Location: Bell Hall, B-500
This conversation will explore how public health crises often get reduced into familiar storylines, heroes, villains, and simple moral arcs and why those narratives can distort how people perceive risk and policy. We’ll discuss questions such as: Why does the public demand a villain during outbreaks? How do hero/villain stories distort compliance and trust? And what narrative would actually improve public understanding?
Billy Kimball is a writer, producer, and executive with 35 years of experience in television, film, and digital media. Born and raised in New York City, Kimball graduated from Harvard College in 1982. While at Harvard he was an editor of the Harvard Lampoon , the nation’s oldest humor magazine. He was a co-executive producer and writer for “Veep,” written nine episodes of “The Simpsons” and co-wrote the documentary “Waiting for Superman” with that film’s director, Davis Guggenheim. In 2016 and 2017, he wrote the Oscars telecast, serving as Head Writer in 2016. Kimball received a Primetime Emmy twice and was nominated on three other occasions. He won a Writers Guild Award three times and was nominated six other times.
