Why make art while the world is burning?
Does any of it even matter?
Bleak week! I’m not going to spend much real estate on the election, as this is a newsletter about writing and Hollywood and what the hell do I know about politics. But I will say that obviously the vibes across America are extremely fucked.
I sent a script out to an actor’s agent on Election Day and felt compelled yesterday to follow up, saying “Hey I know it’s insane I sent this to you, especially now, but hope you and your client enjoy and find some brief respite in reading!” Maybe it’s appropriate in a sense. The project (which would be my directorial debut) is about feeling doomed, and examines why we spend our time making art while it feels like the world around us is burning. Is it a useful exercise, if I have “That Funny Feeling” that pretty soon this will all either be on fire, or underwater, or, due to some terrible man-made disaster involving an oil spill… both?
It’s an idea I started thinking about in the summer of 2020, when it felt like the world was ending, while we were locked inside and the sky was orange from wildfires. And it’s a script that I’m now sending out to actors’ agents, while it feels like the American Experiment is heaving its last dying breaths.
The film is a comedy, I swear!! It’s freaking called THE COMEDY HOUR!
I don’t want to say too much more about it for now, but you can follow along with the film on instagram (and of course here at Hollyweird, where I will be keeping you all posted, naturally).
But really… why do we do this?
In writing The Comedy Hour, but also just in contemplating my own writing career, I’ve been thinking A LOT about this. Why make art at all?
For me, it’s really all about connection. Good writing, good storytelling, works as a message in a bottle. “Here I am in my little body in my little corner of the world having this big big feeling. Anyone else?” The human experience can be overwhelming (even in times that are not quite as troubled as they currently feel) and there’s something about pouring that experience into a story, into a journey for people to go on, that lets us take that overwhelm and find meaning in it.
Maybe there is no meaning to the universe. Maybe it all started one day and one day will end. [Pretty likely if you ask scientists] But doesn’t that then mean that the making of meaning is that much more important? Every day I choose to wake up and make coffee and pour an extra cup for Emma and walk the dog and sit at my desk and think about ways to connect with all of you out there. And so many more of you who aren’t yet subscribers. Why aren’t you subscribed yet? Come on! Subscribe! It’s fun here!
Every day all over the world people are experiencing wonder and joy and heartbreak and devastation and fear and loss and love and they have been as long as we’ve been here and there’s something in the random chaos of it all, the sheer volume of it all, the absolute unlikeliness of it all, that makes it all the more precious and special.
And I think it is our job, not just as artists, but as people, to witness all of that. To try to report back to each other what’s happening. Externally, yes, but also internally. Emotionally. And I think that’s true for comedy, as well as tragedy. And I think that it is our utmost duty when we are feeling most nihilistic to try to slow down, notice what’s going on, and report on that as well.
This is the human experience. This is the magic (and the curse) of being a person in a body on a planet in the universe. We are here. And if all of human existence is a little blip on the cosmic scale of time (it is, ask the scientists), I think that just makes it all the more critical that we reach out to one another. Hold one another. Take the time to notice what it’s like to wake up every day and make the coffee and pour an extra cup and walk the dog.
None of this is to say that noticing can or should replace action. There is also, of course, fighting to be done, and politics to engage with, and human decency to uphold. But those aren’t for a newsletter called Hollyweird. Those are for another time and another place.
That’s not why we come to this place.
And movies are magic! And art is magic! And being alive is magic!
And the political atmosphere outside can be demoralizing, and the arc of human history can seem to be bending in an especially disgusting direction, and so many terrible things can be happening that it all feels hopeless.
But, I do believe it is our job, despite all those things, or maybe because of them all, to make meaning.
I hope you can slow down (at least momentarily), notice how you’re doing, and I hope you can find ways to share that with someone else.
With all of that in mind, I wanted to try something new here…
Introducing: The Hollyweird Hang!
The whole point of building this substack was to try to create a little community of Hollyweirdos, and now that we do in fact have that, I wanted to give a new thing a shot! The Hollyweird Hang!
It’s exactly what it sounds like: some unstructured hang time with fellow Hollyweirdos.
We’ll do it over zoom, Sunday December 1st from 1pm PT - 3pm PT. I’ll send out a zoom link the Friday before, we can hop on and talk craft, process, writing goals, screenwriter problems, Hollywood gossip, you name it.
Could be a fun, low key way to start the month with what is essentially a little zoom mixer. Mark your calendars, and we’ll see how it goes!
Love all of this, feel all of this. And excited for the zoom hang!