On Homogeneity, I guess?
I've been thinking a lot lately about the word "homogenous." That probably sounds a little strange, but bear with me.
So, a few weeks ago now, I played a game with my students to talk about connotation and denotation (implications vs prescribed meaning if you need a refresher.) And as part of that, we talked about positive and negative connotations. So, I gave them a bunch of words and asked them to sort them into positive, negative, or neutral connotation. Example: cheap, frugal, thrifty. Now, of course, there's a bit of trouble here because how you feel about the associations with a word can be different from someone else's. But, we can still sort of group words in this way.
So, one point of contention for my students was "akin, similar, homogeneous." My students, across four different classes, seemed to want to put homogeneous as neutral or positive. But to me, that's a negative word. I feel like if something's called "homogeneous," it's probably an insult unless we're talking about milk. But my students wanted it to be neutral. And maybe it is.
See, around the same time, an article came out about the production of Inside Out 2. It's an incredibly in-depth discussion of the conditions and situations which created an insane and, frankly, dangerous crunch at the studio and how it's not changing. And that's super important. I don't want to downplay that at all, merely to note that it's not what Im talking about here. Again, the thing I'm concerned with is homogeneity. Because Pete Doctor, one of the creative leads said he wants to work on more "universal stories"--"something that's very homogenous that anyone can relate to."
Now, I get what he's saying here. I think he's a hack for saying it, but I get it. You want people to be able to relate to the stories you're telling. But, to me, a story that everyone can relate to is probably going to be exceptionally boring or generic. Not everyone has the same experiences and to try and capture the entirety of human experience is folly. I think that there's immensely more value in being able to capture a particular experience or emotion and really hit that well, even if some people won't respond to it. As an example, Barquq has talked about Astlibra and how it is a game that the guy made just for himself. And Barquq has spread the brainworms of this game to many. I haen’t quite clicked into it (YET), but I appreciate the game for being a game he wanted to make for himself. Just like I love an indie game that really hones in on a particular mechanic or vibe and just fucking nails it. It’s not always for me, but I respect it. Now, a part of this desire for “homogeneous” stories from Pixar is a response to the failures of the last few years within Disney, but I think that they're going in the wrong direction. Homogeneity in art, to me, means appealing to the lowest common denominator. It's a race to the bottom and all it's going to produce is sludge. Like, I feel like something like that stupid Elemental movie is closer to homogeniety and the one review I read was that it was like Disney jingling keys in your face for approximately two hours. Fuck that. I want more like Turning Red, which was a much more interesting exploration and I could easily see execs being terrified it might rub someone the wrong way (it did, some freaks thought it was strictly about menstruation which I guess??), but again, that movie goes hard.
Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe homogeneity is fine change my mind but I've been thinking about this since I read that article. I literally cannot get it out of my head. I'm hoping that this helps me to do, even if it means it becomes lodged in yours.