The Business Will Never Really Love You

But art will never stop

Last year was such a great year for movies.

I was genuinely torn between the nominees in so many categories at The Oscars last week. I’m the billionth person to say it but it’s ludicrous that every year we pick “the best” performance or movie or score or whatever.

Every movie I saw last year impacted me in a different way. I came out of TOP GUN: MAVERICK feeling like I was in 5th grade again. I watched BANSHEES and WOMEN TALKING in my living room and thought about them both for days afterward. EEAAO showed me whole new level of what movies could be. THE FABLEMANS reminded me again of how much they mean to me.

In the intro to the new book Do Everything Better With Music Peter Gabriel talks about his record collection as a kind of pillbox. Each one has a different effect. He pulls them out and puts them on according to how he feels, or perhaps more importantly, how he’d like to feel. Movies are like that too. It’s impossible to judge one as better than the other because they have all these different functions. But we do it every year because money. These awards equal money and this is, after all, a business.

Still, it was beautiful to see so many of the winners be acknowledged for their work, even if it put the cold, unfeeling nature of this industry in stark relief. Like Michelle Yeoh reminding women not to let anyone tell them they’re past their prime. Or Ke Huy Quan, who was out in the wilderness for decades after creating two iconic characters as a kid. He was on the verge of leaving the business but his wife kept telling him that his time was coming. Before EEAAO was released he was having trouble booking another job. These moments are so moving because we know what it took to get them to that podium. It took a special film and all the stars aligning.

Right now the spotlight of attention is shining bright on all the winners. But there’s no guarantee that other offers will follow. I sure as hell hope they do. Next year they’ll be back to present awards, but what about the year after that? If they’re not in a hit movie (one that makes money) or an awards darling, they could very well be watching the 2025 awards on their couch. Lee Unkrich was on The George Lucas Talk Show Oscar special where he said the same thing. One year you’re there, you’re meeting everybody you’ve ever wanted to meet, the next year you’re in sweat pants. Todd Field’s last movie was sixteen years ago. Sixteen years of sweat pants!

The spotlight of attention, the lavish praise, the magazine covers, the Hollywood Reporter round tables, the party invites, may seem like validation or vindication. I imagine, in the eye of that storm, they might even feel like love. But really they are just finite promotional resources that get doled out to whoever and whatever the business is trying to build a buzz around for the next big thing.

This is one of the underlying ideas in BABYLON. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the transition from silent to talkies, or black and white to color, radio to TV, or the annual churn from pilot season to pickups to premieres to cancellations, the machine, the industry, the business keeps on turning and new blood greases the gears.

The business can only value you in direct proportion to the tickets you help sell or the subscriptions you help drive and only for as long as you continue to sell those tickets and drive those subscriptions. These days you may not even get your shot to sell those tickets because your project is more valuable as a tax write-off.

The business exists to make money.

Because of that, it can not and will never really love you.

But art will never stop loving you.

Art wants you to you be the best version of yourself. It wants you to see all the beauty and sadness in the world, to open you up to other perspectives, to help you walk in other shoes, and for you to help others walk in yours. It wants to show you that despite our differences there are universalities that bind us together. To believe that we can make a better tomorrow, for all of us.

Art wants to bring you joy, to bring you comfort when you feel sorrow, to commiserate in your melancholy.

Art knows that when you’re focused on its making you’re growing as a human being. You’re learning to master difficult things. You’re facing your fears and healing from trauma. You are feeding your soul and keeping your brain younger for longer.

Art will let you fail, over and over again, and it will actually reward you for doing so with knowledge. It knows that with each bold swing you come closer to something truly new and special. The business will not let you do that. (There’s a reason the term “movie jail” exists.)

Art knows that you may need time away. That life, work, illness, kids, may require all of your attention. But when you’re ready, those notebooks and pens, brushes and canvas, that out of tune guitar or dusty piano, will be there waiting. No apology necessary. Try telling the business you need a couple of years off to care for an ailing parent. It will not remember you upon your return. But art will be there waiting patiently, asking, “What can I do for you?” Saying, “Tell me what you learned.”

Art doesn’t care if you’re five, twenty-five, fifty-five, seventy-five. It is ready for you to translate your personal experience, your hopes, your dreams, your desires, your fears, into your preferred medium. It knows that you have value at every (st)age.

The Oscars were inspiring but they also reminded me to be careful where I put my own spotlight of attention. I can remind myself that time and effort spent hoping for love and validation and respect from the business is time wasted, but time devoted to creating, to improving my craft, will never not pay dividends.

Art will always be there to remind me that I have value. That I matter. That as long as I have a notebook and a pen I can show it love and it will love me right back.