The Ethics of Creative Production;
The Ethics of Creative Production;
Creator-Content "Numbness," Mass Media Exploitation, and Honouring the Stories We Tell
Hi, I’m Lauren! I am a writer, editor, and social media manager living in Montréal, Quebec. My writing experience is diverse and includes such areas as blog writing for online magazines, article writing and editing for arts collectives, academic writing, and editorial biography. My academic history is situated in media studies, cultural analysis, and social theory. When I’m not writing I enjoy reading snowy ski mountain murder mysteries, trying out new recipes in the kitchen, and exploring the beautiful outdoors.
We like to think that the art we create stands on its own – that it exists in its own space, separated from us – but in reality, the invisible tie between creator and creation is more tangled than audiences see. The culture of creative production hosts underlying tension, and the truth is that this tension is not separate from the art – it is inherently linked to the content we create. Sometimes this tension goes unnoticed and affects neither the artist nor the audience; sometimes its effects are profound, all-encompassing, and even threatening.
We can begin by considering how it feels to face internal conflict when producing something that is upsetting or difficult in subject matter. Producing creative content means inevitably tangling with difficult topics, and figuring out how to represent them can bring about complicated ethical choices and relationships between creator and creation.
I felt this tension when I was writing my Master’s thesis. My topic was Western news coverage of young female victims of violent crime, and how this coverage varied based on elements of their identity such as race, Indigeneity, sexuality, socioeconomic status, etc. I invoked Judith Butler’s theory of “Grievability” to explain how Western culture sees certain victimhoods as worthy of collective attention and grieving, and others as unworthy, unremarkable, or understandable. This process creates a hierarchy of importance in what kind of people Western society cares about and who may be swept under the rug.
In researching, I had to source many news articles published over a long period of time that discussed disturbing topics – sexual assault, murder, kidnapping, brutality, and other violent acts. What was equally disturbing was the format of these news articles – the presence and number (or lack) of photos, descriptions of the victims, details about their lives… some victims were left almost completely anonymous, instead focusing on the perpetrator’s many facets of identity and experience. Other victims received multi-page spreads with sympathetic language, colour photographs, and lots of text discussing their personal traits and achievements.
For example, the difference of reporting on white, middle-to-upper class, culturally beloved victim JonBenét Ramsey was very different from the reporting on the Black, socioeconomically marginalized victim referred to as “Girl X,” who was assaulted and nearly murdered just two weeks after JonBenét’s body was discovered (“Girl X” has since come forward as Toya Currie and has reclaimed her name in news media). Over the course of many case studies I delved into the difference between news depictions of idealized girl victims versus disenfranchised girl victims in the eyes of Western audiences; I examined how this overly simplistic definition of victimhood labelled certain victims as inherently more worthy of attention and sympathy than others.
As you can imagine, researching my thesis was an upsetting experience. In order to create the work without becoming emotionally overwhelmed, I had to consider the disturbing details of the violence I was reading about in an academic way, which is naturally distancing from the upsetting nature of the topic. The act of removing oneself from the emotion and loss of these cases can present another danger: becoming “numb” to the magnitude of what you are discussing. To counteract this, I focused on honouring the victims’ stories with mindfulness – bringing attention to their intersectional webs of identity and how this informed the discrimination they faced, even after death. However, I’m sure it would be nearly impossible for some of that desensitizing to seep in. This is the same struggle other content creators and artists can face during the creative process: an uncomfortable push-pull between the desire to create and the difficulty of representing upsetting topics authentically, without being numb to them. If creative complacency is taken too far it can lead to a very disturbing underlying process when applied to entertainment media; that is where the second part of this conversation begins.
When victims’ stories are translated into entertainment media, they can become minimized or simplified in an effort to make the media more “consumable.” Entertainment media’s goal is to deliver a sense of emotional fulfillment to the audience, making them want to watch/read/consume more of that content. When this process is applied to upsetting topics, what we often end up with is attention-grabbing, shock-centric media that exploits peoples’ stories to generate provocative entertainment.
What moral debate do you think of when I say the phrase “true crime podcasts”? Perhaps you’ve heard of the recent criticisms – the glossing over of details, the reduction of certain people or events in order to tell the story in a certain way, the over-packaging for mass consumption. You see it when you look at filmmaking too. For example, last year’s Netflix Jeffery Dahmer documentary (shockumentary?), Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story faced much controversy; families of Dahmer’s victims said the show exploited their stories without consideration and re-traumatized them through its creative choices. Rita Isbell, sister of Errol Lindsey, (who was murdered by Dahmer) brought up the ethics of a major streaming platform popularizing the story of a serial killer in the way they did, minimizing the victims’ stories under Dahmer’s name. In an essay published with Insider, she directly calls out Netflix’s capitalist bottom line and accuses the platform of prioritizing financial gain so much that they disregarded the ethics of depicting these stories in the way they did.
The creatives and artists behind that piece of media produced a widespread “numbing” to the victims’ stories when they created that piece of content – one that succeeded in hooking viewers, but failed in proposing any sort of justice for the stories it portrayed. Major corporations inherently value financial gain over everything else, but without those stories there would be no media in the first place – and there is no long-term accountability for Netflix when the documentary is still financially “successful.”
Rita Isbell’s story is one we often do not hear about – victims and their families depicted in news and entertainment media being subjugated to minimization, re-experiencing trauma, and being portrayed as less “grievable” due to factors of their identity. How can we combat this? Is it possible to tell victims’ stories ethically in the creative process when the format of that content is aimed at a mass consumer market? Would it be possible on a smaller scale, where we assume individual communities of artists and creatives have less capitalistic intentions?
I listen to a podcast called Crime Junkie. The name alone is bad – comparing true crime media consumption to drug addiction in a positive light trivializes both. However, the creative team behind this piece of media treat the victims, (whose stories their podcast hinges on) differently to Netflix. They practice advocacy, choosing to share the experiences of lesser-known victims whose stories have been lost, making reference to the cultural disadvantages that contributed to their victimhoods, (e.g. – poverty, systemic abuse, lack of resources or support…), and they link to further resources for listeners to help real causes. In this way, they bring the spotlight back to the subjects that media like the Jeffrey Dahmer doc unintentionally repress and exploit.
Once again we notice the juxtaposition between the content that creatives produce and their personal ethics. Can one create art that tells a story without in some way exploiting it (for money, fame, personal expression) even without intent to do so? Can a podcast that inherently “uses” victims’ stories to make money and gather viewership truly be ethical, even if it does its best to honour victims and link in further resources? How can we take these things into consideration when we make our own art?
There are many types of art in the world and they often revolve around storytelling, whether it be our own stories or the stories of others. Even when we think the art reflects our own perspective, it will always inherently evoke dominant cultural beliefs in some way or another, because that has formed how we see the world. As conversations about the creator-content relationship continue to arise, we need to be considering how those stories are told: how we can do justice to the struggles we are representing, and how to avoid the pitfalls of becoming too numb to them in the process.
In the end, I’d like to believe that artists and creatives want to produce ethical content. Critical conversations like this reach towards a world where we can produce authentic and empathetic art while respecting the stories of those we include in our efforts. Art as activism in a way that is not performative, but revolutionary. I implore us to keep going.
Lauren is BYE’s first contributor. This is a publication that prides itself on celebrating the creative community and its unique perspectives on what it’s like to be creative. We wish to give people like Lauren the opportunity to express themselves, be heard, and for their experience living the artist’s life to be a little less solitary.
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