SALON

Thursday, Jul 5, 2012 2:02 PM UTC

The revolution will be hand-held

My daughter’s world revolves around whatever small screen she happens to be holding in her hand

By

Topics: AlterNet, Entertainment_Culture, Gadgets, Internet Culture, Children,

The revolution will be hand-held(AP/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
This article originally appeared on AlterNet.

I proudly call myself a progressive but as a parent of school-aged kids, I’m often surprised by how culturally conservative I’ve become. I scoff at my thirteen-year-old’s full-body obsession with the British boy band, One Direction. And when she calls the recent movie Think Like a Man or any film starring Kate Hudson a “great film,” I lecture her for probably longer than the movie lasts on why the popular culture she claims to have been moved by — in point of fact — is absolute and total crap.

AlterNet

Did I mention that I’m a screenwriter?

Although I also write in other genres, writing for and about film and television has always been the focus of my writing career. Both socially and culturally, the movie theater has served as the climate-controlled center of my universe. My daughter’s world, on the other hand, revolves around whatever small screen she happens to be holding in her hand. Until recently, this seemed to me a sign of the coming apocalypse. But I’m beginning to realize that it might actually represent something more positive — something big and revolutionary in the smallest possible package.

The road to this realization has been difficult and humbling, and is hardly complete. It’s depressing to realize that a proudly middle-aged progressive is not immune to garden-variety, middle-aged malaise.

Nevertheless, as school ends and summer begins, nostalgia hits me hardest. I can’t help but reminisce about how for me summertime always meant gorging myself on two, maybe three movies per week.

The moment my friends and I were paid for mowing a lawn or washing a car, we’d hike a mile under and aggressive sun to the independent movie theater next to the duck pin bowling alley in the shopping plaza in our little town of Hamden, Connecticut. When everything went multiplex, this small theater simply cut the room in half lengthwise without adjusting the seats, so we were now aimed at the right or left corner, depending on which theater we were in.

But still, it was dark, cold as hell, and magical.

We saw pretty much everything that came out all summer long. Then by late August, we’d started jonesing for TV Guide’s “Fall Preview,” as thick as a paperback. We’d study and debate the then three network’s offerings as seriously as any network execs.

I’m realizing that what we craved back then in the 70s was interaction. On some level we understood that culture came to us piped in on a few channels at home and a few films every week. We yammered at each other and even talked back at the screen because we were powerless to comment in other ways.

My thirteen-year-old daughter, despite her taste for British boy bands and forgettable rom-coms, is a much more active participant in the culture she consumes. I may complain about her disappearing into her room to watch a half-dozen episodes of Monk on her netbook, then Skyping her BFFN (Best Friend For Now), whom she saw all day at school, but she takes agency for what goes before her eyes in ways that when I was her age, I could only envy.

When I was a kid, wrestling for the remote was the closest I ever got to controlling media. Today, the device my daughter holds in her hand can control not just the TV but her entire known world. She take a picture with her phone, and with Instagram or Camera + she can edit, frame, caption and send it. She can record herself singing Maroon 5 and then autotune it. I can’t call her a couch potato if while watching Design Star she’s designing a new couch on an app on her phone.

Yes, the major studios dump badly recycled garbage on us every summer (everyone involved in Adam Sandler’s recent That’s My Boy should be tried in The Hague). The difference now, though, is that this level of crappy disposable cultural production is where it deserves to have landed all along – where my daughter and I can take it or leave it. Buy the headphones on the plane or not. Watch the middle third months later on cable while we’re folding clothes or not. The choice is now wholly ours.

My daughter can personally regulate the culture she consumes from the electronic rock in her hand — she can join the cultural conversation herself at a level frighteningly close to that of the professionals.

I’ve been writing films for years, and in the seven years since I started teaching filmmaking, I’ve seen the cost of indie film production reduce precipitously. Seven years ago it was common to see a student spend $30,000 on a twenty-minute film and not uncommon for them to spend $60,000. Today my teenager cuts a video for a school project on iMovie as casually as she texts her friends. I tell her how Lena Dunham began with YouTube shorts in college that blossomed into her micro-budget features, Dealing and Tiny Furniture, before her explosion onto HBO with Girls.

My daughter just nods. She’s not amazed. For her, that revolution has already been won. Why should she waste her time feeling nostalgic for success on the big screen when she’s got a brave new universe in the palm of her hand?

Trey Ellis is a novelist, screenwriter, playwright and Associate Professor at Columbia University’s School of the Arts.
Trey Ellis

Trey Ellis is a novelist, screenwriter, blogger and Assistant Professor at Columbia University. His new memoir is "Bedtime Stories: Adventures in the Land of Single-Fatherhood," from which this is adapted. More Trey Ellis.

