4. Cinema Talk (America and the Sitcom) Pt. 1
We're now looking at things that are being digitally shown to us through an Internet stream. And when you see these type of cultural changes, where people now can control when and where they watch their shows, how they get to respond to the shows, they themselves can create content based on the shows, how we consume narratives, how we see narratives, and how we feel about narratives have completely changed. And that's one of the topics that I would like to discuss about the American sitcom
And when you are talking about these different sitcoms and the different swells that you've done, I've listened to them in reverse order. It was neat and tidy. But it also challenged us if we were uncomfortable, there wasn't necessarily many other options. So you sort of stuck with it. And it makes me think of people talk about resilience, but if you don't allow children to stumble, fall, challenge themselves, they can't develop resilience
And because of that, it's kind of hard to connect to a show, embody what the show has to say and form a relationship with the media. Because if there's no investment to keep it, and this is nothing more than consumer demand, that's it supply and demand, and if they're not demanding it in your eyes the way you want them to, you get rid of it. Ideally, that's not really a show, that's a product
Okay, I want to come back to this. You brought up a phrase, a word I was not familiar with although I think I have the gist of it, or at least Harvey. Harvey observed it, but didn't have a name for it and that's the Liberalism Segregation. But I want to read up on it. And today I'm fighting a migraine. Although the pain has subsided after my doses of medication screen reading is not an option today
So when you see something like Father Knows Best and you see something like Leave it to Beaver or whatever, ozzy and Harriet, or 1950 shows like that, I Love Lucy is a different type of concept, but particularly the suburban fantasy of the 1950s is wrapped up in segregation and the okayness of segregation. But long story short, like I said, the liberalist segregation term that I said is more so. It's a coin term that I see the city as
Anyway, I'm sort of all over here, but I think it's interesting to hear the stories that either we tell ourselves overall of what is or the stories we tell ourselves individually of what is without actually seeing what is. Because it's not simply about having space for different cultures, different maybe that encompasses all of it. It's a matter of being able to celebrate. Right. And to celebrate doesn't mean just surviving, but thriving. I e not having food deserts
And originally the show was just about a family existing in the projects. It was ended up being hijacked because I don't think he had his proper copyright and registration. And what ended up happening was, unfortunately, white writers and white producers changed it to something that was completely different. So there were a lot of people at the time who lived in the housing projects that didn't necessarily enjoy some of the representation they were getting because it wasn't satirical
Okay, that final sentence there was so poignant, and there's this sort of meta moment of that is precisely why I could not be the one, you know, talking about who does the stories and who talks about these things. It can't be someone like me to talk about stories within your communities. Right. It can't be somebody from the outside. It's like I often will talk about this more along the lines of neurotypical versus neurodivergent
Not the way I hit post. And suddenly remember the other thing I wanted to mention. I had no idea that that was the origin of the word woke. No idea. That is amazing in a not good way to see how far the word has been hijacked and how it's been, you know, visuals stretched to the limits and torn apart and to mean not even anything close. Wow. I could definitely see liberalist segregation having the same thing happen to it. Unfortunately
But the issue is that when it comes to storytelling, I don't necessarily believe that just because a person of a certain community can do a movie justice. I think there are people that live in the very environments that they write about that don't write about them properly, or they're scared to be as raw about it, or they're scared to be authentic. So they'll go around certain subjects, or they'll rely too much on a certain subject and not talk about the nuances within it
But on the other hand, if you begin to sacrifice too much, then there's a loss there. And I think you definitely need people like this particular director or the example in a conversation the other day was someone who was neurotypical but grew up in a family with a neurodivergent sibling. And so because they had this firsthand knowledge and experience, although being not neurodivergent, they can still have more insight than someone who doesn't have that front lines sort of experience
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
So it's a fascinating time period that I think when you go back and look at these shows, like Threes Company and you look at Scooby Doo and you look at Good Times at The D*** Van D*** Show, there's so many examples of satirical, parody, humor based observations that were allowed even if they offended, because, like you said, it's a resilience. It's how we move forward