Talent Is a Ticket to Nowhere (Guest Post)

My husband, Brent, has been preoccupied lately with the successes of a few (very few) writers who have self-published their novels. There is a feeling that by self-publishing they’ve somehow subverted the talent-driven system of agents and publishers. To that, I snort though my nose and cry “Hah!”

(Blog owner's note: My wife says I've been preoccupied, but apparently she's been preoccupied herself since rewatching the entire season of Smash already this summer. I've offered her the platform of this blog to get some things off her chest.)

I don’t believe in the talent-driven system. As far as I’m concerned it’s a myth that we share with others to promote hard work and persistence – it’s the Santa Claus of the creative world.

Cute braids require long hair,
not a mullet.

I lost my faith in this particular Santa Claus when I was 7-years-old and I auditioned for a part in a community production of the Sound of Music. I loved that show. I knew all the songs. I could expertly tell you the story from beginning to end without leaving anything out. Unfortunately, I had two things working against me: my 1977 mullet hairdo and my big mouth. I mentioned the audition to a friend who had luxuriously long brown hair and an adorable lisp. She mentioned it to her mother who proceeded to bring her five daughters (all with flowing manes of very not-1970s hair) to the audition. Although the girls had never seen the show, sung the songs, or imagined themselves dancing at the Captain’s ball – they all got cast in the available parts, leaving nothing for me. Apparently, the length of their hair was really all the talent required.

This was the first of my run-ins with the dismal reality of art – it’s not really about talent. Most recently, I’ve been struck by this fact as it relates to a TV show I’ve been watching: Smash. I’m a Broadway fan. I moved to New York for two years, mostly because it meant I could go see plays anytime I wanted. So, when they announced Smash in the television lineup, I was camping out to buy my ticket. Unlike many others, I tuned in all season, and while I admit there were some flat episodes, overall I liked it.

The central conflict of the story is the competition between two actors for the role of Marilyn in Marilyn! The Musical. (Technically the fictional title is Bombshell. But I think Marilyn! The Musical is catchier. Don’t you?) Karen is just off the bus from Iowa. She’s naïve and starry eyed and just wants you to let her be your star. We’re told repeatedly that she is very, very talented. In contrast, Ivy comes from a musical theater family. Her mother is played by Bernadette Peters (who seems to be playing Patti Lupone) and Mama is an established, Broadway Phenom. Ivy has spent years working in the chorus of different Broadway shows, but has yet to break out. Luckily for her, one of her best buds is writing the music for Marilyn! the Musical and he thinks she’d be perfect as Marilyn. She, too, just wants to be given the chance to be your star.

The show has painted some stereotypes a bit thickly. Karen is sweet and refuses to do anyone dirty to get the part. Ivy is cynical and ruthless enough to do whatever it takes. We see this in the second episode where both women are invited to sleep with the director. Karen walks out. Ivy starts taking her clothes off.

Karen on the left.
Ivy on the right.
Who's more Marilyn?

As the season progresses, Ivy is cast as Marilyn in the workshop production, but as the show moves closer to Broadway, she is replaced by a “big name” movie star. Back to the chorus goes Ivy. Meanwhile, Karen becomes the understudy to the movie star. All this leads up to the climactic season finale when big name movie star pulls out of the show during Previews and the creative team has to decide who will go on as Marilyn that night. The director, against strong, loud, and logical argument, chooses to have Karen play the role, rather than Ivy. Everyone else on the creative team just KNOWS that this is a mistake, that Ivy should be the one to do the part. But the director, in a really blunt moment, explains that when he closes his eyes, he sees Karen as Marilyn, not Ivy.

In reading reviews of the show’s season finale, most of the critics have been scathing in denouncing the director’s choice. Mostly because in comparing the two performances throughout the season, Megan Hilty, who plays Ivy, seems to be the more talented than Katherine McPhee, who plays Karen. In reality, they lament, she would be the one who would get the part. But she wouldn’t. That’s my point. In TV, film, and theater, the part goes to the one who fits the director’s vision, not to the one who out-Stanislavskied everybody else.

Who writes this movie if not for
one lucky man?

The evidence of this permeates the creative world. Damon Lindelof (writer of the Lost series and Prometheus) in a recent interview explained that he got his job writing for J.J. Abrams because he knew an executive at ABC. I’m not saying Lindelof isn’t talented because clearly he is. What I am saying is that he lucked out by knowing someone who had the power to get him in the room. How many other, perhaps more talented, screen writers toil away in obscurity because they don't have the good sense to grow up well-connected?

In another example, a few years ago NBC’s summer reality show, Last Comic Standing made the news because its celebrity judges (including Drew Carey) walked out of the final episode in protest over the announced finalists. They publicly complained that the people standing on the stage were not the people that they had picked as the funniest comedians. The producers of the show ignored the expert judging they had recruited in favor of fulfilling their vision of who should win.

It’s a hard fact. Talent isn’t a ticket to anything except frustration and grief unless it’s paired with luck, connections, or a pretty face. So to Brent and the rest of the world, I say publish or perish. If the internet is the only connection you have, then use it. Fifty Shades of Grey is a small price to pay if the internet also reveals another Shakespeare--or Depeche Mode.

P.S. Brent thinks it’s very important that I disclose that he’s never watched an episode of Smash. Perhaps this is why he still believes in fairy tales of talent.