Let me start with a confession. Years ago, I had a television show on the air – it was the first time I had a series of my own – which told the story of five young people living in New York City.
No, it wasn’t the international monster-hit Friends. It was another version – created, I hasten to add, at the very same time as Friends so let there be no accusations about “imitation” and “idea theft”. But instead of being broadcast on a powerful and far-reaching television network, our show aired on a fledgling network just beginning its first year of business. In other words, we were sunk. And we knew it.
The shows were similar, of course – we were the only ones at the time trying to tell stories about people in their twenties. Most of American television at the time was focused on older viewers with families. But I was in my mid-twenties then, and these were the kinds of things I was interested in, so it made sense to create and produce a television series about the life I was leading. It also made sense to the smart and accomplished creators of Friends, too.
Here’s the confession: just because Friends was a hit and my show was not, it was impossible for me to see Friends clearly, without bias or prejudice. I watched its first year of episodes with a permanent sneer on my face, refusing to see what was funny, charming and appealing about a show that pretty much everyone else was raving about. “This is interesting to you?” I’d ask my friends, incredulously. “You don’t find it derivative and boring?” I’d ask anyone who’d listen. “How can people choose this?” And: “What’s wrong with them?”
The truth – as we and one billion other television viewers know – is that Friends was a delightfully funny and smart show. It was a giant success and it deserved to be.
My show was not a giant success (though it deserved more, I maintain) but the two things are utterly unrelated. But because I knew from the outset that my show was, probably, doomed, I had an almost impossible time seeing the other show clearly and honestly. I’m embarrassed, now looking back, at how petty I was.
“How can people choose this?” “What’s wrong with them?” This is what everyone in Hollywood asks, petulantly, when audiences turn to someone else’s film or television show, when the great mob of unpersuadable people choose to make someone else rich and successful. For every Oscar that’s handed out – or, more usually, every multimillion dollar studio deal signed – there are dozens of people sneering and cavilling on the sidelines, angry and peevish that they were left out of the goodies.
That’s a natural human response. It’s totally understandable. But it’s also a distorting reaction, and the result is a kind of temporary (one hopes) myopia.
Last week, as I began my twice-yearly drive across the United States, from New York to Los Angeles – a hot and dusty drive, but worth it – I listened in on the BBC satellite broadcast of the Brexit vote. Whatever your specific feelings about the outcome, one thing was clear that night: the people on the losing side of the referendum were asking themselves, in petulant and incredulous tones, “How can people choose this?” And: “What’s wrong with them?”
Even though I was listening to the radio, the head-shaking and confused looks were almost audible. What was supposed to be a decisive win for the Remain camp – or, at the very least, a narrowly eked out victory – had instead turned into a solid and undeniable drubbing.
The Leave vote was Friends, and the Remain vote was my show, struggling for attention and ultimately failing, with the losers simply refusing to see how anyone could be that foolish, how the audience could be duped. But that’s the problem with voters, and with audiences: they can’t be trusted to behave themselves. They always, ultimately, refuse to follow orders.
Or, maybe, another way to look at it is this: some shows, like Friends, just connect with people. And some – like mine – just don’t. When it’s a question of success in Hollywood, the outcome isn’t that dire. But when it’s an international alliance involving vast economies and multiple countries, maybe it would have been useful for the Remain camp to get out of London for a spell, to head out of the big city and the cosseted bubble they were in and meet their audience face to face.
Part of the reason I drive twice yearly from New York – a cosseted bubble if ever there was one – to Los Angeles – another reality-free zone – is because the country in between is where the audience lives. The hot and dusty motorway cuts a swath through small towns and midsized cities filled with regular Americans who, it must be said, cannot be trusted to fall in line. They chose Friends over my show, after all. How crazy was that?
The audience, and the voting public, is impossible to quantify. They will disappoint you sometimes and lift you up at other times but what they should never do, if you’re in the entertainment business or the political business, is surprise you. Because that means you haven’t been listening. That means you’ve spent too long in the city, surrounded by echoes.
Rob Long is a writer and producer in Hollywood
On Twitter: @rcbl
