Artistic Entrepreneurship & Technology 101 Advice for Disney

The following was published in the OC Regsiter:


Orange Grove: Don't vote Tom off the island
Linking to literary classics smarter strategy than playing off 'Pirates'
By ELLIOT MCGUCKEN


"If Disney film execs have their way, a 'Pirates of the Caribbean'-themed attraction reportedly will take over Tom Sawyer Island – a Disneyland playground designed by Walt Disney himself.

"The Disney watchdog Web site, miceage.com, reported Wednesday that the island, which began in 1956, will be updated. Disneyland officials refused to confirm or deny the news."

– The Orange County Register, Oct. 4, 2006

If the Walt Disney Co. has any long-term interest in the health of the box office and Hollywood's bottom line or in leading a renaissance in video games with greater emotional depth and a cultural revival where plot trumps spectacle, it will keep Disneyland's Tom Sawyer Island as "Tom Sawyer Island." If Disney has any interest in serving the long-term wealth of its shareholders, it will look to build more upon rock-solid literary foundations such as Mark Twain, rather than the shifting pop-culture sands of "The Pirates of The Caribbean."

Tom Sawyer represents far more than an American icon, far more than a unique character created by a classic author. Tom Sawyer represents the classical manner in which all everlasting art is created – by some rugged individual holding the higher ideals above the bottom line and setting out for that treasure all alone.

On the other hand, "Pirates" represents the MBA/MFA-izaton of Hollywood. The bottom line is placed over higher ideals, a nameless, faceless entourage of fine-arts grad schoolers is hired to write and rewrite some cookie-cutter script; and the result is a muddled plot lacking a center and circumference, lacking a heart and soul, lacking "story" – that essential element by which art achieves eternity.

The reason for numerous rewrites is that MBAs believe it lessens the risk; but to take no risks in art is the biggest risk one can take. Imagine if "Hamlet" or "Moby Dick" or "Tom Sawyer" had been outsourced to a team of writing consultants. Hamlet and Captain Ahab would have been sent to a shrink played by Robin Williams, who also would have diagnosed Tom Sawyer with attention deficit disorder, then cured him and killed the story.

In contemplating the dramatic arts in his Poetics, Aristotle placed plot first and spectacle second to last. With "Jackass" movies dominating the box office and reality TV replacing sitcoms across the TV spectrum, contemporary Hollywood has gotten its Aristotle backwards.

Aristotle said, "When storytelling declines, the result is decadence." So it is that that far greater treasures are to be had with a classical revival, which, in Herman Melville's words, "cannot be counted down in dollars from the mint."

Declining movie ticket sales (down 8.9 percent in 2005 from 2004) cannot be written off as people's preference for DVDs, as DVD sales have slipped, too. What has happened is that the classical, epic story has been banned – it has been banned in academia, in New York publishing circles and in Hollywood. And so it is that a Hollywood renaissance is there for the taking, by someone who understands that all value ultimately derives from values.

Without the noble vessel of an Aristotlean three-act plot – without the classic structure of Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey, movies are boring. The center cannot hold, and things fall apart.

Nor is it enough to tack on Joseph Campbell's structure as an afterthought to please the studio or network publicity departments; but the leaders of Hollywood and New York publishing houses must lead by leading with truth – within living art – by performing the classical ideals in the contemporary context, by respecting the individual author. When Hollywood returns to navigating by the fixed stars, they shall find blockbuster movies floating in their wake.

For the true captain knows where the treasure is and then navigates on towards it. It's how Hollywood's most-produced screenwriter – William Shakespeare – succeeded, and it's why every classic bears the unique, branded imprint of some individual's soul. Merely drifting along with the fickle winds of pop culture is why Hollywood's fleets of grad-school filmmakers keep running aground.

The Hollywood renaissance will go to the one who can string the bow – filmmakers, writers, directors, and producers who sail beyond the postmodern fog and rediscover that deeper treasure on Tom Sawyer Island – the classical ideals performed in the contemporary context.

Check out the original in the OC Regsiter: