Déjà View
The Same Moment Over and Over
Do you ever think you like something at first, and then later decide that you don’t? A friend of mine had this happen with a popular record years ago. He was really into it, and then he said he realized it was just the same moment over and over. As much as I like several of them, when the newest spate of Star Wars movies came out, I heard my friend’s words echo in my head.
I see such repetition mostly in television now. Over and over, there are stakes without consequences. Regarding Succession, Bill Wyman calls it “Narrative Groundhog Day.” It happens in the first season of The Mosquito Coast, for example. I was predisposed to like this series, fan as I am of Peter Weir’s 1986 movie and the author of the novel’s nephew, Justin Theroux, who stars in the show. As framed in the series, the premise of the story is one man and his family’s criminal response to the squeezing of means of the middle class (see also Weeds, Breaking Bad, Ozark, etc.). The husband and father of two played by Theroux is an inventor with a shady past (Harrison Ford plays him in the movie in one of his most manic and convincing performances). When the bad men come calling, he has to break south and get his family to safety.
During this familial exodus, the following happen: dad is arrested; his daughter (played by the inimitable Logan Polish) crashes his truck into the police car to free him; his son is arrested in Mexico for shooting someone; the family breaks him out of jail and continues their quest for safe haven and freedom. Every time it looks like they’re screwed, they’re not. Stakes without consequences. The same moment over and over.
You can see the same repetition in TV series from across the spectrum: The Sopranos, Weeds, Dexter, Orange is the New Black, Fringe, Breaking Bad, American Horror Story, Ozark, and Succession, to name only a few. It seems more prevalent in the binge era, and I thought it was a byproduct of bingeing itself, but “weekly drops“ — that new thing they’re doing — illustrates otherwise. You really only know upon further reflection or maybe the second or third time through.
A coworker of mine once advised me to make sure I wasn’t repeating experience in my work. I’d like to demand the same from my entertainment.
Book News:
My short story collection, Different Waves, Different Depths, is currently in production! It comes out on September 12th on Impeller Press. I’ll have more details and a pre-order link in a forthcoming newsletter. So stoked on this one!
At long last, I’ve finished the manuscript for The Medium Picture! It didn’t survive the recent ownership/leadership shake-up at its publisher, so it’s looking for a new home. Here’s some advanced praise:
“Like a skateboarder repurposing the utilitarian textures of the urban terrain for sport, Roy Christopher reclaims the content and technologies of the media environment as a landscape to be navigated and explored. The Medium Picture is both a highly personal yet revelatory chronicle of a decades-long encounter with mediated popular culture.” — Douglas Rushkoff, author, Team Human
“Immersed in the contemporary digital culture he grew up with as a teenager, Roy Christopher is old enough to recall vinyl, punk, and zines — social media before TikTok and smartphones. The Medium Picture deftly illuminates the connections between post-punk music critique, the increasing virtualization of culture, the history of formal media theory, the liminal zones of analog vs digital, pop vs high culture, capitalism vs anarchy. It’s the kind of book that makes you stop and think and scribble in the margins.” — Howard Rheingold, author, Net Smart
Any takers? It’s so good…
Thank you for reading,
-royc.
http://roychristopher.com