Popular Fiction: The Junk Food of the Arts

I don't believe it will come as any surprise that the United States is obsessed with popular culture. In the world of literature, it is no different. People have become inured with gimmicky storytelling, visceral, knee-jerk plot twists, and weak-minded characters constantly engaged in gratuitous sex, violence, and greedy quests for wealth. These formulaic tricks are in most televisions shows, most Hollywood movies, most popular fiction writing, and increasingly a part of our day-to-day reality. It isn't that these mediums and styles don't have entertainment value. This kind of writing has been around as long as any other kind of literature--and I am no saint when it comes to not indulging in my animal instincts--but when it comes to the point, as it has, when people find boobs and explosions more interesting than the human condition and psyche, it's time to reevaluate what we are ingesting. Otherwise, someone should get on developing a television channel where keys are jingled at a camera 24 hours a day.

What many people seem to forget from their high school English classes (arguably because high school teachers are learning more about classroom management and utilizing technology than they are about understanding the subjects they teach) is how interesting human obsessions, subjectivity, flaws, strengths, vices, quarks, criticisms, and drives can be. Some are probably saying to themselves, "But it's all been done. How many more times can an old man fall in love with a young vixen and question his morality, or a disillusioned vagabond go searching for meaning?" To you I ask, "How many more times can one read or watch doctors, lawyers, and forensic psychologists problem solve while trying to resist screwing each other in a back office?"

There are four general themes that all stories fall into: a love affair between two people, a love affair between three or more people, the quest, and dealing with death. Even popular stories combine these themes--it's just a matter of craft. Bad writing (like bad music, art, theater, film, etc) is like corporate prints hanging on the walls of office buildings; safe; saying nothing; exposing nothing; taking no risks, and creating no feelings except perhaps the trite, "Awe, that's a pleasant feeling. I wish I could feel that way instead of this soul-crushing pain of sitting in this cubicle wasting away for a retirement plan." Good writing (like good art of any kind) gets inside a person. It makes one think, question, and feel. It takes one to places one could never dream of going in real life. It's sexy (not sexual). It delves into moral gray areas and has one questioning one's values and life choices. It exposes the grotesque. It changes lives and minds. This is what one should be demanding of their writers. Instead we accept what is put in front of us. Bad writing is all that is on television. It's all that is on the best-seller lists. It's all that is in your local theater. Thus, it must be what someone with knowledge of these things thinks is good, right? Wrong.

As an English major, young writer and, thus far, struggling novelist, I have searched far and wide for an "in" in the publishing world. I've subscribed to Writer's Digest and received emails for writing competitions. I've mastered crafting the perfect query letter and I've tried looking for guidance at writer's conferences. At every turn the question has always been presented this way: "Are you the next Stephen King?" I hang my head and try not to laugh (or cry, depending on my mood). No one is asking, "Are you the next Hemingway?" No one is asking, "Are you Kurt Vonnegut's predecessor?" It isn't a question of, "Are you going to define our generation to those who come after us?" but essentially, "Can you devise the perfect template with the ideal marketing hook to sell millions of books overnight?"

To be fair Stephen King does use some literary tools (he did after all study creative writing), but let's face it, no one has ever walked away from a Stephen King novel questioning the ennui of their generation, or the absurdity of western culture (see Hemingway and Vonnegut). If anything he leaves us paranoid of our dog's intensions, avoiding small towns in Maine, and questioning our spouse's sanity (one of his better themes by and by). The same is true of our music, our art interests, and our boredom with theater. We like things upbeat in America. Happiness keeps us productive and thinking too much depresses us. Thus, we work, we drink, we go to church, or temple, or mosque, we jog, we chatter, we follow sports and sitcoms, we pop pills, we go to therapy; anything to avoid accepting the darker sides of our human condition. We don't demand that our musicians know how to play their instruments. As long as they can play three chords and get us bobbing our heads in unison, we're happy as babies with a pinwheel. We don't demand that our actors can act so long as they weigh under ninety pounds while maintaining the rack of a pregnant woman. If I have to watch one more muscle-bound hunk with a five o'clock shadow and an eighth grade vocabulary blow up the bad foreign man, I may find out if my television can swim. Likewise, we don't demand that our writers can write. We want out-of-the-blue plot twists just as the chapter is ending. We want promiscuous blonds, lawyers on yachts, and a constant building of tension that inevitably putters out in some cliche life lesson or death of the antagonist.

I'm not saying the occasional speed read and viscerally gratifying experience is so wrong. All I'm saying is that it shouldn't be a way of life. Much like fast food should be the occasional treat releasing you momentarily from your usual disciplined eating habits, pop culture should be appreciated in moderation. These "artists" should have to suffer through the challenges of mastering their craft. They should not be rewarded for being the antithesis of talent and discipline. Think of two hundred years from now when those who come after us study our culture and think to themselves, "Wow, they didn't even make an effort, did they?" Is this how you want your cohort's brief period in the time/ space continuum to be remembered? Really? America's Got Talent? I'm not so sure anymore.