The other evening, I was scanning through Twitter for potential guests for my radio show, The Write Stuff (which airs on WNYU weekly on 89.1FM in the Tri-State and wnyu.org worldwide, in case you were curious). One of the pages I stumbled upon for Mara Wilson's (yes, the girl from Matilda). She had an unusually long link in her website section, so I decided to check it out. Here, I found a very, very long page of Frequently Asked Questions, which I decided to read because why do what I was supposed to be doing?
In that process, I stumbled upon one response that particularly bothered me in regards to people asking her to be on their podcasts. All of the questions and answers can be found here, but I added a screenshot of the section that pestered me for the sake of simplicity.
Being the producer of numerous podcasts myself, this response enraged pretty much every fiber of my being. Firstly, I think it's wrong that someone would only do something for a "payoff" aspect. I would love to ask Ms. Wilson if someone has ever helped her career solely as a favor, especially when she was younger, because they saw her as someone with passion who needed some help in catching a break. I would venture to guess the answer is "yes." Not all of us are given some sort of fame early in our lives that can then act as a hook forever when we are looking to promote a project, and even those who are get it from someone taking a chance on them and helping them out. I'm sure Ms. Wilson understands that given her history, even if she may feel her childhood stardom also has negative effects.
Next, Ms. Wilson claims to be a writer. Her website is "marawilsonwritesstuff.com," as is her Twitter handle. If she never expects to do anything without some sort of "free" aspect, she doesn't understand how writing works, or her place of privilege blinds her to the reality of it. Writers take publicity anywhere and everywhere they can get it. No stone is one too small to turn over. Majority of us can't afford to be picky, unless we're Philip Roth, and he's eighty-three and I hope I can do whatever I want at that age, too.
And then there's her last point, about only working with friends. I understand making your friends' projects a priority, but exclusively limiting yourself to things you "like" or things people you "like" are creating makes it hard for me to see you as a "likeable" person. Every good project had to start somewhere, and had to have someone take a chance on them. For me and my podcasts, this was when Daniel Jones, Modern Love Column Editor from The New York Timesspoke with me about an essay contest. He took me as a serious journalist based on the quality of my previous work, not whether or not it had taken off on social media due to a hope, wing, and a prayer. His giving me this break helped open up doors for me to create my own show and interview many of the other big names in writing and publishing.
Although they certainly aggravated me, Ms. Wilson's comments also made me realize how important it is to support young content creators regardless of whether or not I have a personal gain from it or they are well known. Everyone that puts in time, effort, and consideration into their work deserves a chance to handle a big name partner, at least once. If I'm ever in the position to help a person that was as unexperienced but passionate as I was, I will definitely not turn it down.
