#callister takes a protective approach

[wanderings-of-galar]

My mons do wonders for me when I’m anxious. Even if they don’t always understand why I feel the way I do, they can notice when I’m in distress or panicking and do their best to distract me to comfort me in their own ways…

[thechanelmuse]

TW: rape

‘I May Destroy You,’ Michaela Coel’s gimlet-eyed exploration of trauma and its myriad ripple effects follows Arabella (Coel) — a funny, messy, sharp-as-hell London writer — after a dizzying night in which she’s drugged and raped by a stranger. At first, she dismisses the hazy memory as just an upsetting image in her head. Soon enough, though, Arabella reluctantly comes to understand it as the truth, and tries to work through that horrifying reality without coming apart. [...]

Not every part of Arabella has a direct line to Coel, but the series’ catalyzing experience, unfortunately, does. In 2016, Coel took a break from a marathon writing session for the second season of “Chewing Gum” to grab a drink with a friend, and was drugged and assaulted by a stranger. She’s been sifting through the emotional wreckage ever since to find some kind of clarity, if not peace. Now, with “I May Destroy You,” she’s doing it for all the world to see. “As a fellow android exploring what it means to be human,” says Coel’s friend Janelle Monáe, “watching Michaela be vulnerable on-screen as she walks in her truth gives me and so many the bravery to walk in ours.” [...]

Coel began writing “I May Destroy You” in February 2017, in between acting in TV projects like the “USS Callister” episode of “Black Mirror” and Netflix’s limited series “Black Earth Rising.” She took solo mountain trips and wrote draft after draft of what would eventually become “I May Destroy You,” spilling her stories and tangled guts onto the page, rearranging them into shapes she could better recognize. In August 2018, she spoke about her trauma publicly while delivering the Edinburgh International Television Festival’s James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture, a prestigious assignment the festival has otherwise bestowed on a cadre of white British television mainstays (as well as no fewer than three Murdochs). 

The majority of Coel’s speech, delivered to a room of the U.K.’s most powerful entertainment brokers, traced the constant racism and classism she endured on the way to that Edinburgh stage — a theme subtextually underlined by the fact that Coel was, and remains, the only Black woman to have that platform. She spoke about turning her solo play “Chewing Gum Dreams” into a “Chewing Gum” TV series (which aired 2015-17 on the U.K.’s Channel 4), a transformative time that taught her the technicalities of making television and confirmed just how disinclined certain white gatekeepers are to trust a poorer Black woman’s vision. Toward the end of the 50-minute lecture, Coel revealed her assault and elucidated the industry’s inability — or unwillingness — to handle such a human emergency when pages are due. As for her recovery, she said, “It’s been therapeutic to write about it, and actively twist a narrative of pain into something with more hope, and even humor.”

When it finally came time to translate it all to the screen, “I May Destroy You” was so close to her bruised heart that Coel took on the challenge of playing several roles throughout the series’ development: creator, writer, actor, producer, director. Netflix offered her a total fee of a cool $1 million to make and star in the show, but the proposed contract wouldn’t grant Coel even a tiny percentage of the rights. She hadn’t fully realized how much claiming legal proprietorship over her work mattered to her until the prospect of not being able to emerged, at which point it became crucial. 

Then, after some Googling, she realized that her CAA agents would also be profiting from the deal via the endangered practice of packaging. Stung and surprised, Coel walked away from both her agents and the offer. “I’m not anti-Netflix,” she’s quick to say now, “but I am pro-‘the creator, writer, director, actor should probably have a right.’” She’s hyper-aware of how much this project required of her, and how comparatively little granting her “a right” might cost a powerful network like Netflix. “That’s not quite fair, is it?” Coel muses. Creating the show, after all, took almost everything she had.

With the BBC, a million-dollar paycheck might not have been in the cards, but more important to Coel, she didn’t have to fight half as hard to claim ownership. (As a matter of industry course, it’s far more common for British studios to afford creators rights to their work than it is for American equivalents.) They struck a deal, and Coel got to work.[...]

“When you’re restricted,” she explains, “sometimes that’s where you find great things: in the lack of possibility.” She attributes this rather Zen approach to Hugo Blick, the “Black Earth Rising” showrunner who showed her the value of keeping a cool, empathetic head on set. Blick’s ability to step away from a gnarly situation for even 30 calming seconds is one that Coel has worked to hone for herself, especially while steering a series with such fraught ties to her history. No matter how sideways things might go, she never wants to forget just how much she loves the collaborative act of building a television show, wild complications and all. 

