Gongol.com Archives: May 2025
May 24, 2025
The sustained success of entertainment that places humans into challenging (even perilous) fantastical environments is one of the notable features of the popular cultural environment. Shows like "Andor" and "Game of Thrones" have attracted big audiences in part by making life difficult for human characters in strange worlds. ■ This formula may suggest a genre that could not only entertain, but also provide a useful public service at the same time: Scott Imberman suggests that "we need more late 1800's to early 1900's premier period pieces that show true conditions to make people remember how awesome things are now." This is to say that we don't have to create fantasy worlds to make difficult circumstances a plot fixture. ■ We don't need the thousandth iteration of "Law and Order: Unchecked Mayhem" or "Chicago Fire, Rescue, and Lawn Care". We need writers crafting stories about sympathetic protagonists suffering through the hazards and indignities of an insufficiently modern world -- one that lacks vital features we take for granted, like antibiotics (discovered in 1928) and properly disinfected drinking water (introduced in 1908). ■ It's appealing to imagine a period piece set in, say, 1895 with information bubbles in the style of Pop-Up Video. We need those stories to be told not just because they could offer a valuable educational component (which they certainly could), but because they could help convey a much-needed attitudinal component. ■ Strongly-held opinions about events that never happened don't perform any real good. Instead, we need to build appreciation for the vital advancements that are so easily taken for granted. Some of them are on tenuous ground and at risk of regression, and some are still unavailable to millions of people living around the world today.
