obese, all right, and we'll just be keeping up with the Joneses in virtual reality. We are halfway there. But even back then this was probably 35 years ago the AI proponents, even back then were saying oh no, no, you can program spontaneity. Oh no, you can program humor, they have got all their prepared arguments. When you say, but the human element, what is it? Oh no, that can be programmed. They're convinced. So in my world, especially during this writer strike and the actor strike, the stakes could not have been higher.

Speaker 1 31:37

You had creative executives literally saying you all are a dime, a dozen screenwriters. We can cobble together a script using AI and you are effectively obsolete. I immediately thought well, no, you can actually cobble together old, tired tropes and stereotypes from preexisting screenplays and create the semblance of a story. But what's it missing? Not just the human element, which is elusive, not just the human touch, which is elusive, but inspiration, and I will go so far as to say the universe uses each one of us to create what is needed in our dialectic, what's needed in our evolution, and it's nothing less than that. Does that make a little bit of sense?

Speaker 2 32:22

Oh, it absolutely does. I mean, it definitely forces us to question all of those things and to really take that really hard. Look at those narratives and then also how they touch us, which everything you just said goes right to the fact. You know, if something doesn't have, even with the elusive human touch in narratives, the fact is that essence of creativity, that's a deeply personal and reflective part of the human condition and you can tell when something's missing it. You might not be able to, well then, that's sorry.

Speaker 1 32:58

Even though we strive for the universal, each artist, I think, to a degree strives to maybe reach an elite view or an elite readership, or you know. But within reason we become masters at what is universal, what's culturally relative, what is so personal, like Tori Amos' lyrics I always use her as an example it's so incredibly personal. You don't know what the F she's talking about, but strangely it transcends. And then there's that whole conversation about it's been said, the more personally you make something, the more it will speak to readers, the more it will transcend and resonate. So but anyway, I do think you strive for the universal, but you were hinting at. We are all subjective individuals with our own apparatus and it does take a village. So what you have to offer with your authentic gifts, when you get in touch with your creativity, is very different than what I would have to offer. And I say amen to all of it because we're all part of that tapestry that is humanity.

Speaker 2 33:58

Right, exactly, and it's all those altering different perspectives and how they reflect off of each other that really helps us give that shift and transcendence in our deeper thought processes, our processes, however you wanna say it, mm-hmm.

Speaker 1 34:19

Well, that might be a good transition to like if it takes a village and we're all just threads in this huge tapestry that is humanity. It's been said, actually, that maybe with all these religions that seem to be really warring with one another, what if, collectively, they spoke the truth? All right, and so a lot of our guests have talked about not just marginalized voices or silenced and erased voices, but the voices of entire indigenous peoples that have been overshadowed by their colonizers. If that makes sense, we are finally telling those stories and maybe embracing the full spectrum of humanity. That is a good outcome of some of the trends that are happening. But what about when we whitewash and we do intentionally silence certain forces? I'm hinting at an education we are trying to sanitize and silence certain stories that are not palatable or favorable to certain factions. Does that make a little bit of sense? There's good and bad with these recent trends.

Speaker 2 35:25

Yeah, and sometimes I think some of I'm not saying all the time, but some of that sanitizing, I think definitely comes from the fact that people want to remove those uncomfortable truths they don't want to have to face, those which I feel denies every generation that full understanding of their culture and how it fits within the societal structure. So, in speaking of education, like I know there's been big debates one of the books that I loved when I was in middle school that we were required to read was To Kill a Mockingbird.

Speaker 1 36:04

Love it yeah, and I know, love the movie, love the book. In 10th grade I actually did a video Actually Possum Dixon, my buddy Robby's of Brickie. They were voted top alternative band on the rise in the 90s so they actually did quite well. But they had a little garage band when we were in high school and we did Never Kill a Mockingbird or Lay it on the Line.

Speaker 1 36:27

We did a whole video for actually, and that was 83. Video cameras were very new. Yeah, we did a whole video. My dad played Atticus and someone spat on him who spits on Atticus?

Speaker 2 36:42

I can't remember.

Speaker 1 36:42

I can't remember who does that I can't remember my mafia, so dad put up with that.

Speaker 2 36:47

But the thing is, I mean those for a young mind like to be able to talk about the concepts that were being, you know, and the deeper storylines that were in there, even though they used, obviously, the whole symbolism of the mockingbird, which is why it's called that of the book. I mean it really made you, I mean you just I just brought Atticus too, I mean the dad, I mean here he is, he's a lawyer. You know, everybody has like that stereotypical attitude of what a lawyer is. At least we did, you know, I know I did at that time as a kid. And then all of a sudden you started seeing like these multi-dimensions to his character and the things he was dealing with and how he was, you know, trying to like look for social justice, and it made me go like, oh okay, you know, not everybody fits in these little compartmentalized blocks of you know thought of what you think they are, you know.

Speaker 1 37:49

So rethinking the archetype of lawyer. It was a parallel to rethinking all your presumptions, including racism. I think the rest of it was racism.

Speaker 2 38:00

It was a racism. Yeah, A lot of it. I think was more of the verbiage that was used, you remember?

Speaker 1 38:05

Anya Ostenberg came on and she talked about how a large part of her coaching is. If you wrote something when you're 20 and you want to put it together with a collection that includes stories you wrote five minutes ago, in your fifties, how do you get it to live under one voice, right? And so it implies like, how do you own that part of yourself so you don't mess with the old one? That's the answer, because it was written from your perspective and your worldview as a newborn 20-something year old. So I feel the same way.

Speaker 1 38:33

Like you know, as we've talked about with Ted Young, everything is a product of the era in which it was written. I think we're hinting at something much larger and so let's stop avoiding it we're just talking about. If certain things trigger us, we have to look at why. I've gently offered that often it's because we're a litigious society. We again if we remove all the crucibles, all the uncomfortable moments, all the conflicts that beg to be resolved internally, then there's no growth to be had. So if you can't read Huck Finn and recognize it's a product of its era and you simply sweep it under the rug or silence or erase it, we're robbing, as you were hinting at we're robbing our children of valuable life lessons that actually teach us how to live in the world.

Speaker 2 39:23

Right and also, I feel, which goes to the whole, you know, historical value, to not repeat those same things.

Speaker 1 39:32

Yeah, god forbid the horrors of history repeat.

Speaker 2 39:35

Yeah.

