If you stamp out a town's crops and run them into financial ruin, then either the survivors of attack will remember it and long to return to their way of life, or the town will disappear but be martyred for their victimization at the hands of a tyrant. Taking people's resources will prevent them from flourishing, but it will never break their spirit or erase their memory... The trick to wiping people out is to convince them to forget who they are.
I was at a political debate tonight which asked the local candidates what their party was willing to do to support the arts. Everyone was speaking about how much funding (or in the Conservatives case, how little cutting) their party intended to do for the arts. That's great - I want people to throw money at artists, because the arts are important.
One of the candidates, Adriane Carr, said that the reason arts were important was because all of us, at the end of a long hard day, long to relax by going out to the theater or attending the ballet or symphony. I wish she had been right when she made that claim. Unfortunately, she was wrong about most people. I wish more people were like Adriane; I wish more people viewed the arts as the trough of regenerative manna for the soul that Candidate Carr does. We would frankly have a better world if there were more Adriane Carrs walking around (and fewer auto cars driving around; bad political joke - I know).
Why would the world be better if more people considered the arts a source of rejuvenation and relaxation? Right now most Canadians (and probably even more Americans) consider doing one of two things at the end of a hard day - watching mindless television (Fox - go to hell, and take your reality drivel with you) or renting a video (actually Fox, go to Hollywood, it is way worse there than hell; at least in hell they know how Hercules ends). This is bad! We are in the middle of a serious culture shift where stock-plotted, gimick-laden media seek to erase all memory of live arts. I thought that music and dance might survive the axe, and that only theater would perish as reality T.V. rating rose. I was wrong. People now watch "American Idol", "So You Think You can Dance" and "America's got Talent" and think they are watching the three arts.
Television and Mainstream film are wiping out the arts way faster and more efficiently than the two and a half year assault on arts funding that the Canadian Conservatives conducted ever could (even if extended another term).
So what do we do? For one, we stop whining that Canadian Prime-minister Stephen Harper is killing the arts. His funding cuts may cost hundred's of artists their careers and livelihoods, but Fox and Blockbuster are silently slaughtering the arts themselves. I love Bob Ross! If anyone ever told me, however, that they didn't need to go to an art gallery because they had just finished watching an episode of "Joy of Painting" I would beat them (with their remote control).
Please fight the real enemy. It is not the governments job to support artists who play to half full houses because it is UFC night - it is a populace's job to go out and support the arts by buying tickets. Next time you are tempted to give money to someone with a cardboard sign that says "will sex for booz", don't. Save it, instead, and buy a theater, dance or music ticket. Not only will you get more entertainment for your money, but since the average actor in Canada makes roughly 23K$ (just above the poverty line, thus disqualifying them from collecting welfare), the guy with the sign probably eats better than the artist you are going to see.
- The only thing a dancer should do for free is fuck (Ramon, Love! Valor! Compassion!)
I was at a political debate tonight which asked the local candidates what their party was willing to do to support the arts. Everyone was speaking about how much funding (or in the Conservatives case, how little cutting) their party intended to do for the arts. That's great - I want people to throw money at artists, because the arts are important.
One of the candidates, Adriane Carr, said that the reason arts were important was because all of us, at the end of a long hard day, long to relax by going out to the theater or attending the ballet or symphony. I wish she had been right when she made that claim. Unfortunately, she was wrong about most people. I wish more people were like Adriane; I wish more people viewed the arts as the trough of regenerative manna for the soul that Candidate Carr does. We would frankly have a better world if there were more Adriane Carrs walking around (and fewer auto cars driving around; bad political joke - I know).
Why would the world be better if more people considered the arts a source of rejuvenation and relaxation? Right now most Canadians (and probably even more Americans) consider doing one of two things at the end of a hard day - watching mindless television (Fox - go to hell, and take your reality drivel with you) or renting a video (actually Fox, go to Hollywood, it is way worse there than hell; at least in hell they know how Hercules ends). This is bad! We are in the middle of a serious culture shift where stock-plotted, gimick-laden media seek to erase all memory of live arts. I thought that music and dance might survive the axe, and that only theater would perish as reality T.V. rating rose. I was wrong. People now watch "American Idol", "So You Think You can Dance" and "America's got Talent" and think they are watching the three arts.
Television and Mainstream film are wiping out the arts way faster and more efficiently than the two and a half year assault on arts funding that the Canadian Conservatives conducted ever could (even if extended another term).
So what do we do? For one, we stop whining that Canadian Prime-minister Stephen Harper is killing the arts. His funding cuts may cost hundred's of artists their careers and livelihoods, but Fox and Blockbuster are silently slaughtering the arts themselves. I love Bob Ross! If anyone ever told me, however, that they didn't need to go to an art gallery because they had just finished watching an episode of "Joy of Painting" I would beat them (with their remote control).
