Vote less...but vote.

After weeks banging on about the importance of getting out there and voting for Equity Council, I now find myself seeming to contradict that position.

I’ve already put my hands up to one wrong assumption, that people would act immediately on receiving their ballot papers, whether by voting, or by binning them. This isn’t exactly another “mea culpa”, so much as an increasing understanding of exactly why people don’t feel able to vote straight away: it’s bloody hard work.

Unless you’re already deeply engaged in Equity’s internal shenanigans and have some knowledge of the in-fighting of the last twenty or thirty years, many of the candidates’ election statements will be utterly wasted on you. Certainly the years of Equity activity and achievement are very impressive, and I do genuinely salute this commitment to what is often a turgid and frustrating process of actually getting things done. But therein also lies the danger: the obstacles to action seem more often to be within Equity than in the industry at large, so all the energy gets directed inward, rather than toward the wider theatre of action. Rather like a passionate backstage affair that manifests itself on stage as a utterly mechanical, dull and ineffectual.

We’re an industry about communication: we play things out for the benefit of the audience. Certainly there is an extent to which art seeks to stage some personal expression, but where the audience is invited to share and take something from it. Often Equity’s way of working comes across like a self-indulgent, solipsistic prima donna, utterly focused on itself and making no attempt to make this accessible to the audience. It’s an easy trap to fall into, but if we want people to vote for us, we have to speak to them, rather than just showing off the medals and scars of our Equity activity.

So, if you do feel overwhelmed by all those cryptic election statements talking only about committees, councils and conferences, consider this: do these people want your vote anyway?

Perhaps they’ve forgotten to think about you, and are focused only on the small body of people who regularly follow Equity’s internal processes and have voted in the past (that’s less than 10% if you missed previously posts). Perhaps they specifically don’t want your vote, and have written their statements deliberately to exclude you. It really doesn’t matter either way: if a candidate fails to consider the effect of what they’re communicating (regardless of their intent), that’s that. I can’t complain if I decide to spend the whole show gazing upstage and wonder why the audience didn’t appreciate my brilliant internal monologue.

I have criticised other candidates in the past for asking people to vote only for them. I still believe this is anti-democratic (even though it’s technically legal). But I do believe it’s more important to vote than not. And if the obstacle to voting is working out where to put those last few crosses, then don’t. Just vote for who you want and post it.

Don’t be overwhelmed or intimidated by gobbledygook. If a candidate fails to speak to you, just don’t vote for them. We’re in an industry where being talked down to has become something of a norm, but with Equity you pays your money and takes your choice. You can’t ‘get it wrong’ (ok, technically you can, but a cross in a box isn’t rocket science), and if you don’t understand a candidate’s statement, that’s their problem, not yours: just ignore them and move on to the next.

If you get through the whole paper and find that absolutely no-one has said anything worth your vote, then put no crosses. That’s also an important statement. But post the ballot paper: your important statement is wasted if it doesn’t reach its audience.

Posted via email from Illusions and Reflections