Funny. I did a little experiment last week where I saturated my social media pages with news of our documentaries premiering on a new platform and posted one mention of the engagement of ballet dancer extraordinaire Misty Copeland. As of today, the Facebook post on Misty has received 192 Likes, 17 comments and 31 shares. The number of shares represents the total number of likes, RTs and comments received on any of the documentary activity all of the days this week combined. Why is that? It's actually not hard to figure out. It could be celebrity, a bit of escapism, complete voyeurism (of which I am guilty as well) and the occasional bad behavior if we look at the tabloids that get the public's attention. The films I pursued for EPIPHANY Inc. addressed a void and answered a need--I thought--from a public crying for more "why don't we ever see...[fill in the blank]" positive Black role models. Yes, Misty's a positive Black role model, for sure. But so are the people outside of reality TV stars who bare their souls on camera and do not have an internationally marketed platform such as the American Ballet Theatre to back them. I'm very grateful to the supporters through the years whose active enthusiasm has ushered EPIPHANY Inc. films into production and distribution. But it would also be nice if people noticed the irony every time they say, "I really want to see your film" and then turn around and tell me they just saw the latest blockbuster. A further deepening of the knife, "have you seen it to?" they ask. Me: "I have. I liked it. I'm glad you did too." I leave it there. There's no need to be preachy. I'm pretty sure in their minds, they feel that's what documentaries are there to do.
A throwback to the start of a personally rewarding career.