There's two pieces of writing advice that have helped me navigate politics more than anything else.
The first is, "nobody real thinks they're a villain." Seriously, nobody. You have to get into really cartoony shit before you get someone like Maleficent calling herself "mistress of all evil" with a straight face. Villains that actually call themselves villains or evil or whatnot are cheesy cartoon characters, not people.
Villains are people convinced they're right. They're the hero of their own story, same as the rest of us. That their goals are abhorrent or nonsensical to the rest of us doesn't make a difference. Whether or not they can be convinced otherwise is a mixed bag at best.
The second is, "presentation matters." How something gets said has a lot to do with how that something gets heard and understood. That's why we have rewrites and edits and table reads and all that other stuff that goes along with making something to be seen and heard.
Remember in school when there'd be this drunk driving PSA assembly, and they'd bring out this guy who was doing 20 years for vehicular homicide? He'd tell this long, passionate speech about how he ruined his life with bad decisions and killed innocent people and how he ruined his life as a result.
And what always followed him? Applause.
Fucking applause.
And never once did you hear a voice in the crowd say, "This fuckstain killed three people out of his own stupidity! Why are you fucking sheep cheering?!"
Applause.
Seen a lot of baffling shit this election cycle. But applying those two modifiers makes a difference.
The first is, "nobody real thinks they're a villain." Seriously, nobody. You have to get into really cartoony shit before you get someone like Maleficent calling herself "mistress of all evil" with a straight face. Villains that actually call themselves villains or evil or whatnot are cheesy cartoon characters, not people.
Villains are people convinced they're right. They're the hero of their own story, same as the rest of us. That their goals are abhorrent or nonsensical to the rest of us doesn't make a difference. Whether or not they can be convinced otherwise is a mixed bag at best.
The second is, "presentation matters." How something gets said has a lot to do with how that something gets heard and understood. That's why we have rewrites and edits and table reads and all that other stuff that goes along with making something to be seen and heard.
Remember in school when there'd be this drunk driving PSA assembly, and they'd bring out this guy who was doing 20 years for vehicular homicide? He'd tell this long, passionate speech about how he ruined his life with bad decisions and killed innocent people and how he ruined his life as a result.
And what always followed him? Applause.
Fucking applause.
And never once did you hear a voice in the crowd say, "This fuckstain killed three people out of his own stupidity! Why are you fucking sheep cheering?!"
Applause.
Seen a lot of baffling shit this election cycle. But applying those two modifiers makes a difference.
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