At least it came be said that once there were giants that walked the earth, and we were privileged to see them in their prime. But now the giants are dying off, and we are in a time where one by one they lay down and close their eyes forever. The earth no longer trembled at their step, their voices no longer echo across the valleys.
This is a poetic wary of saying that the great idols and artists who have shaped he culture for the late three generations are now passing away. Ozzy Osbourne is dead. So if Prince, Eddie Van Halen, David Bowie...and that's just musicians. All three were favs of mine growing up. And for men of a certain age, like your humble correspondent, everyone one of them passes the world seems a little less interesting. If you’re a fan of classic rick, best get used to reading the obits. All the movies I grew up loving are increasingly relics of another time, their creative geniuses turning to dust and bones. Farewell Gene Hackman, so long Val Kilmer, its a shame Madmartigan couldn’t return for the Willow reboot (though given how that abomination turned out, maybe it was for the best.)
But even so...we remain stuck, caught in the grip of the old stories, even as the hands that shaped them increasingly pass from the scene. When it comes to music, the most popular and profitable tours of anyone not named Taylor Swift remain groups that had their heyday long before I (a middle aged Gen X’er) was born. Movies first made before the internet was more than a glint in the eye of Al Gore are remade, sequalized, milked to death, then reskinned and remade again. The biggest movie in the world as ofthis moment is Superman, a character that was first created in the 1930’s, and since the 1970’shas, at my rough and probably inaccurate count, has appeaared in eight full-length movies, three tv shows, more video games than I care to count. Not to mention the comics, but lets be honest no one really mentions then at all these days, which is the subject of another rant.
This weekend another reboot of the Fantastic Four is coming out, which first appeared in 1961, and when it comes to filmed versions has already three movies under its belt with two separate casts (four if you count the Roger Corman version.) And I just saw a trailer for the new and revamped I Know What You Did Last Summer ( it’s good to see Freddie Prinze Jr back in front of the camera, but was anyone asking for this? I saw the original in the theater way back when, and hadn’t given it a thought since, and I know I'm not the only one…)
When it comes to books and writing, specifically fantasy fiction, the biggest story continues to the book that is not being written: the remaining two (projected) novels in A Song of Ice and Fire. I’m not going top pass judgment on thhis way out another – I can speak from experience that writing a book is hard work, that life constantly gets in the way, and if GRRM seems a little bit testy about the whole affair, well its his life, his series and he’ll do as he see’s fit, and he’s earned the right to be irritated at people asking the same question over and over.
The broader pint I'm trying to make is, where is the net GRRM? Or the next Robert Jordan? Or the next David Eddings. Where are the new giants coming out from the shadows of the old monsters? They don’t seem to be out there.
Here’s a thought train to follow: starting around 1900 and continued on to about...let’s say 2012, there was a massive surge in creative actvity in the West. Changes in technology – mass print media, radio, film, TV, recorded music, and so on opened new frontiers for creative work, and the means to get in front of large audiences. Things that previously were only open to the lucky few could now be experienced by everyone; stories serialized in newspapers then later sold as cheap mass-market paperbacks in city and small town alike. Cinema freed performances from the need to be live and could be shown anytime and anywhere. To hear music, one no longer and to go to a concert hall to hear someone play (or learn to play an instrument yourself) but simply put a record, CD or tape on, and in the due course of time get a Spotify subscription. For the first time, Culture could become Mass Culture.
Along with technology, there was something else fueling this glorious fire – youth. Hordes of young people, hungry for their piece of the action. Young men in a hurry, eager to make their mark. Young women, eager to follow new freedoms wherever they led. Youth brings chaos in its wake and this caused churn – new stories replaced old ones, to be replaced in turn. Nowadays we live in a world where youth is less of a factor than it should be, and the people in charge are perhaps hanging on far longer than they should. Its not surprising everything feels stuck – they prefer the old stripes because its what they know, even if those stories are stale and rotting. There is no churn, new ideas die stillborn, everything is just stuck.
Let’s not sugarcoat the old world that as. These new frontiers were not wide open paradises of creativity – there were doors, and the gatekeepers that controlled them held more power that as good for them. To make a movie, you needed the support of a studio and the people that ran it. You could have written the greatest novel that every existed, bit if a publisher didn’t care for it, well, good luck selling it from the trunk of your car. The history of popular music is replete with brilliant never-been’s and always-was’s, who never got their shot and spent their best days playing in bars and basements in the backwaters, before finally giving up and going back to school for accounting. At its best, this allowed the cream to rise to the top and to put them in front of an audience of millions. At its worst, it left the best minds and talents to molder in resentment and despair, while opening the door to all kinds of abuse - financial, sexual and so on.
This was the world where giants could exist. The fields were open, but not everyone could go in and graze. Great trees sprouted high while flowers struggled in their shade. Dinosaurs walked the ear, and the little scurrying mammals in the undergrowth watched and wondered.
The age of giants is passing. The environment that raised them up, fed them, sustained them, that environment is gone. They were the products of that environment, but the client has changed the world as warmed (or cooled, pick your metaphor) and as the great lumbering beasts lie down and breath their last, no successors rise up in their wake. Again, the culprit is technology. The rise of the internet means that those creatives shut out by the gatekeepers of the past can no go around them and put their works directly to the people.
This means the environment has changed. The little mammals living in the shadows on the dinosaurs can now come out. rt to put it another way, writers no longer have to worry about pleasing editors, musicians can upload their music directly to the internet, and I expect in the coming years the use if AI is going to reduce the cost of making movies by a lot. The old rules are gone. We can live by own own rules, and figure what works and what does not.
And who knows? Maybe in time we’ll become the giants...
RIP Ozzy. You will be missed.