Once upon a time and long ago and far away there was a University by a Beach. The University had a President who was a King — or a King who was a President, I am never quite sure — and various provosts and various deans, but one Provost and one Dean in particular who very much wanted the President to like them very much.
That’s when The Two Gentlemen from The Valley came to town.
The Two Gentlemen had a dream. Take a massive building and a massive plot of land that had been abandoned, and turn them into the largest film studio in North America. Do a massive hazmat clean-up and then build that studio and then build a hotel and then build a dog spa, and imagine that Brad Pitt will want to check in for months on end and make a movie there. And maybe Angelina will come visit and bring the kids. Meanwhile, ignore the fact that the studio is at a working airport. Ignore the noise, ignore the vibrations, ignore the barking dogs.
Hey, everyone can dream, right?
But, for some reason, before embarking on their dream, The Two Gentlemen came to the University by the Beach, first to the Dean and then to the Provost and then at last to the President who was a King. Because The Two Gentlemen wanted something from the University. And the University wanted something from The Two Gentlemen.
So, a big public VIP event took place at which the Dean and the Provost announced that The Two Gentlemen would be providing student internships and free filming facilities and all sorts of other sweets and goodies to the University. The Dean and the Provost then introduced the Two Gentlemen at the VIP event by inflating their professional credits, making out Gentleman No. 1 to be a writer and producer of feature films, even though he wasn’t in fact a writer and producer of feature films but rather a corporate executive businessperson who had once been an Executive Vice President until his bottom-line bottomed-out.
While Gentleman No. 1 did not quibble with the false credits ascribed to him — in fact, he “ran” with them, as the expression goes — Gentleman No. 2 did correct one thing: he made it clear that the Two Gentlemen were not offering anything to the University’s students. “The best lesson for your students is to learn how to find equipment and resources for themselves,” said Gentleman No. 2. Then he proceeded to state that the studio would be open for business and would have two films in production as of the next month — but that turned out not to be true.
When all this was pointed out to the Dean and the Provost — that there were no benefits to the University and that the University was espousing false credits and empty promises — the President who was a King defended his minions and the University’s “willingness to explore the possible benefits of collaborating with this emerging city partner.” Rumor spread that the University was helping out The Two Gentlemen with political support at the Mayor’s and at the City Council. Rumor spread that ties to an educational institution might give tax and zoning advantages to the studio intended by The Two Gentlemen. Again, this was all rumor because the University never made any statement about what it was doing to help The Two Gentlemen, and The Two Gentlemen indicated that they were working with all sorts of other Universities as well.
Now, fourteen months after that VIP event and all its attendant publicity, there is no studio. The Two Gentlemen have not even been able to purchase the land they wanted. There is no studio and there are no productions and the University and its students have derived no benefits that anyone is aware of unless the Dean and the Provost and the President who was a King are keeping secrets that one would imagine they would rather brag about.
And yet, the Dean recently announced that Gentleman No. 1 will be this year’s Commencement Speaker for the University’s College of The Arts. In making this announcement, the Dean wrote that Gentleman No. 1 “is Chief Executive Officer of Long Beach Studios, the largest independent full-service studio in North America.” Unquote.
Yes, a CEO of Nothing is COTA’s Commencement Speaker. A non-artist is the Commencement Speaker for the College of The Arts. And the COTA Dean is telling all the world that a dream — or a nightmare — is just the same as an actual achievement. Except — stop the presses! this just in! — the COTA Dean has this instant capitulated and agreed to “change the wording on any other information we send out on this”, so that COTA is not responsible for pretending that a padlocked and empty warehouse is a working film studio. Good thing, since the previous COTA Dean had previously instituted — and then ignored — professional credit “accuracy and accountability” protocols in response to some arts faculty members whose credits were themselves the only creative works they had ever done.
Whew! What a fable this is. While our students have to take classes and make the grades and earn their degrees to ascend that platform in May, the lesson from the Dean and the Provost and the President who was a King is that — in the end — it’s just plain better to fake it ‘til you make it, unless of course you get caught.
And then you promise to be good while never admitting you were wrong.
Now there’s your moral for you.
The End.
This fable was found on the desk of Brian Alan Lane, an associate professor of film and electronic arts at CSULB.
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