Recently, a friend and I talked about the comedian and creator Julio Torres. She knew him from SNL skits like this one:
Whereas, I know him as the creator of the HBO show Los Espookys and as the character Andres (the one with the blue hair) in it:
Suffice it to say, Julio Torres has a specific style and sense of humor. The show is about a Scooby-doo type crew of friends who get hired to do “horror gigs.” From faking haunted houses to exorcisms, the team spooks an audience at the behest of a client.
Ok, now here’s the point of this post. Often, what I’m watching/reading/listening to gets contextualized around what’s happening to me or the world. Right now, we are living in a time of massive disinformation and information silos. People are circling the wagons around the things that validate how they view and understand the world.
When I first saw Los Espookys, it was the first year of the pandemic. So I enjoyed it for the escapism it was. But after talking to my friend, I decided to rewatch it. And what I am noticing this time is how every client is using the crew to reshape the world’s perception of them to their liking.
There’s the sculptor who made a terrible statue of Shakira. Rather, than admit it’s bad, she hired the Espookys to have “Shakira” come to the unveiling and admit she actually looks more like the statue in real life. The artist thanks the team for “defending her art.”
Or there’s the priest who’s upset that another priest is more popular than him. So he asks for a staged exorcism to reset the balance of power between him, the new priest and the congregation.
Or there’s the scientist who got a grant to do alien autopsies but has spent most of her time writing movie reviews. So she stages a fake alien autopsy for her investors, and the aliens thank her for being kind while working so hard that she doesn’t even have time to eat lunch! She works so hard!!
Style over substance. Facade over depth. Perception over understanding.
Huh.