Checking Off the Boxes Because We Said So
I have been conversing with others about the negative changes in the entertainment industry.
Politics, education, and entertainment are sections of our lives that have unilaterally decided to turn off onto a road many people feel is the wrong interchange to travel on.
But, it’s “inclusive.” Is it? How is it inclusive when you are excluding 95% of everyone else? You just want white heterosexual men to come and save the day!
Never said that. That is your issue, not mine. You have a grudge against white people, heterosexuals, and men. That is what you just admitted, and it is mental illness.
My dissatisfaction is about checking off the boxes. One, inclusion should include everyone and therefore should be no cancel culture. Two, excluding what works in a society automatically sets your project up for failure. Three, people are not boxes to be checked off. We have a common thread, a common story, and denying our humanity for a political agenda never ends well.
What I am reading, hearing, and seeing is this push to convert everyone to one side, one way of thinking, one checklist… a hegemony. Humanity is complex. We have a main culture with several subcultures, with fringe cultures mirroring and skirting each other and throughout our society.
I dabble in these various cultures. It’s enriching. It’s informative. It’s educational. It’s entertaining. Furthermore, it strengthens our souls and the fabric of our confluence.
What I have observed is a disreputable group stating that there can be only one culture, and it is whatever they say it is. You just have to check the boxes as we move through a mutable, unstable opinion of what the rules are directed by a small sect of society. That weakens us. That divides us. That type of gossip-mongering and bullying creates negativity toward everyone in our culture.
So what would make you believe as a creative free-spirit that I would accept such an archaic, manipulative behavioral pattern?
Just check the boxes!
That is what the Academy of Arts and Sciences would like us to do. It’s like they believe culture is a set of labels to be affixed on boxes and that in itself is how society is run. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Recently, I listened to someone on a podcast who used to work for an Academy award-winning production company. Once the boxes had to be checked to be considered, all the best scripts were thrown out to make room to check boxes off. That is a problem and why social engineering, inclusivity as a political/propaganda tool, and cancel culture are being rejected at every level of our society.
Labels are not culture. Inclusivity is not culture. Propaganda is not culture. Cancel culture is not culture. These items are what failure looks like.
People want the best of our culture to rise to the top. What is happening before our very eyes is the trivial aspects of society trying to supplant the native culture. These groups want a participation trophy. Society is rejecting the idea that a label is equal to creating actual culture.
Let’s be honest: you don’t want quality, equality, or equity. You want social engineering, or a forcing function, to be the dominant hegemony. It’s not democracy because the majority are rebuffing this power play. In a democracy, majority rules. Why aren’t you accepting what our society is saying, then?
What is the crux of the matter is that people want external validation versus internal acceptance. You haven’t accepted yourself, but you want others to accept you so that you receive that euphoric high.
That is the problem.
I am an author. I self-publish. That is fine with me. I am disabled, so being on a book tour is improbable. I have a website. I still have third parties publish my work, poetry and short fiction, in anthologies. Again, I am fine with that because I have accepted myself.
That means: I don’t compare myself to other people. No one is me. No one else has my gifts or challenges, so I do what is within my sphere because I am not in competition with anyone else, but myself.
That is how an organic cultural aspect blossoms. I do good work. My work influences other people’s work. That is success on a personal level and as part of a culture.
In contrast, this inorganic push toward “inclusivity” does not accept me as a woman, minority, or disabled person. Strange, isn’t it? Could it be that the only inclusivity that matters isn’t my physical status, but my mental one? Manipulation and emotional blackmail do not work on me as well as I believe in the freedom to express yourself within the legal boundaries of our society.
Could that be the problem? I celebrate the individual, and not the collective?
That is why I and many others see this negative transformation happening to society through our cultural institutions as a menace. This change is indicative of an inorganic, forced manipulation of the facts instead of the facts as they stand. So we aren’t being sold truth; we are being sold risk without an insurance policy.
Then, the questions become: why are you willing to subjugate other people? Why do you need control of complete strangers? Why should I have to drop everything I am doing to fulfill your dreams?
I inquire because this tendency lends itself to a person, or people, who are socio- or psycho- pathic. Imbalanced, mentally or emotionally, people should be unable to demand anything from me, or society in general.
Our society wants people who have done the work. Have you educated yourself in the arts (writing, production, and/or acting)? Have you taken business courses? Have you done an apprenticeship? What have you done to give yourself the skill set to become a leader in your chosen field?
I will happily check off those skill sets on my Curriculum Vitae because I have done the work on stage, film and in art, poetry, and writing.
Once you have a firm foundation, then you can go out into the world and fulfill your own dreams: begin a script/playwriting career and/or produce your own films/plays.
What I have experienced in the arts and sciences is temper tantrums to bully others to concede to notions that are not rooted in facts, figures, logic, or even good storytelling practices. That is not how life works. That is not how people work.
To act as if society as a whole should acquiesce to your demands because what you want to check off labels on boxes is corrupt on its face. If you have not bothered to put in the work to make a difference, to create change, then our society says: come back when you do.
If you have a great product, then people will want to buy your product. But you cannot force people to buy your product, especially if it is faulty. We want you to succeed, only if you want you to succeed. So, go out and succeed.
Checking off the boxes because we said so… is the road to failure.