It’s been said that the best propagandists are the ones that don’t realize that what they’re putting forth is propaganda, which is true. And that’s what happens in corporate media. I work in the — I was about to say I work in the propaganda industry, which is unfortunately — what I just said is unfortunately accurate. I work in the corporate film industry. The corporate film industry — it’s hard for me to say it, because I don’t mean to be damning. I work in the film industry, and there are good people working in the corporate film industry, and they want to do artistic and thoughtful material, and they are striving to do that, but there’s a systematization that’s in place, and people end up making compromises about it very readily. ((Known Introduced The Unknown))

I understand it. You study for years to become an actor or a writer or a director, you put all your life into it, and then you get a chance and an opportunity to be paid to work in this great industry, this kind of glamorous thing that can actually possibly make good art, and it’s exciting. ((The Protagonist)) But then what you start to discover is that there are the people that are distributing or are funding the films, say “Well, we don’t really want to say this.” And there are controls as to what is or is not supposed to be dealt with. And that, when it comes to a certain amount, ends up being propaganda. And it is at that amount. One has to realize that all corporately funded — and when I say corporately funded, if you’ve watched it, distributed it somewhere, that film was corporately funded or distributed, unless it was like something somebody released online, which some people are doing, and there are interesting things about that.

But if it’s corporately funded and distributed, it’s gone through a certain amount of — or not even a certain amount, a gigantic amount of questioning and editing. People that are involved in the industry are very used to it. So, people get used to saying “Well, yeah, we shouldn’t say this.” So, what — my feeling when I was making What is it? it was made organically, and there were things that started to come into play as I was editing it, that I could see would make people think that I was advocating certain things that I actually find repugnant personally. But I saw that they would come in to play in the film, and I thought to myself, well, I don’t really want to say that. But then I thought, then I’m doing that even to myself. ((Epidemic)) And I thought if that came across in What is it? I thought no, let it just come off like that. And that is what makes people uncomfortable in the film.