Speaker 1 39:36

If you don't tell the stories of the past, history will repeat itself. I do think it's obviously a little more nuanced than that. The example I use is like my Jewish friends would say 100%, that you can't not tell the stories of the Holocaust because knowledge is power. How can you argue with that? Epigenetics tells us that you limit your potential by telling certain stories from the past that are limiting. However, I'm not gonna tell an African-American parent not to have that difficult conversation with their child about how to not get killed when you're pulled over by a cop. So this is the balance we need to reach societally Right Is when are we limiting our human potential by perseverating on the past and when is it a necessary conversation? Because, god forbid, history will repeat itself. I mean, look at what's happening right now. Yeah, there's a great meme circulating that says ever wonder what you would do during the rise of fascism in the 30s? You're doing it now.

Speaker 2 40:39

Bam, I love that and that's so powerful. It goes right back to what you're saying too. So is storytelling reflective or is storytelling impacting and shaping societal norms? And I think it does both.

Speaker 1 40:54

I am down with the aspirational storytelling. So it is true, what you give your airtime to grows, what you put your attention on grows. So in my own internal world, knowing what makes me tick, do you know what I mean? Digging in the dirt and playing those old warbly records of the past has no value. I choose to look to the future and be part of the problem and not the solution, and so societally we should be able to do the same thing. And again, we talked with Ted Young about this aspirational storytelling that reframes history and, yes, cleans it up and speaks of our human potential. There's a lot of responsibility in that.

Speaker 2 41:38

Mm-hmm. Yeah, definitely, and I think we have to be careful too, because we don't want to silence voices. We want to show that diversity and how those relationships between the different, diverse communities enhance us in many different forms too.

Speaker 1 42:00

Yeah, and something that I tell me, if you agree with this, something that occurred to me in preparing this episode is let's say we agree there is a trend toward whitewashing, we call it sanitizing, and both sides are doing it. If you politicize the matter, I find, actually on the far right, there is idealism behind it. If we focus on the aspirational stories, if we tell history in a way that speaks of our potential, that is based in idealism, that gives us a lighthouse, that gives us an example that we can aspire to. However, it's at the expense of somebody that you've had the luxury of silencing and erasing for your own comfort level, then you're doing it as service, karmically, to an entire subsection of the population. But anyway, to try to better make my point, I do think it's sometimes out of idealism that right-wingers I'm not gonna say Republicans want to sanitize the left.

Speaker 1 43:05

It can be virtue signaling if that makes sense. It's very commendable and admirable to wanna clean up our language, to not make it okay to tell fat jokes or Pollock jokes or fag jokes. It's very commendable to call the starfish the sea jelly because it's more accurate. I think it's done for sort of different reasons if that makes sense, and even the pronoun conversation. It's just about respecting individuals. So we're revising history in a way, for very different reasons on both sides of the political divide.

Speaker 2 43:43

I think most people usually go in with good intentions and because of that it's very easy. You're so biased by what your intent is for the betterment, be it for cultural sensitivity, whatever and therefore it does blind us. It puts those blinders on to see the other perspectives of how maybe what you think is good can have some a little bit of a backlash.

Speaker 1 44:13

The onus is on each one of us, I think, to recognize our biases, Exactly Our unexamined biases. And I've used this example before. But, as a gay man, I don't hold hands anymore. I don't bring you up to speed on right, the latest queer theory. It's not my job to hold your hand.

Speaker 2 44:32

And.

Speaker 1 44:33

I have a black neighbor that said to me dude, this is like in the middle of the Black Lives Matter movement and I'm part of the I'm an ally, by the way, and I'm part of the problem and not the solution. And even so, he made it very clear to me my job is not to hold anyone's hand and educate them. So I'm gonna tell a real quick story, because I do think saying that people are invisible with their own biases, I was being very generous when I said there's a halfway respectable intent behind silencing and erasing people by refusing to tell their stories in education. I was being very generous. What I will say is it's an excuse oftentimes to couch it in that, just as often. So, real quick, I'll give an example.

Speaker 1 45:19

So I grew up two black girls in my high school, two black girls as a product of busing, by the way. So a pretty white community in Burbank. So I didn't actually I will go to my grave saying I didn't grow up with any preconceived notions or prejudices, just was not raised with it. Sure, lack of exposure and guilty, lived in a pretty white community. But I counted a plus that I wasn't introduced to any racial stereotypes as an adult at Disney, my friend O'Neill. I went to the movies with him and he said, oh, you don't know, we're loud at movies. And I said, no, he's like. He slowly brought me up to speed on watermelon and fried chicken and loud at movies and everything. And it was fascinating to me. Even he would say, oh, I've never been, I've never identified as a victim of prejudice or racial discrimination or intolerance or any of it, because I haven't chosen to wear those goggles. That's his experience and it's a luxury. And again, when it comes to the law of attraction, I think that's the way to live life Don't identify by your grievances. If you've been lucky enough to not experience them, that is the way to go. However, if it's gaslighting right and you're sweeping something under the carpet or sticking your head in the sand like an ostrich, it's very irresponsible. So one more here was my big learning curve, because I'm an idealist too.

Speaker 1 46:47

So we mentioned Mel Gibson earlier, and when it first came out that he may or may not have had a pointy white hood in his closet right, it was right at the time that Hashirah, the Christ, had come out, and I have a very dear Jewish friend that refused to see it and was actively campaigning against Mel and I said have you seen it? She said no, I won't see it. I said well, actually I saw it and dot dot dot. So I regret it to this day. But I said he's an amazing filmmaker technically. So I'm not quite ready to buy what the media right is trying to accuse him of. The jury's still out and I can separate the artist from the work. I don't know that I feel that way anymore, but at the moment I said his work is really commendable. I just have a wait and see attitude. She was really upset by that and wanted me to boycott the film and I said I almost said her name. I said listen, so and so I said I've seen the movie.

Speaker 1 47:50

And I was raised in Burbank with no anti-Semitism whatsoever in the mythology I was exposed to and every denomination of Protestantism you can imagine, because I explored them all, my dad's Catholic. I was never taught that the Jews were responsible for killing Christ, if anything. So the mythology goes and thank God because we're all saved, right that all of humanity is fallible. So I made a case for it. I said I saw the movie. He made sure to show the Roman guards spitting on Christ. You know what I mean. To show that he was an equal opportunity basher, to show that everybody had a hand in it. He made sure to show the Roman soldiers pounding in the steak right into his palms. I said I really didn't get any antisemitism from it. If anything, it supported the mythology I was raised with, which is we're all fallible, we're all human, we're all culpable, and thank God because now we're all saved.

