In early March, I came across a video online of actress Jameela Jamil explaining the current changes in film and TV writing. She explains that now, many shows are being written in a way that if the audience is on their phone, they can still understand what’s going on in the show. It’s called “Second Screen Viewing” and she says it’s being passed down from big studios to filmmakers to accomodate new waves of audience engagement.
The popularization of “Second Screen Viewing” has pushed writers to simplify storylines, scenes, and dialogue. As the viewer is looking at their phone, there is a big reliance on the audio cues. Jameela Jamil explains, “That’s while you’ll notice now in random- even in TV shows with good actors; they’re saying really obvious things about what’s happening. They’re laying out the entire plot line.” This applies to characters’ thoughts and feelings too, making dialogue, in my opinion, feel very simple. Also, film is a visual medium. In film school, they teach us to show and not tell, which is why I find this so unnatural.
Other filmmakers and industry professionals have similar thoughts. The Guardian reports that Danny Brocklehurst, an English screenwriter, says, “I hate the idea that people are watching anybody’s shows, and certainly my shows, with a phone in their hand, scrolling, texting, commenting on the show maybe on Twitter, just watch it. You make television so people will complete it because it’s good and they enjoy it and they wanna watch it. What you don’t do is make it so simple that it’s just like chewing gum.” I think this points out how important it is for the general public to remember that filmmakers are artists. Yes, this art can be mainstream and heavily pushed by consumerist culture, but it still deserves respect. In my opinion, watching it like “chewing gum” makes it feel disposable and consumable rather than treasured and enjoyable.
Jameela Jamil’s statements made me realize that our consumerist culture is bleeding into our media more than I initially thought. Since 2013, the “binge watching” craze has been ever growing after the rise of stream services. Now with the addictive nature of social media, I feel like it’s a race to consume as much media as possible all at once. Our culture demands that viewers “keep up” with trends, shows, celebrities, movies, brands, and so much more at all times. Social media and binge watching is how most people “keep up”, so I think it makes sense the two activities are becoming blended together for most audiences.
Additionally, I believe the instant gratification of social media has fried viewers’ sense of delayed gratification, which comes with all well-written TV shows. This makes viewers feel bored when a story isn’t moving fast enough, prompting them to doom-scroll. I noticed that I’ve done this before, and from experience, I believe this is how a lot of us remain overstimulated and burnt out. Social media alone is very demanding of attention, but consuming two different screens at once can be a lot for our minds.
I think that we as a collective need to recognize and change these addictive cycles that corporations manufacture for our consumption so we can break out of them. As Jameela Jamil explains, “We are purposefully dumbing down content and that is leading to a less nuanced, less interesting, less thoughtful society.”