Articles > Interview With Antonio Lopez
What got you interested in media?
My interest in media started when I was a kid. I grew-up in one of the epicenters of the media universe, Los Angeles, during the '70s. We were early adapters, you could say, because we had cable. In addition to having the wonderful Z Channel, which was like having an art house movie channel at home, most of the networks I watched featured old cartoons, Japanese anime, black and white TV shows and a hodgepodge of what I consider to be, in retrospect, weird kids programming such as all the shows produced by Hanna-Barbara and Sid and Marty Krofft, including "HR Pufnstuff." When I was seven, the first story I ever wrote was comprised entirely of television and comic book characters. You could say I was a mediated kid!
But in the context of that my parents were Bohemian artists and I went to an alternative public school where we weren't required to go to class. We were also one of the first magnet schools that bused in kids from different communities. Like greater southern California, the school was very culturally diverse. But unlike other public schools we had a lot kids from hippie and artsy families. You could say that in comparison to the typical high school depicted in Hollywood film, our school was the opposite. We didn’t have organized sports, cheerleaders or the normal stuff you'd expect. We had things like the "1968" fair and Rocky Horror Picture Show student performances. Since we were in East LA, we weren't immune from local social problems either. We had gang issues, but it was nothing like it is now. Violence was limited to fist fights. There were no guns in those days.
By the time I became a teen in 1980, most of my friends and I had gotten into punk. That was the big counterculture of my generation (Gen X). Part of our punk scene was an attitude of "be more than a witness" and "do-it-yourself" (DIY). My theory is that we were the last rebellion of the industrial age. That is, after us pretty much everything got instantaneously co-opted by corporations. This is not to say that punk has not been thoroughly co-opted, it has, but there was a window when we were free of corporate intrusion or influence (except in the negative as something to bounce off of). In those days, mainstream culture was obsessed by stupid metal music and arena rock. No one cared about us, and that was fine because we were happy to have our own culture on our own terms. Consequently, a bunch of us in the neighborhood created a fanzine that was made with typewriters, glue and scissors (imagine that!) and then copied on a Xerox machine and hand-stapled. Called Ink Disease, for the first issue, we made 60 copies and sold them all for $1 each. Thus at age 15 began my career in print journalism.
What other past experiences connect with your current work as a media educator?
The reason I connect my experience in punk with alternative education is because they both taught me the value of questioning systems, authority and to be self-sufficient within a local community. In both cases they were bottom up experiences. We weren't force-fed federal standards like No Child Left Behind in school, and in our cultural scene, we invented everything. You couldn't go to the mall and buy an outfit, and there was no marketing targeting us. We made our own clothes or bought them used, and we produced our own records, put on our own shows and published our own magazines. In some ways the Internet is a bit like that now. People can put out their own music and publish much more cheaply and also reach a broader audience. But there is something to being part of something that is "alive" like a punk show. The energy in those days was electric. On very rare occasions have I experienced anything like that again. I fear those kinds of experiences are more rare in our society. If you still want to see a lively punk show, though, you can go to Mexico City and see something very exciting.
Anyhow, after working as a professional journalist for many years, which included being an arts writer for a daily newspaper, I became increasingly disenchanted with the old models of journalism and media. In particular, as an author, I hated having to conform to the Associated Press stylebook. It seemed to destroy any passion in my writing and also falsely paid lip service to "objectivity." Believe me, spend a few months in a newsroom and any sense of "objectivity" goes out the window. This is not to say there aren't fair or honest journalists, but you come to realize that if you are half intelligent—and believe me, just because someone calls him or herself a journalist it doesn't mean they are smart—that media companies have a business agenda.
I burned out on newspaper writing and went on to co-found a small zine distribution company called Desert Moon Periodicals. My partner and I were in the middle of the whole zine publishing phenomena of the early '90s, which had a similar energy to punk. It was an extremely lively subculture of publishers and eccentrics who published on everything from computer hacking to UFOs. Again, the Web has a similar feel, but I'm biased. I still love print.
