The Tonys, Brought To You In Part By Xerox

As my wife was a big theater geek in high school and still tries to keep up on all things Broadway, and as my brother-in-law, his girlfriend, and my mother-in-law were all at our house last night, all being theater enthusiasts, I watched a good half or so of the Tony’s last night. I have limited theater experience, so my theater knowledge is slightly more than your average Joe Six-Pack, but not by much.

I’m not a big fan of awards shows, but the Tonys seem to be the most intelligent televised awards, a few steps ahead of the Oscars, miles away from the MTV Movie Awards, and a few light years from something I saw while scanning through the channels, the MTV Cribs Awards, which grants awards to famous people for having large houses, hosted by a woman whose greatest contribution to our culture seems to have been performing videotaped fellatio on another minor celebrity. Still, it was disappointing to see the wide array of unoriginal or iPod/jukebox shows that were advertised, nominated, and/or given awards. I’m talking about shows that are reworkings of movies (Billy Elliot, Shrek, 9 to 5) and shows that just slap together songs (Rock of Ages, Jersey Boys, Mama Mia). True, there were revivals of classic shows, and several new, original shows, but just like the movie industry, and even the book world, there is an infection of unoriginality that is deeply troubling.

I’ve got no problem with being inspired by past work. It’s impossible not to find an idea and grow it yourself. I’m working on notes for a novel inspired, in part, by A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court. It’s mostly inspired by my bizarre dreams and my often-boring day job, and my irrational fear of salesmen, and my lack of understanding of the way mattress stores can survive (honestly, how can they stay in business? Maybe everyone else replaces their bed every year, but I sure as hell don’t.), but Twain’s work does have a special place in my mind right now. But I’m not going to do a sequel to it, or a remake, or a spinoff. Stephen King didn’t photocopy the Book of Revelations to make The Stand, Neil Gaiman didn’t photocopy The Jungle Book to make The Graveyard Book, Diablo Cody sure as hell didn’t photocopy the script to Riding in Cars With Boys to make Juno, and I’m not going to photocopy Mr. Clemen’s work.

This begs the question: are we running out of ideas? We have a world with billions of people, infinite possibilities for stories large and small, and yet we find ourselves going to see a remake of an old television show (Land Of The Losing Money It Would Seem) or read a ‘spinoff’ of a classic novel (an Amazon.com search for “Mr Darcy” results in 118 books, at least 2 of which are versions of an imagined diary). Why risk an original novel about youth and age when you can just write a sequel to Catcher In The Rye? Why test the waters of cinematic fear when you can just do-over My Bloody Valentine and Friday The 13th?

I would suggest that, no, we are not running out of ideas. Shows like God Of Carnage, movies like Gomorra, and books like 2666 show that original stories are still possible. We’re just at the mercy of writers who are lazy, and producers and publishers that are scared of anything that’s not a sure thing. And that’s a damn shame, Diane.