I am the first to admit that I am the king of dumb mistakes. Whether it’s in my personal life or my professional one, I am quite capable (indeed sometimes it seems eager) to make dumb blunders. Normally they are pretty minor but once in a while I do make a whopper of a blunder. I accept this as simply part of being a human being
But I have some friends who work in the entertainment industry and I have sometimes asked them how it is possible for the truly awful movie or television show to make it to the screen. I’m not talking here about the movie that just isn’t your cup of tea, I’m talking about the Gigli kind of bomb that truly ruins a studio.
The reason I ask this is because when it comes to these blunders it took the work of dozens, or even hundreds of people to get them to fruition. You had to have somebody come up with an idea and write a script, you have to have producers put up money to fund the idea, people are hired to act in the production and a crew is engaged. The filming process takes months to complete.
And yet nowhere in this long process does anyone raise their hand and say ‘Hey, this thing stinks’.
I am also wondering about this when it comes to some of the blunders out of the White House over recent months. I freely admit I did not vote for Obama, and I don’t agree with him on a number of issues, but I have no particular hostility towards him. I think he’s a decent guy with some very sincere goals. I also admired the amazing effectiveness of his 2008 campaign. To go from obscure state legislator to President in less than 10 years is no small feat.
Which begs the question of how they can keep making the mistakes of late. For example how do you hire someone for a position in your administration without vetting him properly ? Or how is it that you plan what should be a simple speech to schoolkids and have it blow up into a mini fuss ?
In both cases if someone had simply raised their hand and said ‘Hey maybe we should make these lesson plans a little more neutral’ or ‘Hey maybe we should get all this stuff on Jones out to the public first so we can explain it’ or ‘How about we don’t put Jones in office because of this stuff’ then perhaps some embarrassing mistakes could have been avoided.
Then again we are all human and I’m sure Hollywood has another Gigli in the works…..