Speaker 1 48:49

She wasn't having it.

Speaker 1 48:50

She goes.

Speaker 1 48:50

Nick, you didn't realize Hitler actually used the words Christkiller? Nope, didn't know it. You didn't realize that during the plague, jews were the only ones that would bring in orphan babies. So that's where all these conspiracy theories came about. Stealing your kids and sucking their blood Nope, do you follow me? So I learned wow, I'm completely ignorant. The onus is on me to get up to speed and it was a big, big learning curve for me and our friendship, by the way.

Speaker 1 49:22

And so now, as a gay man, I am 100% in her camp.

Speaker 1 49:26

I had a cousin the other day at a Mormon family members get together, which I've swam with those sharks my entire life and I would like some credit for my incredible patience, observing comfort zones and boundaries. But I just made one little comment about this, something gay, this or that. And thank God it was a grandchild of this particular couple, so they're kind of up to speed on all things non-binary. And they didn't bat an eye when I brought up the gay thing. But they did say, wow, well, I thought we were so cool about that in this family and I just gave them this look like, are you kidding me? If you only knew their grandparents, the home they were actively campaigning, giving money through the Mormon church to Prop 8, which was trying to protect marriage, while I was demonstrating for marriage equality on the other side of the issue. So anyway, I think it's really convenient in that example for my family members to really gloss it over and put a nice shiny silver lining around it without really walking in the moccasins, and that can be irresponsible.

Speaker 2 50:39

I hope some of that makes sense. No, no, it made a total sense and I absolutely agree. And it's interesting because I obviously know that same religion and I actually grew up where and I do have quite a few friends who are also Jewish that I've known throughout the years just because of working in fashion in my younger years, and that's how we cross paths. And I never took on that, how you were talking about, why your friend was upset about Pasha, the Christ, with the Jews being blamed for killing Christ, because I actually did have that within my family structure.

Speaker 1 51:21

That teaching Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 51:25

And I never completely subscribed to that line of thought. And so when I got older and, of course, worked within the fashion field and did start to make friends who were of the Jewish faith, I would just talk to them all the time, ask not to like make them be the spokesperson at all, but just would ask questions Like help me understand this a little bit better. I've been looking into this and it really helped because, yeah, I wasn't surprised, even though I tried not to have. There was definitely some mind things like you're saying, because I obviously grew up in similar area close to Burbank as well, and it's easy to not realize how even if in your family you don't get that how society- that's why it's called white privilege.

Speaker 2 52:23

Yeah, exactly, well-.

Speaker 1 52:25

Because you're not aware of it.

Speaker 2 52:26

You're not, you're not and you're not aware of the external influences too, that may not even be from your family, just within the city you live in, or you know schools, the schools that you go to, whatever. So, yeah, and then that's why it's so important in schools like going back to what you were talking about earlier, about having such a diverse collection of Larry Works you know for because that's what you know. English class, yes, is to, of course, learn structure and you know how to use the English language, but it's also a place for us to expand our minds by understanding our language and its art form.

Speaker 1 53:10

Well, I think that actually starts speaking to the level of literacy across the board right now, because knowledge is power, right, but also stories shape us. But before we go into that road, you know, something just came back to me. It's all interrelated, but the other learning curve, when she put me on my place, I'm amazed. I haven't said her name yet, but she made it clear to me. You know what the real egregious quality in the way he told the story is that there was an agreement at one point that no story shall be told the passion plays. In the 60s there was an agreement that said the passion plays will never again be told, with the Jews being culpable. Did you know that?

Speaker 2 53:51

I did not know that. Yeah, so he was the first one that actually broke that rule in her opinion?

Speaker 1 53:56

I didn't see it, but that is a hard, you know, very clear cut infraction there. So, yeah, because of right, all the horrors of history. I forget what the name of the pact was, but it was like, yeah, the media shall not tell the story in this way anymore. But anyway, I guess what I was hinting at is like idealism is wonderful and it can take you a long way, but when it borders on denial at the expense of others or even aspirational sort of cleansing, it couldn't be good for us culturally. No, it's not.

Speaker 2 54:35

And it's so kind of speaking to that a little bit and you know our own personal biases and our lives, you know, and privileges.

Speaker 2 54:45

So we actually just recently we're talking about that in my social cultural class, actually for counseling, and we played the Disney movie Zootopia and Zootopia covers and it was an awesome movie to use because obviously it's using predators and prey to define the different racial classes, however you want to, you know, put them in their little boxes to mirror our society. But we talked about how that movie in a very nice way, helps children understand explicit bias, implicit bias, racism, and how those things can shape our perspectives if we're unconsciously aware of them and even consciously aware of them and don't stand up and say something. And you know, that's the whole point of what these stories do. It's to help us reflect on that and to help us see those narratives and to take a look, you know, and be uncomfortable and have, so we can have, like we are doing right now, these open conversations so we can confront those challenged, you know thinking and you know, hopefully work us to continually move forward into a better place.

Speaker 1 56:08

Yeah, well, and you mentioned implicit bias, right, right. Is that like a microaggression, meaning again a product of your socialization that you may not even be aware or even internalized?

Speaker 2 56:20

So basically an idea of explicit biases where you know, if I said, you know, gosh, nick, it was really brave of you, you know, to let us know. You know to come to us, all you know say you're gay, that's being kind of explicit biases, like I'm complimenting you but at the same time there's like it doesn't feel good. It's kind of a backhanded compliment, you know.

Speaker 1 56:49

Yeah, well, in an age, I've been to plenty of diversity and inclusion meetings at Art Center. So in academia, right, and in HR it has its own little flavor to it, but I think that's what I meant. If it's unexamined, it tends to be a microaggression, right.

Speaker 2 57:04

Yeah.

Speaker 1 57:05

But I think we use that as an excuse, like, oh, I'm going to blame it on my socialization. I didn't lynch anyone and I don't have a white hood in my closet, like I think we're lazy. So anyone that doesn't live under a rock is responsible. Or bring them up to speed. And you know everything I mentioned a minute ago, the idealism sort of excusing things. It's also called ignorance. So again, if you don't live under a rock, you are responsible for knowing not just the virtue signaling or the politically correct terminology for things, but actually being human. You know, like there are no excuses left for not just being human.

Speaker 2 57:48

We also have to be willing to genuinely you know, authentically say we're sorry and say, wow, I was. You know, I was ignorant.

