Countless words have been wasted in responding to the political situation of our time, criticizing all the errors, rebuking the miscreants, slandering those on the Right and the Left, and otherwise drawing attention not to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful, but to the Bad, the False, and the Ugly. These are the times in which we live: the times in which the mainstream media, along with all the offshoot resistance media outlets, rely on fear, alarm, and other negative emotions to draw us in. Such emotional hooks plunge us further into the divide.
These past months, especially since the coronavirus arrived on our shores, leading to extensive lockdowns mandated by the government, have brought a new array of dramatic stories to our attention. I need not repeat those. Anyone who has seen the news in the past months knows what they are.
Rather I want to bring your attention to a certain issue and propose a solution. Perhaps I may be biased due to earning my bachelor's degree in drama, but it concerns me that months of theatre productions have been cancelled, leaving actors—who already struggle to make a decent living from pouring out their hearts in becoming some character or other for your entertainment and edification—unemployed, facing the real possibility that months or even years may pass before they can give themselves again to their work.
There is the issue.
Now the solution: could not these actors be hired to perform more exciting stories that the media could present to us?
Let me explain further. I have heard several people remark upon how watching the news brings them down and I suspect that reflects the experience of more than a few people. Yet people keep going back again and again to the news. Doubtless they will continue to do so. Consequently, they will keep being dragged down by the rising numbers of coronavirus cases, the violent protests, murders, police shootings, and so on unless something changes.
The change is what I propose. Rather than focus on the negative, what if we focused on the positive? What if the media told stories meant to bring us hope rather than fear?
If I had the money for it, I would be seriously tempted to follow through with what I propose, but since such funds lie far outside my means at present, I will merely proffer the idea in case it should happen to come to the eyes of someone who does have such financial weight. Let me therefore state the idea again most simply: to hire actors to act out stories that would give us hope. Let them show us actions of heroic virtue.
Perhaps I dream a dream too lofty when I dream of all the good actions that could come from those seeking to imitate these beautiful stories and acts of virtue. Yet I will dream it and invite you to dream it with me and perhaps someday a piece of our dream might come true.
If you would like to participate in this dream, please share your ideas for scripts in the comments. What would you like to see the media portray through the talents of all our nation's best actors?