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From Forbes:

I May Destroy You’s Michaela Coel Rejected Netflix’s $1 Million Offer In Favor Of The BBC Because Of Ownership

The creative, who stars as Arabella and wrote all 12 episodes, started pitching the programme in the spring of 2017 with one of her first ports of call being Netflix who picked up her prior series Chewing Gum.

Though Netflix offered a generous upfront fee of $1 million (£800,000), the sum had strings attached, including full rights ownership away from the creator, something Coel pushed back against. Coel recalls a moment during the interview where she is speaking with a Netflix development executive on the phone, asking if she could retain even a very small 0.5% of the copyright to her show.

“There was just silence on the phone. And she said, ‘It’s not how we do things here. Nobody does that, it’s not a big deal,’” Coel recollected. “I said, ‘If it’s not a big deal, then I’d really like to have 5 % of my rights,’” Coel added, stating that she even went down to 2%, and then 1% and even as a final compromise to 0.5%.

Coel remembers that the executive said she would have to run it passed her superiors, before adding, “‘Michaela? I just want you to know I’m really proud of you. You’re doing the right thing.'”

“I remember thinking, I’ve been going down rabbit holes in my head, like people thinking I’m paranoid, I’m acting sketchy, I’m killing off all my agents,” Coel says. “And then she said those words to me, and I finally realized — I’m not crazy. This is crazy.”

Coel discovered her agents, Creative Artists Agency (CAA) were set to make an undisclosed amount from the series if she took the deal with Netflix. She reveals that the agency pushed her to take the deal prior to her finding out and their subsequent dismissal as her U.S. representation.

Taking the project to British broadcaster the BBC later in 2017, Coel found the corporation to be supportive with her maintaining creative control even with the explicit depictions of sex, sexual assault and drug use. Plus, as the broadcaster had to adhere to terms of trade, Coel had no problem with retaining the rights also. The broadcaster also brought HBO to the table as another co-producer to help subsidise a portion of the budget.

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This isn’t about just “knowing your worth;” it’s about knowing the business (your business) and never settling just to secure “something.” A million dollar offer, no copyright ownership and no creative control is beyond disrespectful. Learn the business in whatever field you’re in and stay acclimated with jargon and new, current and old practices. Know your shit. 

It’s like when people say “Get a lawyer” to handle negotiations and look over your paperwork. You pay a lawyer to do a job, but it does not mean you should be oblivious to aspects of law and contract jargon among other things because “that’s what they’re there to do.” You can’t say someone (sometimes lawyers included) screwed you over after you’ve signed the dotted line. They’re protecting and looking out for themselves. Commit to do the same for yourself.

[atallwhitefountainplayed]

My thoughts on Black Mirror - Season 4

[SPOILERS AHEAD]

Black Mirror is a brilliant fictional show featuring dramatic stand-alone episodes that showcase the potential progression of new technology in the modern age and how the consequences of it might shape the future.

Season four marks the second season of the show after Netflix bought the rights to the third season back in 2014.

In my opinion and upon viewing each episode of the season once at this point, season four of Black Mirror is the worst so far. I was so disappointed by these episodes and I truly hope that season five (should it be commissioned) is a lot better. The feeling of wonder and intrigue mixed with unease that made me fall for the show in the first place is gone in this season. One of my problems is that for the most part, there's really no shock factor. There's nothing all that gripping or thought-provoking about this season. In the previous seasons, I was frequently left in a state of awe as well as unrest because of how close to home each (or most) of the episodes hit. Wondering about how the world would really react to such things. Baffled and thinking that these episodes may one day be a reality; that some of the ideas explored aren't too far off legitimacy in my own lifetime.

Season four did not hit these marks for me. There wasn't any episode that left me feeling disturbed or wondering "what if?". Maybe it's in part due to the fact that there were a lot of ideas that seemed to borrow from previous episodes so nothing I observed was really that new of a concept. There were a lot of "new" tech ideas that centred around the brain and the mind, I suppose to appeal to people... with brains? My point is that it's been done before and this season is one that uses it a lot, whereas with season one we get one of those kinds of episodes (The Entire History Of You); season two uses one (White Christmas); season three has a different kind of approach and does it really well with episodes like Playtest and San Junipero in terms of tech that directly affects the brain. Sure season 1/2 are comparatively shorter seasons but they still did something worlds apart in each episode.