Speaker 1 57:59

I think the macro version of that is atonement and reparations.

Speaker 2 58:02

Exactly.

Speaker 1 58:04

And I think we're so quick to dig our heels in, and actually there's a sociological principle that says kind of like a version of the red dress syndrome right, I've wronged you or made a transgression against you. The chances are something like 500% greater that I will dig in my heels and convince myself that I'm not a bad person. But I acted rashly the first time by being even meaner to you the second time around. So it takes a lot of humility for people to accept their responsibility in things.

Speaker 2 58:36

We get busy with our lives, we get back in those bubbles and we you know. And then all of a sudden, you know, like, when we come on to these podcasts, like it makes me stop and reevaluate and I start processing back weeks sometimes like, oh my gosh, this you know happened. I mean, I just like prime example. So I'm going to talk about how I'm a terrible mom, but here's one. I have a child who has almost no sense of taste and smell. She's been like this since she was five. I'm aware of this, I know this, but every once in a while we're out shopping, doing something, eating somewhere, and what do I say? Oh, how does that taste? What it oh, you know, here's I just put this fragrance on. What do you think? And I get that stare, kind of like you're talking about with your own family, where they're looking at me like what the hell? And so, yeah, so that's, that's why I love this.

Speaker 1 59:26

Well, it's good for all of us. I think, right To kind of keep things in check and take stock right and be exposed to new ideas. We're very lucky we have this. I think there's a lot to be learned every week with our guests. But you know, to kind of trace it back to story and tie everything together.

Speaker 1 59:46

You know I have always said I'm not political, I don't have that ship, I'm not militant about the change I wish to make in the world In terms of LGBTQ tolerance. I've done it through my example as a great uncle to 22 nieces and nephews One, I hope, right as a good son, as a good brother. I've really just hoped my example was enough and I make my difference through my art. So I do think I've had incredible patience over the years and some would say I've been complacent and lackadaisical about it and I should be more militant. It's not popular in the gay community. Right To coexist with Republicans as much as I have my entire adult life. I should have said right-wingers, but anyway. But what's happening is I am definitely tooled for this shit at 56. And my patience is slipping. But what I do these days because again I don't have time for any of it is. I do have two ministers in my family and thank God I love them and I don't think they're preaching anything that really hurts my peeps too much.

Speaker 1 1:00:55

Right, but online I do have one family member that posts some pretty damaging stuff and I do think it's a nuanced area. It's about gender identity crises and transitioning and I think it's a very complex issue, but yet all I'm out to do is prevent suicides. I think it's a nuanced topic. So if you're talking about administering hormones and doing gender transition counseling at a tender age, I understand it's complexity. Again, all I want to do is minimize the suicide rate. So I will put this family member in his place and all I do is remind him he's got a gay uncle that can see what he's posting. That hurts my peeps. I don't say you're evil, I adore him. I don't say you're a bad person, but I remind him I have eyeballs. I'm online too. I can see what you're posting. Do with it what you will, that's. You know. What I mean that's the most militant I get is making people aware, like you said, just kind of waking them up and going I'm right here, I'm right in front of you, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:02:05

Well, and I think it is important for us to do that, and that's why it's also important to not whitewash things or censor things, or to you know.

Speaker 1 1:02:18

The way I put it was like but there's so many other battles you could be fighting. Just take your attention off of this. Why are you fixated on this issue? It'll figure it, it'll figure itself out. Well, society, just focus on. There's so many other battles you could be fighting, oh exactly and more important battles to. Well, it depends on who you're talking to, that's true.

Speaker 2 1:02:37

Yeah, again, it's perspective and it's you know, experience, you know what, what that person has experienced in their life, and I totally agree. But I definitely think it's important for us to have that awareness and the importance of understanding, the awareness of representation on all sides, and then, of course, the harmful effects that, can you know, happen with a racer.

Speaker 1 1:03:01

Well now, I'm going to trace well exactly, and I'm going to trace it back to story now by saying that is why stories important. We've said and it may be the reason that I'm not that Milton activist that I do it through my work. I think I've always innately understood Now I've put it into words after writing my book and doing a lot of research but that we do learn more in the narrative realm than the didactic Right. Persuasion only goes so far. Most people will dig their heels in and confirm their biases at all costs when it comes to especially right, divisive political topics. But if you can touch their hearts you're more likely to change their minds. So that's my way of bringing it back to story.

Speaker 2 1:03:45

Oh, I absolutely agree. I definitely think that is so true that when you can touch the heart and the mind, it just helps to reinforce the importance of you know facing things that can be uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 1:04:00

Yeah, and especially if you spend 350 pages identifying with a protagonist, right, then you're going to find your empathy and your compassion and, as we said earlier, there's many studies that show tolerance for the other that you might not otherwise nurture in yourself is available through reading about other cultures, especially in literary fiction, apparently, and not so much commercial fiction. So all those outcomes are very well documented. Anyway, I don't know if we're off track, but we can kind of bring it to a close. Let's put a, if you don't mind, a little bow, absolutely, because we've lumped well on the idea of whitewashing and revisionist history and silencing and erasing, and then we'll end with AI. I think we agreed that there can be some commendable motivations for wanting to retell history, especially in education, with a little filter. But if it does have an agenda and I think you're excusing some things by saying they're unexamined I think you're going to always find a gamut of people that are, like, very conscious about silencing and erasing certain populations.

Speaker 1 1:05:15

I can tell you that the Bush administration said the gay community was one percent of the population, because it was a very good way of minimizing our political interests marriage, equality, adoption, all the things that were being deprived of. If we're one percent of the population, does it really demand that much attention? Same with the AIDS crisis. It took five years for Reagan to utter the word AIDS into his presidency, and then the funding was even further delayed. So it's really conscious sometimes in certain administrations to silence and erase, because it minimizes these hot topics and takes them off the front burner. But I do think so. Maybe if it's aspirational, it has a place. But then if it's some form of denial that's based on willingly putting your head in the sand or sweeping things under the carpet because it's more comfortable for you, or if it's based in white privilege and you just are lucky enough to not have to wear the moccasins, then maybe that's a disservice. Does that make sense?

Evolution of Storytelling and History

Speaker 2 1:06:27

Oh, I absolutely agree. I think you know. So I was watching the show with my daughter. They were talking about the Vietnam War and that's exactly the term that was used by the American happened to be white mouse.

