{"id":8256,"date":"2018-02-23T15:21:01","date_gmt":"2018-02-23T15:21:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/?p=8256"},"modified":"2018-09-23T21:49:58","modified_gmt":"2018-09-23T21:49:58","slug":"the-normal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/2018\/02\/23\/the-normal\/","title":{"rendered":"the normal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I just scanned the most recent issue of \u201c14 y medio\u201d, a banned \/ clandestine news digest from Cuba.<\/p>\n<p>You won\u2019t be surprised that the stories are about struggle.<\/p>\n<p>It reminded me of feedback I got recently about a TV pilot I&#8217;m writing, set in a Cuban island, with a Cuban protagonist.<\/p>\n<p>The advice came from a good friend, with experience: \u201cThere\u2019s so much struggle. You have to give the protagonist some success earlier on.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I did. But it\u2019s worth noting that middle-class Americans (the idealized audience for TV entertainment) simply don\u2019t understand what life is like for most everyone else.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, struggle is not depressing, per se. Struggle is not a defeat. Struggle is the baseline &#8211; the foundation for comedy, desire, nostalgia, hope, frustration, etc<\/p>\n<p>The extent to which TV is cast from the perspective of people who expect the glass to be full is remarkable. Even when the show depicts suffering, this bias colors the tone: the pain is tragic, all-consuming, debilitating.<\/p>\n<p>In reality, the pain is constant but so is the perseverance. And ingenuity. And passion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I just scanned the most recent issue of \u201c14 y medio\u201d, a banned \/ clandestine news digest from Cuba. You won\u2019t be surprised that the stories are about struggle. It reminded me of feedback I got recently about a TV pilot I&#8217;m writing, set in a Cuban island, with a Cuban protagonist. The advice came&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,10,13,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8256"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8256"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8319,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8256\/revisions\/8319"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.josemarquez.com\/etc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}