Please fight the real enemy. It is not the governments job to support artists who play to half full houses because it is UFC night - it is a populace's job to go out and support the arts by buying tickets. Next time you are tempted to give money to someone with a cardboard sign that says "will sex for booz", don't. Save it, instead, and buy a theater, dance or music ticket. Not only will you get more entertainment for your money, but since the average actor in Canada makes roughly 23K$ (just above the poverty line, thus disqualifying them from collecting welfare), the guy with the sign probably eats better than the artist you are going to see.
- The only thing a dancer should do for free is fuck (Ramon, Love! Valor! Compassion!)
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Comments
Hogan
2008-10-07 16:43:41
I think the reason why arts funding is important is because without it - especially for us Canadian mice next to the American elephant - our cultural memory is in danger.
Scott, you write that, "The trick to wiping people out is to convince them to forget who they are." Well, a good way of doing that is to take away cultural funding, thereby letting the crap on FOX into our living rooms with even less to combat it. The libertarian approach - the laissez-faire market approach - is exactly the one that lets artless, commercial crap on to the airwaves. Without the proper funding for Canadian content we become ever more inundated with American culture, erasing our own cultural memory and our identity. Taking away people resources - their cultural resources - actually is a way to erase memory and make people forget who they are.
I'm not sure what you think about this next point either way, since you write, "I wish more people viewed the arts as the trough of regenerative manna for the soul", and you ask, "Why would the world be better if more people considered the arts a source of rejuvenation and relaxation?", but I tend not to think that art is merely for vegging out at the end of a hard day. That's what FOX-TV is for. I tend to think of art - good art, if I may say so - as making you uncomfortable, something that makes you think and react and get angry.
Not incidently, the type of art that the government funds is usually of the weirder, make-you-think variety. Whereas the type of art provided by the free-market is usually the vegged-out, soothing, hypnotic, mindless FOX variety.
Disregarding the slightly inhumane comment about not giving to homeless people, it should be said that without arts funding there might not be any theatre, dance or music ticket worth buying. Either way, since we don't have the proper public funding to both combat homelessness and strengthen the arts, you should both support the arts with your own money, and give to the poor guy on the street.
Jackson
2008-10-07 17:30:59
I ran a theater company for five years, and our biggest enemy was not inability to meet production costs, but empty theaters. One day our technical director made the comment that "everyone just fucks off and rents a video because they're too goddamn lazy to actually travel more than few blocks for a good time. The lazy asses that should be in these seats are at home watching whatever fucking matrix movie just came out".
Maybe he was wrong and those matrix watching people are in the right letting culture die while they watch Keanu's masterful choreography. I think my director was right and those people are wrong. If a movie is so good that you can't miss it - go to a theater and be around people. If a movie leaves the theaters and you missed it, then (unless it is an amazing movie) go out and support something with a datestamp on it; videos have an indefinite shelf life, but actors need to eat.
We live in a socialism - so people think it is fine to stay at home and veg out watching survivor while arts and culture get voted off the island because the government will take care of the arts. The arts, however, are becoming 'unemployed endeavors' because their employers - THE AUDIENCES - are calling in sick. The result - the arts are scrambling for welfare, same as 'sex for booz' guy (who is a real guy named Chris).
And the government grants - in theater anyway - generally get swallowed up by the big theaters in town (Playhouse and Arts Club) because new, startup theaters cannot demonstrate longevity (because they are new). I wish it weren't so - so I am trying to mobilize the troops to fight the right bad guy.
Kill the Couch Potato!
claudia
2008-10-08 15:40:34
Further, I will go ahead and directly contest your claim that "tt is not the governments job to support artists." However I completely agree with your claim at the beginning of your piece where you talk about how the arts are directly related to people's emotional and mental well-being, spirit, etc. Therefore it should be the government's obligation to support the arts, just as they feel obligated to subsidize agriculture, environment, fisheries, etc.
What your article touches on nicely is the fact that the arts and their contribution is very much unappreciated today, partly because of the accessibility of poor quality substitutes. However there is a paradox when we go into this debate. If we want to increase the availability of theater programs (for example), make them more inexpensive, increase quantity, etc there may be a great chance that their quality will then be eroded. Another thing that happens once something is so easily accessible to masses is the lack of appreciation it receives and you could say a decrease in its status and "specialness." For example, if I knew I could attend Bard productions all year round for dirt cheap prices I might not appreciate it the same way as I do today. If there was a way of keeping the high quality art easily accessible there wouldn't be anything to complain about. However this is completely unrealistic.