Speaker 1 1:06:46

Sorry, which term.

Speaker 2 1:06:47

Vietnam War.

Speaker 1 1:06:49

Okay, what are we supposed to call it?

Speaker 2 1:06:51

Well, he was talking to somebody who was from Vietnam.

Speaker 1 1:06:54

So who's the Vietnamese? Sorry, that was loud, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 1:06:57

I know you're fine and you're fine to laugh because you're going oh well, that takes the context of spin and that's why I was taking my time to explain that, because it was like, well, why wouldn't you call it that? Well, the Vietnamese turned to him and said we call it the American War, and it made me stop on my tracks.

Speaker 1 1:07:13

Oh true.

Speaker 2 1:07:16

Why would they call it the Vietnam War? If they're in Vietnam, they wouldn't call it that.

Speaker 1 1:07:19

It's kind of like is Chinese food really Chinese food in China, or is it just food?

Speaker 2 1:07:24

Exactly, and so that's, and the reason why I bring that up is it goes right to what you're talking about. If it makes us feel comfortable, then maybe we need to look at it and go. Maybe this isn't the type of censorship we should be doing if it's putting our head in the sand, right Exactly in doing that and not, you know, wearing, as you like to say, the moccasins and taking another look at it.

Speaker 1 1:07:50

Yeah, I think it's a great example of cultural relativity, right, but it also really makes you aware. I mean, history is written by the winners and everything's got a slant to it. I visited Masada when I was working in Jerusalem. I visited Masada. Do you know about Masada? It was the final stronghold of the zealots. I don't.

Speaker 2 1:08:11

I'm not, it was.

Speaker 1 1:08:12

Herod's summer home. Right, it's pretty amazing for a summer home and it's built on a big plateau like a precipice. But the zealots took it over and then it took the Romans like four months to build up wraps to get up there and basically slaughter everyone. But literally the story the Romans chose to tell because back then it denigrated the Jews to tell the story this way. But there actually were survivors. There were a couple zealots that survived and told a very different story and the Romans said, oh, we slaughtered them. And then the survivors said, no, every man killed his children and his wife and then himself, because God forbid they go back into slavery. After thousands of years, or however many, being enslaved by the Egyptians, they would do anything to not go back into slavery. And then even Cleopatra, Like it served patriarchy to just call her a whore, and manipulate whore at that.

Speaker 2 1:09:13

And it's like now we're reframing her right.

Speaker 1 1:09:16

And now, she did it for her children. Who can argue with that?

Speaker 2 1:09:19

Right, Well, and it shows that you can have which again when you're talking about the matriarchy versus patriarchy aspect. Now, obviously, sometimes either one can be overplayed, but she was a very strong woman.

Speaker 1 1:09:36

She was one of the most well-educated leaders, male or female right, she took the time to learn the Ptolemy language. Yeah, she was a force to be reckoned with, but at that time it was like, well, we can't have that Exactly.

Speaker 2 1:09:51

So they downplayed her and I mean and I'm not saying that we should over, I'm not saying that having a star woman is a bad thing, but I definitely think you could overplay it too, just like anything. So it's again, it's that balance.

Speaker 1 1:10:05

Well, again, maybe it's not revisionist history, maybe we're correcting in some cases.

Speaker 2 1:10:10

Right.

Speaker 1 1:10:11

So if we're tearing down statues because it triggers certain people in the South, that is actually a respectable thing to do because we're glorifying the wrong things, in that case Right. But maybe I mean I know some of it's in the eye of the beholder right. But if we're literally changing the way in which education is taking place or the way knowledge is being imparted in public school, it just can't have a political agenda behind it.

Speaker 2 1:10:42

No, I agree it needs. Yeah, there's a place for politics and there's a place for it not to be, and I definitely think it. You know you can't say it has to be totally out of artistic value, because obviously then you're censoring on whitewashing and erasing some things of history too. But again, it's having that balance and trying to find that balance and having respect and sensitivity, and it's a hard thing to do, it's a very hard thing to do.

Speaker 1 1:11:15

So if we're going to come to a close here and just talk about, you know, the future of storytelling and what does that look like? I just want to make a case a little bit that when we talk about both AI and this trend toward and we haven't even really said it clearly yet, but when everybody's walking on eggshells and I guess you can't even say politically correct anymore, but when everyone is so concerned with not triggering or facing a lawsuit or being canceled right as a comedian, then the art suffers.

Speaker 1 1:11:46

I have my go-pressions Right, yeah, right. Well, the art suffers and I think comedians are very clear about how their act you know what I mean doesn't fly the way it used to. And so I just think, if art is there to provoke and literature is there to provoke and publishers on our very own show have come out and said we have these regulations and these boundaries for our readers, under the guise right of not missing out on a potential readership at some point, where is the provocative function of art in creating that cognitive dissonance? Where are those crucibles or crises or crossroads that are begging to be resolved for the patron? And you know what I mean? Then, societally, where is the evolution?

Speaker 1 1:12:35

So, if we're going to talk about the future of storytelling, I just want to quickly again make the case with AI, because I actually have hope, believe it or not, I have hope about the future. But the big arguments, I think the big fears surrounding AI are I share them, by the way are basically, you know a lot of again during the actress strike ah, you guys are a dime a dozen. We can cobble together scripts. Well, I'm not so sure they're going to cobble together scripts that resemble stories. They may resemble content, and there's a lot of vacuous content out there. Right On Instagram, you've got shirtless guys bench pressing cats, you've got chicks and yoga pants right reaching for that bottom drawer, and I think the public has actually lost sight of the difference between transformative story and vacuous content. I'm putting this in really extreme terms, but I don't know if the public, even with all this streaming content too, what is a good story? What is the difference between cinema or art house films or independent films or foreign films from the white lotus?

Speaker 1 1:13:44

I felt dirty. I started streaming and binge watching in a sing right, like in two sittings. I would binge watch entire seasons and I gained a real appreciation for episodic writing. Actually, I think it's an art and I really came to appreciate it. I also felt dirty. I felt like holy crap, have I forgotten what story is? Sure, there's a cliffhanger. Sure, I'm addicted.

