In Defense of My Career Goal

I’ve wanted to be a writer since the days when my career goals lasted less than a week. Once I was no longer my kindergarten self (who told everyone she wanted to be a waitress when she grew up) or my fourth grade self (who would go from having pop star aspirations on Tuesday to desiring to be a case-cracking detective on Thursday), my dreams came down to writing.

First, I wanted to be a novelist. I entertained that idea for about four years, until it came to my attention that I was much better at spending weeks (even months) developing characters...and their wardrobes...and their entire extended family...and the floor plans of their middle schools than I was at actually writing stories about them. But, writing was still what I knew I could do. The gold star in my skill-set. So, I changed my focus to journalism.

And that’s where everything gets tricky.

It is an unspoken fact that when you begin to study journalism or you wish to become a journalist, you are intending to become a “serious” professional. A purveyor of truth. You should desire above all else to report hard news, politics, and (within our lifetime, at least) the war. You can be a human interest reporter, sure, but it’s not the most important thing you can do in journalism.

But all those things that a “good” aspiring journalist wants to write about? I have never, ever wanted to write about. Ever. From the beginning of my desire to become a journalist, back in sixth or seventh grade, I’ve wanted to write about the things I enjoy: Music. Movies. Television. Theater. Those are the things I love, but because I am not an actress/singer/dancer, I can’t actually do any of those things. But I can write. And to marry the two, my enthusiasm for entertainment and my ability to write, is all I’ve ever wanted to do.

But that gets me SO MANY GLARES. So many sniffs of disapproval and rolled eyes. Because that’s not what I should want to write about. But even more than that, entertainment journalism has a very bad reputation. When people think of entertainment journalists, they think of E! News. Access Hollywood. The tabloids at the grocery store check-out.

But that’s not what I’m interested in. I just really love entertainment forms. I love that there are people in the world who are talented enough to make great movies and albums and Broadway shows. I want to talk to them. I don’t want to talk about where so-and-so ate brunch last Wednesday or what this teen starlet wore when she went to yoga on Friday. I want to sit down with an actress and ask her why she chose one script over another. I want to talk to a rock musician about what his life would have been like without music. I also want to express my opinions about these things, talk about why I think Emma Stone and Jennifer Lawrence are two of the greatest things happening in the world right now and why I own the soundtracks to some movies and not others.

I want to be Rob Sheffield. I don’t want to be Joan Rivers. And I wish that people knew that there is more to caring about entertainment, really caring about it, than knowing how much Justin Bieber enjoyed his birthday.