You Might Also Like

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

7 motorist-friendly camping sites

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 9

Sponsored Post

  • White River National Forest via Lower Crystal Lake, Colorado
    For those OK with the mainstream, White River Forest welcomes more than 10 million visitors a year, making it the most-visited recreation forest in the nation. But don’t hate it for being beautiful; it’s got substance, too. The forest boasts 8 wilderness areas, 2,500 miles of trail, 1,900 miles of winding service system roads, and 12 ski resorts (should your snow shredders fit the trunk space). If ice isn’t your thing: take the tire-friendly Flat Tops Trail Scenic Byway — 82 miles connecting the towns of Meeker and Yampa, half of which is unpaved for you road rebels.
    fs.usda.gov/whiteriveryou


    Image credit: Getty

  • Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest via Noontootla Creek, Georgia
    Boasting 10 wildernesses, 430 miles of trail and 1,367 miles of trout-filled stream, this Georgia forest is hailed as a camper’s paradise. Try driving the Ridge and Valley Scenic Byway, which saw Civil War battles fought. If the tall peaks make your engine tremble, opt for the relatively flat Oconee National Forest, which offers smaller hills and an easy trail to the ghost town of Scull Shoals. Scaredy-cats can opt for John’s Mountain Overlook, which leads to twin waterfalls for the sensitive sightseer in you.
    fs.usda.gov/conf


    Image credit: flickr/chattoconeenf

  • Nordhouse Dunes Wilderness Area via Green Road, Michigan
    The only national forest in Lower Michigan, the Huron-Mainstee spans nearly 1 million acres of public land. Outside the requisite lush habitat for fish and wildlife on display, the Nordhouse Dunes Wilderness Area is among the biggest hooks for visitors: offering beach camping with shores pounded by big, cerulean surf. Splash in some rum and you just might think you were in the Caribbean.
    fs.usda.gov/hmnf


    Image credit: umich.edu

  • Canaan Mountain via Backcountry Canaan Loop Road, West Virginia
    A favorite hailed by outdoorsman and author Johnny Molloy as some of the best high-country car camping sites anywhere in the country, you don’t have to go far to get away. Travel 20 miles west of Dolly Sods (among the busiest in the East) to find the Canaan Backcountry (for more quiet and peace). Those willing to leave the car for a bit and foot it would be remiss to neglect day-hiking the White Rim Rocks, Table Rock Overlook, or the rim at Blackwater River Gorge.
    fs.usda.gov/mnf


    Image credit: Getty

  • Mt. Rogers NRA via Hurricane Creek Road, North Carolina
    Most know it as the highest country they’ll see from North Carolina to New Hampshire. What they may not know? Car campers can get the same grand experience for less hassle. Drop the 50-pound backpacks and take the highway to the high country by stopping anywhere on the twisting (hence the name) Hurricane Road for access to a 15-mile loop that boasts the best of the grassy balds. It’s the road less travelled, and the high one, at that.
    fs.usda.gov/gwj


    Image credit: wikipedia.org

  • Long Key State Park via the Overseas Highway, Florida
    Hiking can get old; sometimes you’d rather paddle. For a weekend getaway of the coastal variety and quieter version of the Florida Keys that’s no less luxe, stick your head in the sand (and ocean, if snorkeling’s your thing) at any of Long Key’s 60 sites. Canoes and kayaks are aplenty, as are the hot showers and electric power source amenities. Think of it as the getaway from the typical getaway.
    floridastateparks.org/longkey/default.cfm


    Image credit: floridastateparks.org

  • Grand Canyon National Park via Crazy Jug Point, Arizona
    You didn’t think we’d neglect one of the world’s most famous national parks, did you? Nor would we dare lead you astray with one of the busiest parts of the park. With the Colorado River still within view of this cliff-edge site, Crazy Jug is a carside camper’s refuge from the troops of tourists. Find easy access to the Bill Hall Trail less than a mile from camp, and descend to get a peek at the volcanic Mt. Trumbull. (Fear not: It’s about as active as your typical lazy Sunday in front of the tube, if not more peaceful.)
    fs.usda.gov/kaibab


    Image credit: flickr/Irish Typepad

  • As the go-to (weekend) getaway car for fiscally conscious field trips with friends, the 2013 MINI Convertible is your campground racer of choice, allowing you and up to three of your co-pilots to take in all the beauty of nature high and low. And with a fuel efficiency that won’t leave you in the latter, you won’t have to worry about being left stranded (or awkwardly asking to go halfsies on gas expenses).


    Image credit: miniusa.com

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 9

Related Videos

Comments

 4 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username ( settings | log out )

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

Salon is proud to feature content from AlterNet, an award-winning news magazine and online community that creates original journalism and amplifies the best of hundreds of other independent media sources.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: "The Joker": Laughing at life's deepest sorrows