Speaker 1 1:14:09

And I got to come with a bop, bop, bop. Right, I got to watch the next episode and the next one. That formula is airtight. But you know what? I stopped recognizing the difference and all I could come to was like what do I love about an actual cinematic experience? Forget the popcorn, forget the communal experience of taking it in with right, others whose brainwaves are synchronizing with mine, whose heartbeat, right, is synchronizing with mine. Forget about the communal aspect, which does, by the way, serve our proliferation. I was like, hmm, the cinematography is different, the compositions are funkier and less conservative. But that's just technique, that's just form. Maybe it's not as clever. I started fearing in my own writing that the metaphor wasn't enough, that the thematic content wasn't enough, because it wasn't clever. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 1:15:03

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:15:04

Like it didn't have a plot twist, it didn't have a cliffhanger. So I started feeling really dirty, Like I had even lost sight of what an art film is. If I wrote a screenplay, would I feel like it was enough or would I feel like it needed to be more savvy and clever in terms of technique? So I do need to go out and see a really good art film that transforms every now and then to get my gauge back, if that makes sense. So how can I expect 22-year-olds who've been raised in social media confused about what constitutes reality because they've been raised right, we're offering 300 people in interactive video games and having to objectify them right and to sort of compartmentalize. They've been raised on reality shows which are the furthest thing from reality. They've been raised watching content that is solely out to sell product. Have you ever watched like a daytime show? I love Drew Barrymore. I love Kelly Clarkson. I love what's going on in dates. I love that there's more women in daytime TV now.

Speaker 1 1:16:09

But, frankly, you watch the talk and you don't even. Are they selling something to me right now when they have that guest on to do the cooking segment? Are they selling me something when they have right that makeup woman on to show? They try to pass it off as entertainment, but they're just moving product. How can a 22-year-old know the difference?

Speaker 2 1:16:29

Yeah, especially when they're in a data talk constantly with every because they do. They have walking talking little, I guess don't technically walk, but they walk because they're their back pockets cell phones, these old mini computers that they're constantly getting that kind of stuff from.

Speaker 1 1:16:47

I don't think they know the difference. If you're an influencer and you're just moving product that is entertaining, it serves as content, but they don't even know they're missing out on story. I'm putting it in extreme terms but, I, worry about that.

Speaker 2 1:17:03

And I'm going to use a very simplistic way of how I word it. When I am in a moment where I just need to, I want entertainment, but I don't want to have to think and have it be thought-provoking to make me uncomfortable. I call it mindless entertainment.

Speaker 1 1:17:22

Trust me, I've got my guilty pleasures. I love mindless entertainment. I like feel-good stuff. Lately I'll rewatch Sex and the City from the 90s because I just feel good. So anyway, that is kind of poignant. By the way, it makes a social commentary. It's not mindless, but trust me, I've got my comfort foods and I'm not against that. But I do think maybe the gauge is what I'm worried about what is feeding addiction to cortisol on adrenaline, what is transforming me and what is just titillating me? I mean, really there's a lot of TNA in social media, to the point where, just in terms of attention span, right, yeah, if it Sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 2 1:18:07

I was just saying well, I guess what goes to my mind from what you're saying. It's like I think those things lack the soul and the nuances of what it means to be a human being, the stories of what makes us a human being.

Speaker 1 1:18:21

I think there's a reason people dismiss pornography as less than art. There's a reason. It's a base drive. It's too easy, right, it's a base. We'll be stuck behind our computer which is also known as a porn box all day, every day, and we wouldn't get out and do anything. We wouldn't have sent a rocket into space, right? I'm not really conservative now, but I don't think we would have done anything if we were left to our base drives all day, every day, and just served the pleasure principle.

Speaker 2 1:18:49

Exactly yeah, yeah, you're honestly right.

Speaker 1 1:18:54

Here's another silver lining, just to wrap it up. I mean, tell me if you feel the same way. But if it's true what these executives have to say, oh my God, I'm going to start over. If it's true what these executives put out there that screenwriters are a dime a dozen, they have no special line to divinity or the creative process, we can cobble together a script. I've gone out on a limb and said they can create content, but maybe not story that transforms. But if it's true that our jobs can be replaced by bots, right, then what hope is there? What currency or value or relevance can we attach to inspiration, to story? With AI, it's become very clear to me because I finally gave up my resistance, I've dipped the toe in the water. Maybe later I'll go into detail about how I'm getting comfortable with its use as a tool, nothing more. Not as inspiration, not as the driving force behind any collaborative project or product, but as a tool to be used. And I'm getting there. Until then, what does the future look like?

Speaker 1 1:20:01

My one hope is that some currency will be returned to archival work, because AI is mostly digital. So galleries have always known you've got to use archival link, you've got to use acid-free paper so it'll stand the test of time. People that are, I mean, in the fine art world still understand the value of something archival and durable that will stand the test of time. I'm thinking the mainstream will come back around to embracing that. There is a movement of people that want hand-drawn animation as opposed to CG Right, so maybe that will happen and maybe there will be a nudge. So people do get smarter about what is vacuous content and what actually has that elusive literary value and they'll start looking for it. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 1:20:50

Yeah, no, I think we're starting to slowly see that. I think it's because our technology boom and us as a human race. Our world's got small very quickly because of technology. Yes, so we moved.

Speaker 1 1:21:12

Well, it's ironic because it's both. It gave us interconnectivity you can reach somebody all halfway across the world and yet it isolated us, because we're just glued to our screen and our bed.

Speaker 2 1:21:26

Yeah, that's the thing. I mean it's no different than the Industrial Revolution. I mean it was a great thing, everybody got on board. It was very progressive. But, as we know, as time went on, we started realizing the pollutions and all the other negativities that come with it. So I think it's just going to take time with this. I think we're starting to see that shift. I always say everything's like on a pendulum. Everything swings from left to right, and so it.

Speaker 1 1:21:51

Well. The only thing I would add to that, though, is because I think it's really easy to say, oh, you know, with AI, I've heard plenty of artists say, oh, when Photoshop came out, people had the same worries, right. I think the stakes are higher, right, and so I agree you adapt or die. You can't slow the march of technology anyway. You've got to figure out a way to coexist with it, and the bottom line is you can't stop it, and so I do hope humans will continue to be human, but when you look at things like exploitation of resources for the almighty dollar and you look at climate change, the stakes really are life or death, according to some right, and so if you believe AI will be our overlords, right, and that there is a very real threat and I'm being a little facetious then we do need to diagnose in order to create that future that we see. So I'm looking for this overlining, and I am the eternal optimist, but I don't think it's over.

