www.hollywoodreporter.com: In 2022, the drought in the Czech Republic was so severe that the Elbe River receded to reveal a rock along the bank with an inscription chiseled in 1417. It read, Wenn du mich siehst, dann weine. If you see me, then weep. Such warnings, found throughout Europe, are known as Hunger Stones.
4 comments:
I agree with Joel Stein’s sentiment that media oversaturation is a major threat to the film and television industries right now. Historically, entertainment has gradually shifted towards shorter-and-shorter form content—and that content has become increasingly eye-catching. Audiences would much rather sit through a 90-minute jukebox musical than five acts of Hamlet. People used to worry that relatively short YouTube videos would become a threat to 30-minute episodes of television, but even those have become long-winded when compared to 30-second TikTok clips. Even without TikTok, no audience could hope to keep up with the amount of shows and movies being pumped out by streaming services. Network television was more-or-less accessible, but subscribing to a dozen different Netflix clones just to keep up with what’s new is unrealistic and expensive. I don’t think the film and television industries are on the verge of collapse by any means, but I do believe that the streaming “bubble” will inevitably deflate in the next few years.
This article poses an incredibly interesting view point on a problem that is slowly growing throughout the entertainment industry. I agree with many of the points brought up in this article such as the ever-shortening attention span of the public but I also think it ignores people's need to tell and hear stories. Many people use short form content to tell small stories but many are hard to connect with and become invested in. Long form content has been trying to become similar to its short form counterpart and that's what I believe is truly dragging the industry down. Less people are concerned with the unique stories being told and are more interested in numbers. This could be the cause of the warning signs mentioned in the article but I feel like we stand in a time that we could shift the industry to be kinder and more accepting of everyone's stories.
Even if ‘their parents were right’ and pursuing writing as a career (whether that be in journalism or then switching to entertainment writing), and now people with this career are suffering certain consequences as a result of a shifting industry, I still don’t believe that they are without a set of rights that their employers owe to them for their labor and ideas. Sudden layoffs and shifty business decisions to reduce costs purely at the expense of their employees (attempting to replace writers with AI, using their writing to train AI, etc.) ought to be fought against to protect the still important work of crafting meaningful narratives with intention and with accountability. As we shift further and further from writers rooms and more into AI, stories will become more expendable, something to quickly react to and decide whether or not to produce instead of something that we weigh as that which has the capacity to make people reflect and look at the world a little differently.
This article really struck me because it reminded me how fragile creative industries like television and publishing have become. The comparison to hunger stones really got to me, the idea of a warning left too long until it’s too late. When the author mentioned how perks like Snapple or Christmas gifts disappeared, I thought about how industries that used to thrive on valuing people are fading by the minute.
It frustrates me because it’s as if art is losing its soul. These changes in budgets, smaller writers’ rooms, and fewer long-term contracts make me question how anyone can feel secure in this industry anymore.
The part about young people struggling to watch movies really resonated with me. I think because of things like Letterboxd, people have started to get a lot more into watching movies, but still, attention spans shrink, and it makes me wonder what that means for storytelling in the future.
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