I think that, for whatever reason, we've gotten to a place where, particularly in Hollywood, things have to be very pat. Like 'I'm a good guy. I'm a bad guy.'
Conspiracy theories are an irresistible labor-saving device in the face of complexity.
The television industry doesn't like to see the compexity of the world. It prefers simple reporting, with simple ideas: this is white, that's black; this is good, that's bad.
One of the great things about conspiracy theories is that they explain everything.
In calling someone a bad guy, I reassure myself that I'm good. I elevate myself. I call it the 'Star Wars morality'. And unfortunately, it underpins most of the stories we tell.
People are not as one-dimensional as the stories about them.
“Follow the science” can serve as a smokescreen for avoiding the science, often complex and uncertain, in favor of partisan stereotyping and narratives of villains and heroes.
What frustrates me a lot about some aspects of filmmaking is people thinking everyone is really dumb and that we have to make everything really obvious.
In true Hollywood fashion the US expounds its interests and power in the world as the triumph of good over evil. The media dismisses any ambiguity in a truly complex world. Instead America's propagandists hand down the Manichean dichotomy - "us and them," "good and bad," "those who are for us and those who are against us.