All these experiences combined to create a love for independent media and distaste for corporate and homogenized culture. As corporations have also infringed on schooling, it became my desire to work with kids to share what I learned outside of school. When I was a teen, I always appreciated older mentors from the so-called "underground." I loved being exposed to strange music and art, and wanted to be that kind of person. Yet, I also had developed a serious commitment to media and democracy. There was a serious side to all the changes in our world in terms of the growing militarization of our culture, and the creeping phenomenon of advertising, which seems to have infiltrated all aspects of society.
What is one of biggest cultural changes you've scene in your lifetime in terms of media?
I remember going to Dodger Stadium as a kid, one my most favorite places on Earth, and it was all about the game, a Dodger Dog, soda, and Vin Scully's voice (the soundtrack of my youth). There was no advertising in the stadium except for a discreet sign here and there. Now when you go to a sporting event, it is an overwhelming multimedia, sensory experience. It is so loud and visually over-stimulated it gives me vertigo. Plus there are ads everywhere. With the ridiculous player and executive salaries, fans are paying way too much to see a game. $40 for an average seat? That's an outrageous consumer tax! I won’t be surprised if uniforms have ads on them in the future. This saddens me. On the other hand, since I live in Rome and can't go to Dodger Stadium, I can still listen to Scully on the Internet and read as much as I want online about the game. So there is an upside to some of the technological changes. Still, there is no replacing a quiet afternoon at a baseball park, and I wonder if anyone will remember what that felt like, as I also wonder if someday people will only know forests by going to zoological parks.
What is particular about your approach to media education that is different than what others are doing?
Well, as indicated, I have an unconventional background. Unlike a lot of media literacy folks, I have been exposed to a lot of art and have direct experience with alternative education. Moreover, I have experience as a producer and businessperson, so you could say that my approach is holistic. I notice a lot of divisions among media educators, such as between filmmakers and artists versus activists. They often seem to have different cultures and are alien to each other. That shouldn't be the case. Also I think there is a false division between media, technology and nature. There is a misguided belief that because something is mediated or technological that it's not natural. Humans are a part of nature, and the things we make and produce are also products of the natural world. The focus shouldn't be just about simulation, which I think is a philosophical problem going back to the Greeks, but rather, what is sustainable. Technology and human culture can be sustainable, but as long as we demonize everything we consider "unnatural" and hence "false," we are depriving ourselves of a venue for social change. I also feel that if corporations are the most powerful force on earth (besides people and the elements), then why not harness their power for good?
In some ways I think media activists are their own worst enemies. They fight the system but internalize the same kind of thinking they oppose. I want to move beyond "us vs. them" and start to find the leverage points that exist within those areas that challenge us. One of the benefits of the new networked media economy is the ability to make connections and to self-organize. There is tremendous potential there. Whether or not we squander it remains to be seen. Humans are capable of beautiful and horrific things; my hope is that through better pedagogy and education, we can learn how to read the intentions behind destructive media and then leverage that knowledge for good. Media are powerful for communicating the stories that teach us how to live. That has and always will remain true for us for as long as we have something called culture. We needn't be so self-destructive, though, and that is the challenge of our era and the work we do. It gives me a reason to wake up in the morning.
Finally, having been through a major health crisis I have learned the importance of good nutrition, a healthy lifestyle and meditation. It's important to make media literacy relevant to our physical and mental health. I call my blog "Media Mindfulness" because it's not just a matter of changing the outside media system, but also how each of us personally engages it as well. When approaching media education and activism, there needs to be an element of personal responsibility, self-awareness and ethics. It's not enough to attack the system and call it day. We need to find a middle way so that mentally we do not get corrupted by an abundance of anger and negativity; otherwise we potentially become that which we despise. To paraphrase the Dali Lama, they can try to destroy our country and our culture, but not our minds.
