The long list of credits at the end of television programs
is an anachronism that should be stopped.
For some reason it began with the Silent Moving Pictures and had been
maintained in the subsequent visual media.
It does not happen anywhere else.
Buildings rarely are known for their Architect, let alone have a plaque
that lists every person who worked on the building.
For most things we see or do we neither know nor care who
the people are. Certainly they all did a
good job and deserve recognition, but very few receive it personally.
If you have a Medical Operation, you will know the name of
your Surgeon and perhaps the Anaesthetist, but what about the Nurses? If the person who holds the microphone in a
film you have watched deserves to have their name known, then surely the person
who holds anything during an operation should be known and thanked, yet they
are just anonymous, replaceable factotums, unlike the screeds of people working
on a film.
Where is the list of credits on restaurant menus? A tiny percentage have famous names, but most
of the people who do the cooking remain unknown and unthanked. It is not just the cooks, but also the
dish-washers and the people who take away the refuse later. We know and sometimes tip the people who “wait
on tables”, as people might have in the early days of Cinema when they knew the
Ushers. But there is no equivalent of
the long list of everyone involved as there is at the end of every television
program.
It is not only the list of the “creative team”, a term
extended to include every person on the pay-roll, even the Accountants,
themselves, that appears, but most prominent are the Financiers, those into
whose pockets the vast revenue will flow after world-wide success. The Theatrical Producer is as well known as
the Director. These of course have often
been the same person, in the history of theatre, with famous Actor/Directors
who also ran the Theatre. To give even a
single example is to create a false division between those that are mentioned,
and hence more likely to be remembered and mentioned again and those who become
forgotten, just because they were randomly omitted. It is another example where mentioning anyone
can be extended to mentioning everyone.
Theatrical performances are still universally accompanied by
a printed “program” the main purpose of which is to list the names of
everyone. Did you receive your Operation
Program? And don’t forget next time you
are out at dinner to ask for the Program; the Chefs’ biographies must be just
as interesting as any Actor’s, as would be a list of all the famous Restaurants
where they worked.
Who made the clothes you wear? Shouldn’t the Label come with more than the
Owning Corporation’s psychologically manipulative, registered trade-mark and the
price? If the people who did anything at
all to make a television show deserve their name to be publicly demonstrated,
then why not those who created the clothes on your back?
Who made the car you own with pride and drive with
care? The Corporation that finances the
manufacture, but not one person on an assembly line, yet your life depends on
their performance.
It is very inconsistent.
The answer might not be to the end of Concert and Theatre Programs, but
to extend the principle to all other creative endeavours, and treat people
equally as worthwhile individuals whose efforts should be recognised.
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