One of the strange side-effects of being a writer or storyteller is how you’re never fully in the moment. Whenever something happens, even as it’s happening, there’s always a part of my brain processing how I’m going to recount or reuse it later. Sylvester Stallone mentions the same thing in his self-help book/memoir, Sly Moves, so I know I’m not alone in that.

But there’s something else being a storyteller does, which Stallone reminded me of last night.

A person well-versed in story, who thinks in story and views life through the prism story, puts events in the context of story. Even when it’s not his story. Back in July I wrote “Trump is the living embodiment of the Hero’s Journey.” Days before the election I tweeted that he would win, and the only question was if it would be a Rocky I win or a Rocky II win. 

Now Rocky himself has spoken.
Sylvester Stallone Brings Down The House Introducing President-Elect Donald Trump At AFPI Event.

At a Mar-A-Lago event Stallone recalled the symbolism of the opening scene of his breakthrough movie. The camera pans down from Christ on the cross to Rocky taking a punch.

At that moment, [Rocky] was a chosen person…This man was gonna go through a metamorphosis and change lives. Just like President Trump. We’re in the presence of a really mythical character. I love mythology. And this individual does not exist on this planet. Nobody in the world could’ve pulled off what he pulled off, so I’m in awe.

Then he went on to call Trump the second George Washington.

Nothing he said was about politics. Only culture. Western culture. What Stallone so masterfully did in just a few lines was frame this moment, like a powerful image from Greek myth or our very foundation, and hang it in the gallery of our collective imagination. Is it hyperbolic? Perhaps. But to his audience it feels true. Considering all of iconic images that Trump’s 2024 campaign provided, it’s difficult to argue with him.

And I’d never, ever, argue with Sylvester Stallone.

The time for politics is over. Now is the time be thinking in terms of culture. We’ve just witnessed an inspiring, overcoming against all odds, epic. We have to capture this feeling and infuse it into our work. Rocky arrived in theaters when the movie theaters were swamped with bleak, hopeless, films and shifted pop culture toward the positive for decades. We’ve been living in a bleak, hopeless reality. If we’re all willing to do our part, we can shift culture again.

I don’t know what they’re spiking the eggnog with over at Hallmark, but some of their new Christmas movies are breaking all the rules.

There are two ways to be subversive in storytelling. One way is to flat out lie to the audience. For example, there’s the trend of claiming that all white men are bad and have always been bad, or that all Christians are bad and have always been bad. These stories take us down the long established garden path, only to hit us over the head with a shovel to make a point. That’s not the reality we’ve ever known, but the story says it’s so.

It’s so tiresome.

The other way to be subversive is take a familiar formula and do something fresh and new with it. No one is attacked, or tricked, or talked down to. These stories remain true to the premise that the audience expects, but offers it in a unique way. No lies about reality required. Is there anything more formulaic than a Hallmark Christmas movie? Not really. Is there anything wrong with watching the same movie over and over again if it comforts and entertains us? Not at all.

But have you ever noticed how different the road looks on the way home, compared to the way there?

Our Holiday Story is like that. When Chris arrives at his new girlfriend’s house for Christmas before she does, he makes the mistake of asking her dad and step-mom, Dave and Nell, how they met. Their story is the primary focus, so it’s already established that they’ll get together. As if there would otherwise be any doubt (Hello, Hallmark Christmas movie!). Yet by drawing inspiration from the holiday classic The Shop Around the Corner we get to enjoy watching the characters squirm while they navigate the choppy waters of mid-life romance.

Bonus points for incorporating 2010’s technology in clever and organic ways.

Besides being formulaic, the other thing about these movies is that they’re wish-fulfillment fantasies for women. Santa Tell Me leans into that really, really hard, to the brink of self-parody. Olivia is the host of her own home reno show, and if that’s not the secret wish of many women, I don’t know what is. But her new Christmas special is turning out to be a big headache as she is forced to work with Chris, the director and producer of a rival program everyone hates (including Chris).

Naturally, they clash from the get-go

Just to raise the stakes, it’s decided that she’ll renovate her childhood home. Hidden in a heating vent is a letter to Santa she wrote as a little girl, which magically turns into a response promising her that she’ll meet Nick, the love of her life, by Christmas Eve. The next day she meets Nick A., Nick B., and Nick C. in alphabetical order (of course), and they’re all absurdly good looking and accomplished (of course). A is neurosurgeon who has saved lives all over the world. B. is a hunky carpenter. And C is a firefighter and calendar model. 

