Hungry For Ideas
Once upon a time there was a giant pleasure cruise ship called the Entertainment Industry. It sailed along quite happily for many years when suddenly, totally without warning of any sort or anything, it was sunk by pirates. As it went down, all the various entertainment media jumped in the only lifeboat the ship had, and so it was that in short order they found themselves in the middle of a vast, empty sea.
As you might expect, they wasted no time in trying to decide which of them was going to eat the others in order to survive.
"I should cannibalize the rest of you," said the Movies, "because I am epic and grand, the very epitome of modern entertainment. I bring big laughs and big drama to millions of hearts every week, which is a very expensive proposition that needs a constant stream of ideas. So I'll eat all the rest of you so that I can keep putting out blockbuster hits."
But the other media were quick to point out that the Movies were a whole lot more expensive for not really any better creativity. Why, movies could eat everything in sight and only buy itself one or two more opening weekends. When did it get so fat? Maybe the Movies should lose a whole lot of weight, get some healthy exercise of those storytelling muscles, before it tried to lay any claims.
Next up, Reality TV spoke: "I should cannibalize the rest of you," it said, "because I am the opposite of the Movies. I'm not a ravenous consumer of budgets; I'm lean and cheap and I practically write myself. I don't even have to eat all of you right now. I could last for a long, long time just nibbling bits off you here and there. I can surely survive and maybe not even have to kill all the rest of you off. Just some."
But the other media were quick to point out that Reality TV had a funny way of turning everything into the Same Thing… that no matter how rich and varied the potential material was, it inevitably all turned into the same stupid-ass confessionals and faked-up conflicts and a lot of throwing and screaming about superficialities and a weird and frankly unhealthy obsession with nightvision footage.
Then Video Games made its case: "I should cannibalize the rest of you," it announced, "because I am the new hotness and the rest of you are old and busted. I'm interactive, I can be cooperative or competitive, I can be updated, I can have downloadable bonus content. I'm the future and the rest of you are the past, and since that's the case, we should make sure I'm well-fed for the future. You've all had your run, now it's my turn."
But the other media were quick to point out that there were really only a few kinds of games anymore, mostly just first-person shooters, and how are you going to tell any sort of story other than "the dude hero shoots all the bad guys" in a first-person shooter? Also, Video Games hadn't really demonstrated any interest at all in gathering a female audience, so why should the other media give their lives to a format that was only for half the human race at most?
Then, suddenly, everyone got the same bright idea at the same time: "Hey, we should all cannibalize comic books!" It was a foolproof plan. Comics were a remarkably versatile medium that could support the dietary needs of almost anything else. They could be as literate as prose, as visual as film, as cheap as reality TV. They provided conflict for games but also had a better hit rate with the ladies than the games normally had, so maybe there was room for growth there. There was an enormous untapped mine of existing material out there to work with, all of it largely predigested in manageable chunks with visual homework already mapped out in advance. In short, comics were the perfect survival food for everything else.
So perfect, of course, that they'd already been cannibalizing it for years. But that didn't stop them from setting upon what was left, there in the corner of the lifeboat just trying to stay alive a little bit longer. Hooray, comics! Today is your lucky day! You're being noticed! They like you! They really, really like you! Now hold still and don't fight back too hard.
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For consideration: all entertainment is an ouroboros anyway and has been since the time of Hammurabi
As you might expect, they wasted no time in trying to decide which of them was going to eat the others in order to survive.
"I should cannibalize the rest of you," said the Movies, "because I am epic and grand, the very epitome of modern entertainment. I bring big laughs and big drama to millions of hearts every week, which is a very expensive proposition that needs a constant stream of ideas. So I'll eat all the rest of you so that I can keep putting out blockbuster hits."
But the other media were quick to point out that the Movies were a whole lot more expensive for not really any better creativity. Why, movies could eat everything in sight and only buy itself one or two more opening weekends. When did it get so fat? Maybe the Movies should lose a whole lot of weight, get some healthy exercise of those storytelling muscles, before it tried to lay any claims.
Next up, Reality TV spoke: "I should cannibalize the rest of you," it said, "because I am the opposite of the Movies. I'm not a ravenous consumer of budgets; I'm lean and cheap and I practically write myself. I don't even have to eat all of you right now. I could last for a long, long time just nibbling bits off you here and there. I can surely survive and maybe not even have to kill all the rest of you off. Just some."
But the other media were quick to point out that Reality TV had a funny way of turning everything into the Same Thing… that no matter how rich and varied the potential material was, it inevitably all turned into the same stupid-ass confessionals and faked-up conflicts and a lot of throwing and screaming about superficialities and a weird and frankly unhealthy obsession with nightvision footage.
Then Video Games made its case: "I should cannibalize the rest of you," it announced, "because I am the new hotness and the rest of you are old and busted. I'm interactive, I can be cooperative or competitive, I can be updated, I can have downloadable bonus content. I'm the future and the rest of you are the past, and since that's the case, we should make sure I'm well-fed for the future. You've all had your run, now it's my turn."
But the other media were quick to point out that there were really only a few kinds of games anymore, mostly just first-person shooters, and how are you going to tell any sort of story other than "the dude hero shoots all the bad guys" in a first-person shooter? Also, Video Games hadn't really demonstrated any interest at all in gathering a female audience, so why should the other media give their lives to a format that was only for half the human race at most?
Then, suddenly, everyone got the same bright idea at the same time: "Hey, we should all cannibalize comic books!" It was a foolproof plan. Comics were a remarkably versatile medium that could support the dietary needs of almost anything else. They could be as literate as prose, as visual as film, as cheap as reality TV. They provided conflict for games but also had a better hit rate with the ladies than the games normally had, so maybe there was room for growth there. There was an enormous untapped mine of existing material out there to work with, all of it largely predigested in manageable chunks with visual homework already mapped out in advance. In short, comics were the perfect survival food for everything else.
So perfect, of course, that they'd already been cannibalizing it for years. But that didn't stop them from setting upon what was left, there in the corner of the lifeboat just trying to stay alive a little bit longer. Hooray, comics! Today is your lucky day! You're being noticed! They like you! They really, really like you! Now hold still and don't fight back too hard.
------
For consideration: all entertainment is an ouroboros anyway and has been since the time of Hammurabi