"A lot of things just aren't true any more"
About this Quote
A lot of things just aren't true any more is the kind of throwaway line that lands because it’s not really about facts; it’s about the feeling of living in a culture where the floor won’t stop moving. Coming from James L. Brooks, a producer whose best work (Broadcast News, Terms of Endearment, The Simpsons) treats modern life as an emotional negotiation with institutions, the sentence reads less like a philosophical claim than a weary production note on reality itself: the script has been rewritten mid-scene.
The phrasing is the trick. Not “weren’t true,” which would be a confession of past ignorance, but “aren’t true any more,” which implies that truth had an expiration date. That “any more” carries the sigh. It’s the language of someone watching once-stable social agreements dissolve: what counts as professionalism, intimacy, journalism, adulthood, even decency. Brooks has always been drawn to characters who perform competence while privately panicking, and this line converts that panic into a cultural diagnosis.
There’s also a sly indictment baked in. By saying things “aren’t true” rather than “people are lying,” the quote shifts blame from villains to atmosphere. It’s about systems that incentivize spin, entertainment values that beat accuracy, and the quiet corruption of repetition: say something often enough and it starts to function as true, until it doesn’t.
As a producer’s line, it’s meta. Producing is the art of making a version of reality people will accept. Brooks is admitting, with dry clarity, that the audience’s threshold for accepting reality has changed - and so has reality’s commitment to being coherent.
The phrasing is the trick. Not “weren’t true,” which would be a confession of past ignorance, but “aren’t true any more,” which implies that truth had an expiration date. That “any more” carries the sigh. It’s the language of someone watching once-stable social agreements dissolve: what counts as professionalism, intimacy, journalism, adulthood, even decency. Brooks has always been drawn to characters who perform competence while privately panicking, and this line converts that panic into a cultural diagnosis.
There’s also a sly indictment baked in. By saying things “aren’t true” rather than “people are lying,” the quote shifts blame from villains to atmosphere. It’s about systems that incentivize spin, entertainment values that beat accuracy, and the quiet corruption of repetition: say something often enough and it starts to function as true, until it doesn’t.
As a producer’s line, it’s meta. Producing is the art of making a version of reality people will accept. Brooks is admitting, with dry clarity, that the audience’s threshold for accepting reality has changed - and so has reality’s commitment to being coherent.
Quote Details
| Topic | Truth |
|---|
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