Speaker 1 1:22:55

I think it's too easy to say well, aristotle talked about teenagers. Today, in the march of technology, and every society has seen the apocalypse right around the corner. Every society thinks it's the end of the world. I know that. Even so, I think the stakes are very real with AI, if that makes sense, my livelihood is gone. I mean 20 years ago I said what the hell did? I pay at that time $45,000 a year to go to school for whenever everybody's an ethnographic designer now?

Speaker 2 1:23:28

Right.

Speaker 1 1:23:29

Our degrees are worthless pieces of paper because now everybody's an ethnographic designer. You can make a film in your garage and it can get distribution in a good way right. There's no longer a monopoly on publishing because you have indie publishing. There's no longer a monopoly on film distribution because you can literally make a film in your garage with high production values. These are all good things, but I'm just saying I think the stakes are higher because entire industries are shifting in animation and even live action filmmaking. Across the board, hundreds of jobs are on the brink not yet, but on the brink of being eliminated.

Speaker 2 1:24:10

Oh no, I hear you and I believe you, and that's what I was saying. I wasn't trying to minimize by any, oh no, I'm just letting you know. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 1:24:21

I'm trying to roll with the punches and I'm not invested in it. I'm finding my own alternatives, but I feel bad for some of my colleagues and friends that do have mouths to feed and they got to put a roof over heads and they're terrified. They really are.

Speaker 2 1:24:36

And I don't blame them. I mean, that was a big thing for me because, even though I am doing the mental health thing like, I still love writing and I wrote in children's in the adult genre and that's something that I put on the back burner for a while and I still work on stuff but I'm not actively, obviously, published sheet right now because I'm focusing over here on my studies and I really am concerned as somebody who wants to write and I'm like and I'd love to write books of mental health. But what does that mean for me? Because of AI, you know, same thing.

Speaker 1 1:25:07

Well, I'm gonna go back to. I mean, you seem to like some of the when you were talking about our podcast episodes just for our listeners.

Speaker 1 1:25:17

I'll just be very transparent about it. I've told you right before we started this like I'm blown away by how convincing some of the descriptions of our episodes are. It's very savvy marketing language. It's sexy, as the way I put it, very sexy language and very appealing and actually technically sometimes well written. But there's an element of randomness to it that I can't quite put my finger on and I call it word salad or kitchen magnet poetry. And that's because there isn't an intense behind it, there's not a driving thought behind it, there's not an inspiration behind it. So I always have to majorly correct those descriptions. It is getting better and it'll continue to get better. I still don't think it can master humor or spontaneity, I promise you that.

Speaker 1 1:26:06

It can't manage cultural relativity or whether something's gonna land cerebrally, viscerally or emotionally. So far only humans can become masters at what's culturally relative, what's universal, what's subjective, what lands right in the viscera or again in the head or the heart. It may get there, but right now I'm sorry. I can smell AI writing a mile away. It offends me. I'm being really extreme right now.

Speaker 2 1:26:35

No, no, and you should be, and I totally agree with you because it can't do those nuances. I think you hit it perfectly when you're saying as a tool, that's its place, as a tool To execute a concept that's hopefully driven by something the universe demands through inspiration.

Speaker 1 1:26:54

Right, and that's why it's very real, like on an animation crew of 500 people, if you've got a single storyteller with a strong vision, unfortunately it's still gotta be a directing by committee mentality because you've got stockholders to please. Unfortunately it's still gonna require a huge crew that hopefully shares your vision, but it's collaborative by nature. So, yeah, you can eliminate a bunch of jobs and let AI do it, and it makes perfect sense in terms of cost efficiency, but one hopes the person telling the story is still a human Right invested in our evolution.

Speaker 2 1:27:32

Yeah, I see AI as a very static. It just doesn't, you know, it's just very like you said there's no emotion, there's no inspiration, there's no human nuance to it, and so-.

Speaker 1 1:27:50

It's disturbing to me just in it's. I don't wanna say the wrong word here, but it's not very mature or sophisticated. I'm trying to avoid the word. It starts with an R. It just seems like it's got a lot to learn.

Speaker 2 1:28:10

Yeah, it's an infant. It's an infant. Well, there's something soft-work about it.

Speaker 1 1:28:15

if that makes sense or socially awkward, I'm so trying not to use the word.

Speaker 2 1:28:18

Yeah, I understand, is it?

Speaker 1 1:28:21

okay, okay, maybe we'll cut this out, okay, but to steer it to a close, let me ask you, and then you can ask me, maybe and I'll try not to go off on the tangent. But so, considering, I think you kind of agree that jobs are certainly in peril, if not the true nature of storytelling, as opposed to content, right, and then maybe political correctness for the moment seems to be making a little dent in the provocative nature of art or the impactfulness of art and storytelling. What is the future of storytelling, right, if we're gonna start to get smarter and figure out, hey, they're selling me product, that's just content Versus wow, wait a minute. That transcends and transforms me. Therefore, it must have that literary value. What do you? Whether it's cinema or literature, what types of stories do you see us telling, moving forward?

Navigating Cultural Sensitivity in Storytelling

Speaker 2 1:29:15

Oh yeah, yeah, I got that one. I'm hoping it'll be more diverse voices and navigating some of the cultural sensitivity with that empathy and very authentic voice to it is what I'm really hoping. That's almost at odds with sanitizing right, it is, it is at odds.

Speaker 1 1:29:44

Yeah, it's almost like a backlash. Maybe things coming to a head like this will force us.

Speaker 2 1:29:49

Yeah, and I guess the reason why I hope is for that is going back to the technology issues, because I mean which you and I are the generation of being Gen Xers, we were at the beginning of our whole technology boom and so, watching the world, that just seemed as we were younger kids like, oh my gosh, the world's so huge to see into our adulthood, like, yeah, it's big, but at the same time how tiny and small it can feel at the same time.

Speaker 1 1:30:20

That's why that's my hope, because you know, it sounds like it's about embracing the pluses and not the minuses.

Speaker 1 1:30:26

So I agree, the whole internet made us aware, right, that the world is a smaller place than ever. We have a global reach and yet it took a while to see the downside of that. So if we can, yeah, embrace the gift in it and then slowly learn, okay, but social media is damaging to teenagers. It's changing the brain stems of seven-year-olds and start maybe litigating that and actually releasing it. And you know, digital download, it was the Wild Wild West initially then they slowly realized we need to regulate this.

