Issues are for After-School Specials

Posted by J. Mark Bertrand
on Wednesday, March 14, 2007
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Do me a favor. Don't talk about the "issues" you're going to "tackle" in your fiction. I know it seems like name-checking controversial social issues is a fast-track to serious writing, but trust me, it isn't. That's the logic of the after-school special. As serious as the issues in those specials are, do we ever really take the movies seriously? I don't. There's something hokey, something unrealistic about their efforts at gritty realism. I'm sure there are a variety of reasons, but I suspect a big part of it has to do with approaching the story through the lens of "issues."