This blog is in response to the recent news-making decisions by Hallmark Channel.
This is reminiscent of conversations with young children that at some point include "I am sorry you had to learn it this way." Hallmark Channel, you cannot side step controversy and division in today's society and I am sorry you had to learn it this way.
Your content is a necessary and welcome escape for many of us from the complexities and controversies of the world outside the comfort of our living rooms; or for some, even the worlds inside their homes and living rooms. We make fun of the simplicity and repetitiveness of the stories but cannot help feeling comfort and warmth from the predictability and inevitable fairytale endings. But we as viewers do understand when we turn the TV off, we return to a world of complications, division and unfortunately rampant hate. Dear Hallmark Channel, we are sorry you too had to turn your TVs off and reenter the world outside the perfectly timed and edited 2 hour romance movies...but welcome back.
As someone who now regularly promotes the necessary and yet many times difficult practice of listening I do want to commend you as you clearly listened to your audience - maybe a little too well. You heard complaints from an important subset of your audience and decided to immediately respond to avoid controversy. And then you created it. So you responded again and retracted your original decision to fight division. But you might have fortified it.
Love is a fascinating and perplexing topic. An emotion that can only clearly be described by the word itself and even then no definition truly seems to do it justice. It cannot be contained in a box or boxed into a single, exactly mirrored experience for everyone. Though in every instance it seems to be freeing and beautiful and that seems to be the entertainment factor and craving that motivates me (and probably many of us) to turn the channel to yours. In my personal opinion, love is something to be uniquely determined by each person who feels it and in my experience, none of those many personal definitions of love have come close to negatively impacting my life, my family or my personal choices. But there are many who do not share that broader perspective of what love is and what it looks like.
So here we are. At a crossroads the rest of society has been at for some time and one you might have felt pressure from before but maybe not as immediately and as heavily as you did this weekend. You tried to play the card of pleasing everyone until you realized that simply isn’t possible. But there is one very important lesson I think this taught all of us.
Listening does not mean agreeing. Listening just means listening.
In a world where kindness is praised as something extraordinary, it would seem you could not go wrong by being so kind as to listen first to understand. But even those of us who cling to the practice of #ListenFirst know that the purpose of that act is not to change our own minds or appeal to someone else’s demands. Instead, the purpose is to evolve our understanding and our opinions to make better (and specifically better informed) decisions - whether in solving problems at the personal, professional or national level. With the understanding that there is no way to satisfy everyone, we have to realize it is up to us to make our own decisions about our beliefs and identify among endless diverse opinions. It is simply important to base those decisions and evolve them in the endless teachings of others’ experiences and perspectives as well as our own.
So where does this leave you, Hallmark Channel? It is time to choose your identity. What are your beliefs and values and how will that drive your content creation and advertising partnerships over the next year? Understanding that even choosing to be entirely inclusive will inherently exclude a less accepting audience - are you willing to make that sacrifice? Unfortunately, after the events of this weekend, eyes will be closely on you so you have reached the point where you have to choose. My advice: Continue listening but now with a slightly different purpose. Listen to your audience, your employees and society at large. Realize the issues around relationships and love and diversity, and don’t fluctuate your identity to match the loudest voice at the moment. Choose your identity to best reflect your voice in this moment, in these issues, in what love means. We do love love. It’s why we choose you in moments that seem to be drowning in hate. So what is “Hallmark” love? Go ahead and share, we are all listening now.