What’s imagination?

This archived article was written by: Donald McCarty

Donald McCarty
staff writer
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As generations get older and younger ones take their places, we lose our imagination. Movies are less interesting and most forms of entertainment are boring or repetitive. In the good old days of entertainment it wasn’t very hard to come up a new story to put on film. Now the industry has lost its imaginations.
Most of the movies that are coming out are sequels or remakes. Last summer I called the movie season “the season of twos,” as sixty percent of the blockbuster movies were sequels to movies from the previous three years. When The Matrix came out, it was hailed as one of the best movies of our time. It had a huge cult following. Last year they released its two part sequel. While the movies fared well enough not to break the bank, traditionally sequels don’t do as well as the original. An article in Time magazine quoted the writer/directors of The Matrix as stating, “If you look around at Japanese animation, you will see that all we did was steal parts and pieces of other peoples’ ideas and put them all together to make a movie.
Other movies such as Cheaper by the Dozen originally came out big in the sixties. Peter Pan is a classic child’s tale that has been written and adapted to film time and time again. This year’s Shrek 2 was a good sequel, but none the less a sequel. Peter Jackson, director of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, is currently producing a remake of King Kong.
Not only is the film industry in trouble, but the music industry has gone down hill as well.
Radio stations blare filth and the FCC stands by and lets them do so. The majority of music composed and released now is garbage. The content is either offensive to most or the beats are too fast or heavy, to the point where you cannot understand what is being said. The industry calls it innovation; I call it lack of imagination.
Some of my favorite bands have not been as appealing as they used to be. KMFDM has songs from the mid-nineties suggesting kids to stay in school, for if they don’t they won’t be worth anything. Their song D.I.Y (Do It Yourself) basically gives the message “Why are you waiting around for someone to do it for you; get up off your lazy butt and do it yourself.”
One of my favorite lines from KMFDM is “No nee dfor needles, no injection, the substance substitutes love and affection.” Their latest album, entitled World War III, is full of songs about overthrowing the government because of what a disappointment it is.
The dance scene is the worst. If you sit down and actually listen to the music, it’s the same as the older stuff but with profanity as every other word and a faster, heavier beat. Rarely is there a rap or R&B song that isn’t suggestive in a sexual way, or worse, straight forward and blunt.
It seems that the human race has lost its ability to think of new ways to entertain itself. We are the victims of an unimaginative entertainment industry that is only looking for the quickest dollar, and sadly we buy into it; we let them choose what we “want” to see and hear. We have become the unimaginative buying drones of the entertainment industry. They feed us and we accept it.
So I ask you this question. What is imagination?