What’s a girl to do?

Well, despite three first dates that result in her sending all three suitors to the ER, she keeps going out with them after work. Santa sends the occasional update with cryptic clues and nudges, but we all know she’s going to end up with Chris (not just because both actors played lovers on When Calls the Heart). While it whimsically rides the line of too much, the movie never becomes insincere. We want Olivia to be happy and fulfilled. But we also have to admit that she’s kind of being a terrible person. When the three Nicks finally meet and start clobbering each other with squeaky candy canes on live TV, the ruse is up.

They call her out for leading them on. 

So there’s wish-fulfillment, but also consequences for bad actions. Everything absurd about this genre is dialed up to eleven, but we’re invited to be in on the joke and never laughed at for loving it. And the characters are endearing, warts and all. We already knew how it would end, but that’s okay. A story is like a dance, and when we know most of the steps we can move along with it and enjoy the variations. 

Want to tell subversive stories? Find creative ways to play with the form and leave the function (showing reality) alone. 

Anymore, it’s rare for me to get so pulled into a book that I forget to check social media. Just watching a movie is enough of a struggle, so for me to sit and read for hours is downright remarkable. But recently I was privileged to get my hands on an advance reading copy of Tenure by Blaine Pardoe and Mike Baron, and it turned out to be one of those rare experiences.

“Gripping” is an overused word on cover blurbs. This time, it’s appropriate.

This isn’t a book for everyone, as will become clearly apparent. It’s the story of Braxton Knox, an average guy who could be your neighbor. After an unremarkable stint in the military, he started a small family and found work as a philosophy professor at a school in Portland. He has an idea for a novel that he’ll probably never start, but only because he’s busy enjoying his simple, quiet, academic life.

Until he uses the wrong pronoun in the classroom.

A they/them student objects to being called “miss” so strongly that she torpedoes Knox’s academic career. Of course, she feels justified, seeing as he’s part of the patriarchy. When Knox refuses to apologize the university moves to fire him and the local ANTIFA mob targets his family with devastating results. What’s a man to do when he has nothing left to lose? He can curl up and die. He can try to work within the corrupt justice system.

Or he can extract pure justice.

Being the bigger bad guy comes at a cost, and Tenure doesn’t shy away from that. Knox doesn’t want to become a ruthless vigilante. Just, you know, an ethical vigilante with a personal vendetta. Pardoe and Baron make sure that he never loses his humanity or becomes psychotic, even as they allow him to justify some truly cold-blooded killings. Not that we’re inclined to quibble, as his targets are so brainwashed in their evil ideology that they’re beyond redemption and will only continue ruining and taking lives.

And taking a life is something that should never be done lightly.

We love a good revenge story. From The Count of Monte Cristo, to The Terminal List, to John Wick, there’s something cathartic in watching the villains get their due. What sets Tenure apart is that it feels like something that could happen in our own backyards. I’ve heard this book pitched as The Punisher vs the Woke, but if anything it’s Death Wish in suburbs. I almost wish it was more like a comic book and not so grounded in uncomfortable reality.

Not that Tenure is perfectly plausible.

Should this continue as a series, I could see Pardoe and Baron leaning into the story’s pulp influences and going bigger. If you still haven’t read The Spider VS. The Empire State, I highly encourage you to do so. By modern standards it’s wildly implausible, building to an epic crescendo. But both novels feature heroes gathering allies to fight against the human embodiment of the threats of their day. Even if that means going around the law, or the law turning a blind eye to their activities. 

And the groundwork has been laid.

Without getting into major spoilers, by the end Knox has a major financial warchest and a mysterious benefactor. If they want to, the authors could slowly raise the stakes until, like The Spider, Knox is leading a major war on US soil. If not, should they hold closer to reality, that’s fine too. There’s enough variety in the action and themes in this story to prove that they have no shortage of ideas to explore with other victims of the woke mob in other cities. 

However…

Unlike Andrew Klavan’s A Woman Underground, which deals in similar themes but in a more literary manner, Tenure won’t be as timeless. Like The Spider, in a few years it will be a dated pulp adventure, though still wildly entertaining. It will never not be entertaining indulging in a revenge fantasy where the wronged man gets payback. So don’t hesitate to add this to your library. It’s something I’ll definitely want to read again.