We here at That Park Place and our associated channels deal with popular culture and entertainment and thus inevitably with the worlds of commerce, politics, and the games people play to create, produce, and market the games people play as well. But lost too often in the talk of cultural values, business skullduggery, personalities, passions, and propaganda—and this goes for books, movies, gaming, streaming, art, all of it—is consideration of what I know to be the underlying, if often ignored, issue of…Time.
(Center): Vernestra Rwoh (Rebecca Henderson) in Lucasfilm’s THE ACOLYTE, season one, exclusively on Disney+. ©.
As the unofficial “time lord” or at least old-timer hereabouts, I’d like to call your attention to that vital but mostly unheralded factor and what it means to everything else.
You might be surprised to find out just how essential the issue of Time, and the consumer’s commitment of it, really is. Because whenever you choose to spend to purchase the various delivery systems of culture and entertainment, it isn’t just “them” selling their versions to YOU, but also YOU are selling YOUR VITAL and IRREPLACEABLE TIME and attention span to THEM. So maybe we need to look at things from a seller’s point of view, not just a consumer’s.
Owain Arthur as Prince Durin IV; Sophia Nomvete as Disa in The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2024), Amazon MGM Studios
Buy a book? Depending on how fast you read and how much time you take out of your other activities to do it and you are buying a commitment to hours, days, maybe a month on-and-off of your attention span and time. That’s quite a bargain if you measure minutes-vs-price. (and, as I’ve recently reveled in doing now that I “get” this, when you stop in the midst and say, “Nope, next” and delete it from your Kindle for failure to measure up and be worth anymore time.)
A movie ticket? 2 hours or so (you hope only) plus popcorn and parking and getting to and from. A theme park? At least a day, perhaps much more to/from/staying/menus beyond popcorn time and expense, all for a bunch of individual sub-portions lasting as little as 45 seconds. A computer game? Wow, that could be days or, with later versions or DLC’s maybe months, years, decades?
A screenshot from Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024), BioWare
And a “franchise” of any of these or the “brand” above that? If it is good and matches your tastes as they both—the brand and you—evolve over time? Could be the rest of your life.
And if, as it seems inevitably to be true nowadays, that could be a lifetime of being anywhere from reinforced and comforted in your social, political, and cultural prejudices OR indoctrinated in them, and that, especially in movies and gaming of late, is where everyone is suddenly getting all upset, angry, combative, and aware nowadays, as if that was all new.
(L-R): Alice Wu-Gulliver (Ali Ahn), Lilia Calderu (Patti LuPone), Mrs. Hart/Sharon Davis (Debra Jo Rupp), Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn), Teen (Joe Locke) and Jennifer Kale (Sasheer Zamata) in Marvel Television’s AGATHA ALL ALONG, exclusively on Disney +. Photo by Chuck Zlotnick. © 2024 MARVEL.
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Cultural values have always been a part of EVERY such creation, going back to cave paintings. They “sell” the community’s values, tell us what heroes are and to emulate them, what villains are and to shun them, and even the simplest fairy tale is a lesson in how to live a virtuous life. The fact that today’s gleeful and shrill propagandist’s think that our time-tested values suck is their issue, not ours.
The fact that so many of them are shrill and inept at convincing us and their efforts make for bad entertainment we are not willing to commit our TIME to is just the market sorting itself out. And the fact that a fair market REJECTS their nonsense is why they, bereft of any talent to sell their crapola with or any values worth selling, attempt to enforce by subterfuge, social pressure, or even law the dogma they cannot convince us to give the time of day to consume, let alone adopt and believe in.
A screenshot from Assassin’s Creed Shadows (2024), Ubisoft
BUT REMEMBER creators, you are selling people a COMMITMENT TO SPEND TIME WITH YOU. And that commitment may be more difficult to sell, even if not overtly announced as included in the monetary price. Fail to realize that, and fail to sell, period.
As consumers who pay…or don’t…for these things and as the market in which they financially rise or fall, you have to realize just how expensive in TIME and ATTENTION the real price tag for these things can become and be a more discerning consumer because of it.
Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft. Hayley Atwell as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider: The Legend of Lara Croft. Cr. COURTESY OF NETFLIX © 2024
And THAT is why these companies, especially and most visibly in the gaming sphere but, at least within sectors of the larger congloms such as MCU movies or the like, are failing and falling all over the media landscape and why they will continue to do so.
They want more, much more, than your money or even brand loyalty. They want your time! Take it from this advanced “time lord” that the longer you go on this or any other planet, the more and more expensive your cultural Tardis is to refuel. And when in doubt…. just say you haven’t got the time…and walk away for good.
NEXT: Actor Clifton Duncan Blasts Hollywood And Entertainment Industries As “A Vehicle For Division”
