Film director Mel Brooks shared his survival trick in his memoir: “say yes and never do it.” For example, when a studio executive told him to fire Gene Wilder, Brooks answered that Wilder would never be seen again, all the while keeping him as the star of the film. Brooks smiled and said “yes” to all demands, then completely ignored them. Brooks’ logic was that trying to explain or convince another of your perspective rarely works, so it’s easier to seem agreeable and do what one will anyway. Yet aren’t there at least two problems with Brooks’ advice?
Brooks was right that explaining isn’t the thing to do. Even so, as a Hollywood elite, it’s unlikely that Brooks was ever truly anyone’s flunky, and so he could get away with never following orders from higher up. That’s the problem with celebrity advice: it comes from places of privilege and is addressed to people in general as if they, too, could apply it and get away with it. The rules simply aren’t the same in different social spheres. Still, there might be something to learn from the first half of Brooks’ survival trick.
What if one says “yes” to any demand, no matter how disagreeable, and then seeks to work with those demands as challenges to make an even better product? Β It may feel impossible to imagine Brooks’ Young Frankenstein without Gene Wilder, but that doesn’t mean that another actor couldn’t have offered a more brilliant performance. Β Consider director Lars von Trier’s interesting documentary The Five Obstructions, in which he challenges another filmmaker to remake a favorite movie five times, each according to a different “obstruction” or obstacle. Β One obstruction was to film in Cuba but to use no set. Β Others were to never show a main character, to film in the worst place in the world but not show that place on screen, and to present everything as a cartoon. Β The premise, of course, was that arbitrarily imposed obstacles would stimulate better art. Β We might relate this concept to the wisdom teaching that life is full of challenges and suffering precisely because we don’t spiritually evolve without them. Β Laboratory rats who are placed in utopian environments with plentiful food and no predators live shorter lives, presumably bored to death by lack of stimulation. Β
So the question is, what if we say “yes” to a demand we don’t like and then follow through anyway, dropping our egos and our insistence that our preconceived notions can be the only way. Β It’s not that some executive behind a desk should necessarily dictate how art is made β it’s more about an artist embracing even misguided suggestions as challenges to be embraced so as to elevate the art. Β On a personal note, though I’m now intrigued by the power of saying “no” to every question (addressed in this article), I’ve very many times said “yes” to requests that I’d otherwise never pursue, just because such requests would take my art down avenues that would never have otherwise been accessed. Β My band Neons Gone Mad has been asked to use our Tesla spirit radio and haunted grandfather clockwork to transmogrifyΒ all sorts of famous songs that we’re not especially fond of, but having said “yes” to those suggestions, some amazing recordings transpired. Β For our horror comedy series Grave Mood Rings, we’ve followed through on viewer and co-writer suggestions that we were personally quite skeptical of, but those ideas ended up manifesting some of our favorite episodes to date. Β In the face of such personal experience as well as von Trier’s Five Obstructions documentary, the advice to “say yes and never do it” rings of myopic, elitist egomania. Β
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