Speaker 1 1:31:01

That is going to happen in AI, by the way, and that's what I'm sort of part of is as an artist I'm being consulted with to find out an ethical way for artists to use it as a tool and get around those not just ethical and philosophical conversations, but some people are really fixated on. Oh my God, I spent my whole life creating a brand and an identity, and for actors it's literally my physicality, my voice, my presence, my face. I don't really care so much about that. I'm more invested in what is inspiration, what is the human element. But do you know what I mean? Like I think we're on the cusp of again. If AI just scrapes the entire internet and it sort of can steal from you, me and Joe blow equally, we're going to get to the point where the watermarks on the artwork do you know what I mean Are going to be really prohibitive, and maybe the same with somebody's voice capture or their likeness, hopefully. So again, embracing the good but maybe regulating or litigating the bad parts.

Speaker 2 1:32:10

Oh yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 1:32:13

I definitely see that I like what you said about the types of stories we're going to tell.

Speaker 2 1:32:19

Yeah, but yeah, and then that's because I definitely see this movie again with caution to more of a global society versus the way our societies have been now. I mean, we're definitely becoming globalizations it's a real thing but it does have to have some of those critical aspects of caution with it. What do you see as the cautionary tale or the positives toward, basically, voices being amplified?

Speaker 1 1:32:59

Well, to dovetail off something you just said, I think it's related there is a real push toward nationalism as well. I don't think that's a surprise to anyone, right? So the past few years we've had a real push. I mean, a lot of most powerful nations right now are fascist in my opinion, but really a push toward isolation and nationalism, and I can't argue with that. We've got to stop exporting right All of our work and we've got to start relying on our internal resources and I think, especially with the food chain, there is nothing wrong with buying locally and supporting local farmers and that sort of thing. So I think we'll strike that balance of where can we be international, or what did you call it A global right In our mentality? Where can we tell all the stories and realize we're just interconnected and embrace that interconnectivity? When can we recognize the entire tapestry of humanity will be our savior, but then maybe focusing on grassroots efforts where it makes sense and where it boosts our economy, more, that sort of thing. But in terms of what types of stories we will tell? Like I said, I guess I hope some currency value relevancy is returned to archival artwork is the way I put it and maybe a recognition of the conceptual component in art as opposed to content. And then with story, yeah, I just hope again, people, it's really on the public to get smarter about this. There have always been elitists right that are immersed in the art world. There's always been elitists immersed in the publishing realm and the literary realm. The public needs to get smarter, right. So if there was always the rare record label that was willing to support a Tori Amos or a Kate Bush, despite never having a number one hit right, despite never having a top 40 hit, because they literally recognized art for art's sake, there were publishers that would float an extremely non-commercial artist because of art for art's sake, literature for literature's sake, even in journalism and broadcasting. I've seen it very clearly in my lifetime.

Speaker 1 1:35:28

Since you're talking about the changes during our own lifetime, there was a time when journalists would self-regulate and they had what was called ethics. I remember the moment when it was like oh no, we gotta be the first one to get the story out. Whether we fact check or not, we gotta get that story. So they all are getting the same feed right About the same hot topic and they will overlook ethics in order to get the story out without checking their facts, not to mention with the as much as I love CNN and MSNBC and Al Jazeera and Fox, and you're getting all the flavors they all have a daddy. And so, once upon a time, the word journalism implied impartiality, right Implied unbiased reporting. It is the complete opposite now.

Speaker 2 1:36:14

Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 1:36:14

So, in all those areas, it's on the public to get smarter. Not just about watching right KFI, which is extremely, or listening to KFI, which is conservative, and then listening to NPR, which is very left-wing, and then deciding for themselves, but actually realizing okay, more than ever, everybody has a daddy, not just people that are earmarking funds or having their pet projects or even lobbying right To get the favor of politicians. But I don't know. That's why we're doing our podcast, isn't it? Making people aware of the stories they're internalizing completely on examine and starting to question them.

Speaker 2 1:36:53

Right Analyzing, there's so many different ways to look at something. It's interesting going back to didactic thought process. So I actually saw a meme on that exact thing and you had a green mug with liquid in it and on one side of the mug, of course, is the handle. On the other side of the mug would be the front of the mug that had white writing, and one person's looking toward the handle viewpoint and the other one's looking at where the writing's at. And so when they were describing the mug, one said it's a green mug with liquid in it and white writing and the other one's like no, it's just a green mug with liquid in it, because they couldn't see the white writing. And it was kind of an interesting meme. It made me stop and kind of think a little bit about perspectives.

Speaker 1 1:37:41

Perspective right. Well, bruce Lipton, we can wrap this up. I keep saying that We'll wrap it up, but Bruce Lipton has a great study that he cites in his book, the Biology of Belief. I'm not gonna get exactly right, but it was similar. He shows a film and half the students are wearing red canceling glasses and the other are wearing like a green canceling glasses, and so they're watching the same film and, literally, words appear the complete opposite. I'm botching it, but they walk away with completely different interpretations of the film based on the glasses they're wearing and it just kind of says, it all yeah, so.

Speaker 1 1:38:24

All right. Well, thank you, I think it was stimulating and I don't know. I think we gotta have hope as storytellers that there will be some relevance and significance attached to storytelling moving forward.

Speaker 2 1:38:40

Yeah, and I look forward to seeing what stories we have in the future and how it shapes our understanding of ourselves, of the world, and hopefully decisions we make today will put that in a positive light, not a negative light, cause you know, obviously everything we do now works toward the future, it shapes it.

Speaker 1 1:39:02

Yeah, and again, it does feel dire some days. You know the stakes seem pretty high. So if storytelling is the main, that's overall premise, it's the most powerful means by which we transform. And maybe we need to, yeah, really be conscious about the types of stories we're telling, not propaganda, not didactic per se. Did you happen to see? Don't Look Up.

Speaker 2 1:39:25

I have not, but I it's.

Speaker 1 1:39:27

Meryl Streep. It's the one about literally nobody's looking up at climate change. Yeah, they're looking at their phones, right? So that's very much. It's a great, you know, it's very entertaining and it's a great movie, but I guess, by definition, it's propaganda, so I'm not about that. I need, I think we need to keep telling nuanced stories that might provoke and aren't always, you know, politically correct or they don't always have an agenda behind them, but I think just anything but vacuous content that's out to sell products, I'd be happy with that.

Speaker 2 1:40:01

I would too. I second that I'm good with that one.

Speaker 1 1:40:05

Okay. Well, thank you so much and thanks for putting so much time in. And to our listeners I will say remember, life is story and we can get our hands in the clay individually and collectively. We can tell our own story. See you next time.