So now for each episode and what I thought:

1. USS Callister

This episode is easily my favourite of the bunch. It took a little while for me to get into at first but I still enjoyed it. It was a very self-aware episode that poked fun at the original Star Trek series. I've never seen the original Star Trek but I could at least appreciate the homage to it while also understanding the humour (or at least a lot of it). USS Callister was enjoyable because it was tense and generally it was gripping. I was excited to see what would happen and it made me root for the simulated but sentient crew. I loved the fact that when Daly paused or left the game, that the crew reverted back to their old selves and were blatantly upset with being imprisoned in this game but were also burdened with a sad touch of hopelessness. The story was easy to follow and the characters' motivation was relatable as well. The ending was quite tense what with all the crew trying to basically commit suicide, or whatever passes for suicide in virtual reality. You wanted them to succeed in wiping themselves from existence because the alternative was an eternity with this misogynistic, megalomaniacal, evil god who could do anything he wanted to them. What gripped me about this part was that having seen Black Mirror before, there was every possibility that they wouldn't succeed and that they'd be trapped forever, so it was surprising and enlightening to see them triumph and even better to see the antagonist trapped inside his own personal tampered game, unable to leave as he was once free to do.

In comparison with the rest of the seasons of Black Mirror, USS Callister is a good episode but personally, it isn't one of the best.

2. Arkangel

The unfortunate part of Arkangel is that I can 100% see this happening in the future. It's the equivalent of putting your child on a leash for their entire life. This episode succeeds in the fact that it made me feel some sort of emotion and empathy for the character of the child/teenager. It taps into the paranoia and anxiety I'm sure parents have of letting their children off into the world on their own and amplifies it by 10. The very real idea some parents these days have of trying to protect their kids from the world we live in by filtering what they are able to experience in the world. In Arkangel you see this mother losing her daughter in the park because she can't keep an eye on her. So the consequence of her being a shitty mother isn't her thinking "well maybe I should be more mindful and keep a closer watch of my child", it's "I can't keep an eye on my child with my human brain, so I'd better get her chipped with a GPS that lets me see where she is and also what she sees at any given moment". Fuck you, mum character. This technology allows the mother to alter her daughters' perception of the world, filtering out anything "bad" such as an angry dog, blood, porn, even the basic display of negative human emotions such as sadness. As a result of this implant, this girls' character becomes very dull and pacified, lacking in any sort of real excitement in her own life because she physically can't see or really interact with anything with negative connotations. Arkangel is a nice take on how stunted kids can be if their parents are too strict and limit their personal growth; it is a subject that is very present in modern society with kids getting involved with violent video games or watching scary movies; getting involved with the wrong people and doing stupid things like taking drugs due to either being pressured or feeling like they have to because their friends are. The reality that Arkangel is trying to convey I think is that no parent can truly shield their child from all the bad things in the world; it just isn't plausible. Also that keeping an eye on your child in every aspect of what they do isn't always the best idea. In my experience, kids are going to do stupid things; that's just what they do. Hopefully though with the right parenting they are able to right themselves and become decent people.

My problem with this episode is that it isn't incredibly fun and is often just a bit frustrating. The characters aren't memorable for any sort of positive act and the protagonist (the daughter) isn't hugely relatable in the sense of her own experiences. For example, I can't really remember a whole lot of what she gets up to; all I remember is just her being at school and not being able to form meaningful relationships as a child but then as a teenager she has a friend who she does see outside of school. It would have been nice to see how they formed that friendship because it seems like it would be difficult in her position. Then as a teenager she goes out with her friends and does drugs and has sex. But that's about it really. Then her mum ruins her relationship with that guy with the van who she's known since they were kids, drugs her smoothie, terminating her early pregnancy (if there was one). Then the daughter finds out and bludgeons her mother with the device she used to spy on her. Maybe there was supposed to be some ironic bliss in that ending but it didn’t do much for me.

I didn't like the ending much because it didn't really make me feel anything. I didn't care that the daughter ran away and I didn't care if the mother lived or died. I would have liked to have seen some character development from the mother and also some character traits in the daughter that made her something more than a slab of boring nothing. Arkangel had some good ideas but really I don't know that it was executed all that well.

[To be continued (I have to go to sleep; it's 3 in the morning)]