T. Becket Adams

There seems to be a consensus that writing in modern entertainment is uniquely weak – whether it’s trite, lazy, or even riddled with anachronisms. Has something happened? Have the competent screenwriters simply disappeared? Or has it as a profession suffered from the general, cultural-wide competency crisis? It seems telling that for FIFTEEN YEARS running, a director has won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (with some caveats as to what constitutes a director vs. a “screenwriter,” of course). Has the screenwriter all but disappeared as a separate and necessary element of the film- and television-making process? It is the strike? Is it streaming? Is it AI? Talk to me like I’m in 12th grade. How is it possible to have gone from the precision of Paddy Chayefsky to a major studio Lucille Ball biopic in 2021 that uses phrases such as “circle back” and “brand ambassador”? How did we go from “I could’ve been a contender” caliber of Oscar-winning writing to “Chicago ain't nothing but Mississippi with tall buildings”? The latter is an objectively silly line – sillier still because it is presented and received as profound. Many such thoughts, but I’d really like to hear from someone who is in it, rather than someone who is simply observing. Thanks!