The script is everything. A show or a movie floats or sinks on the strength of the script, or lack thereof.
In India there is a saying. A bad cook adds extra chili powder to everything. Mindless plot twists, and mindless use of sex and violence are often used as that extra chili powder.
There are countless movies about people falling in love. But the theme of deepening of love in an existing relationship is not much explored. How do you go deeper after you have been married 15 years? Such themes are not much explored.
Law enforcement is another perennial topic and rightly so. But law enforcement does not only struggle with those that might cross the law. Law enforcement struggles with itself, it struggles with diversity issues.
Why only law enforcement? What about commandment enforcement? The complex organizational structure of something like the Catholic Church is not any less fascinating than that of a large police department or intelligence agency.
And the four constantly intersect: human love, divine love, law enforcement, commandment enforcement.
Diversity is not just about sprinkling a few different kinds of faces on to the screen. Culture is a body of knowledge. Gender is its own culture. And gender, as we know by now, is not binary, but a spectrum, not just in society but also inside individuals. Inside every man there is a woman.
Technology changes the basic assumptions. Digitization is a huge force. For one it creates numerous fragmented markets of different sizes. Costs can go down.
Story telling is as old as humanity. Movies might be a new art form. But not story telling. Art speaks to society. Society speaks to art. Movies as an art medium are uniquely positioned to help humanity make progress on race and gender issues. I am talking social science fiction.
A better actor can better respond to the script but an actor can not rise above the script.
In the post 9/11 era intelligence agencies from different countries with fundamentally different languages and cultures have tried to collaborate. But pre 9/11 the two major intelligence agencies in this very country acted like they were in different countries.
Cultural diversity is not just skin pigments. Were that so it would be so much easier. Diversity is primarily sociology. You can have everyone speak English and try to cover it up, but it does not go that way.
This is now the era of global movie making where you confront diversity head on. You actually immerse into the different cultures in their natural settings across continents. Stereotyping falls flat. Intellectual laziness falls flat. The texture of diversity is real.
God has decided to come into mainstream movies and music, big time.
