Enhancement and the Fulfillment of Potential

Throughout this chapter the question of what is considered to be creative and what is not is brought up numerous times, leaving this debate alive for the readers own interpretation. This is a question that plagues many people studying this topic. What is considered creative, and what is not?

According to Mark Runco (2007), “Creative results are the most likely if the experiments focus on new and unconventional things. That is the most likely to lead to originality and creative insight.” (p330). The focus of this discussion can look at television. Runco talked about many television shows that were made into movies, but for the majority added a little spin to the story line, such as Charlie’s Angles. I am sure the first person to make a television show into a movie probably thought that is was creative; however, the storyline has the same characters that another person made up. In my opinion, yes the characters are the same, but some creativity has to be implied in order to actually produce a movie script.

Over the past ten years reality television has been on the rise. It is cheaper to make a reality show then to pay writers and actors and annual salary. When Survivor debuted to prime time in 2000, it was seen as almost a phenomenon to television. There was a buzz about the show all over the media. What is interesting to note, is that MTV had come out with a similar show many years before that was called Road Rules. However, Survior was praised as an original hit to television, but was it? Maybe the act of having a show on a prime time network, that was such a hit and cost nothing to produce, made it seem creative for a network station. They pay nothing to make it, and in return get a massive amount of money back for its success. This is where creativity could have played a part, since a network at prime time had never aired anything like this before. This is where the ‘unconventional’ part of Runco’s definition comes into play.

The many concepts that were presented in this chapter all used an example and then critiqued that example as to whether it was creative or not, but took both angles. There is in my opinion, no definite way yet to be able to judge creativity. That may be because the term is interpreted many different ways by many people. This blogger does believe that we all have the potential to exude creativity. It is just up to the person as to whether they are open enough to use it with their talent.

Runco, M. A (2007). Creativity theories and themes: Research, development and practice.

-- April Margarella, Graduate Student