Oh, you’re back? I didn’t even notice you were gone…
Posted by: admin in Art is killed by American anti-elitism, Ah Hollywood..., Entertainment killed the art star, Art rants, The death of a literate society, Commerce and the failure of art, Decline of human culture, Artistic failure in AmericaSo I guess the Hollywood writers are coming back to work soon.
Yay.
I had been intending, for weeks and weeks, to write something about the plight of the writers, to compare their lot to the lot of all the everyday artists in the country who are slowly working their fingers to nubs for an occasional bone thrown by an uncaring public. Etc. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do so.
I mean, this is Hollywood we’re talking about, not art. And these are corporate workaday hacks–correction, well-paid corporate workaday hacks–who are fighting for a bigger share of the tons of money you and I stupidly throw at them year after year. This is not something of any sort of lasting cultural value…
All the stories I read about this strike went on and on and on about how “devastating” was the strike to the entertainment industry, and how “demoralizing” it was to the struggling writers. They cited the number like a running stock-ticker—$1 billion dollars lost and counting… $2 billion dollars lost and counting… And Bingo! $3.2 billion dollars lost (*according to Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp).
But you know what? The strike wasn’t really that devastating really, at least not to the people who matter— i.e., you and me. The world did not stop turning. People did not go into withdrawal. No one suffered any lasting effects. The juggernaut industry that is our modern bread-and-circus distraction was not really missed all that much.
Of course the bitter strikers and the even bitterer globocorporations that produce this tripe will trot out all the positive cliches, if only to get the river of money (our money) flowing back where they want (their pockets). “At the end of the day, everybody won. It was a fair deal and one that the companies can live with, and it recognizes the large contribution that writers have made to the industry,” said Leslie Moonves, chief executive officer of CBS Corp.”These advances now give us a foothold in the digital age,” said Patric Verrone, president of the guild’s West Coast chapter. “Rather than being shut out of the future of content creation and delivery, writers will lead the way as television migrates to the Internet.”
Fine fine sentiment. But we, who will be ponying up for all this bonhomie, know better.
Truth is, we’d be much better off without all the distraction and crap. Or at least we’d be just fine. And we’d certainly have more money and more time to focus on something more meaningful–the paintings made by the minor genius who lives at the end of the block, the song written by your cousin the burgeoning cafe-folksinger, the short one-act play written by that cute girl at work.
Art, people. Not mindlessly distracting entertainment. Art. (Or at least a better balance between the two…)
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February 19th, 2008 at 6:51 pm
I’ve appreciated your comments and thoughts as I’ve subscribed to your blog, but don’t you think you’re being a little bit too cynical? Sure there is tons of crap out there in the film world, but there is just as much crap in paintings, theatre, sculpture, etc.
You just called the entire film industry crap. I bed to differ, my friend. There are a lot of great movies out there, and many more yet to be made. How can you justify your comments?
February 20th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Yeah, I admit that was a little ranty. Ok, maybe a lot ranty… And perhaps a bit more sloppily written than usual (it was getting late).
But this is a blog that focuses on art and artists (as opposed to the Hollywood entertainment industry) and what dooms art and artists to failure in this country. And I simply think Hollywood helps doom the average artist to failure…
As for justification, these are my two main thoughts on this issue:
“…this is Hollywood we’re talking about, not art. And these are corporate workaday hacks–correction, well-paid corporate workaday hacks–who are fighting for a bigger share of the tons of money you and I stupidly throw at them year after year. This is not something of any sort of lasting cultural value…”
“Truth is, we’d be much better off without all the distraction and crap. Or at least we’d be just fine. And we’d certainly have more money and more time to focus on something more meaningful–the paintings made by the minor genius who lives at the end of the block, the song written by your cousin the burgeoning cafe-folksinger, the short one-act play written by that cute girl at work.”
I’m a proponent of supporting art over entertainment. This just makes sense to me; it’s akin to the BUY LOCAL idea—i.e., that you’d make a bigger impact on your community by spending your money at the local corner store, rather than at the exurban Wal-Mart down on Hwy 5.
February 23rd, 2008 at 11:18 am
So you mean to say that if it comes out of Hollywood, then it’s automatically inferior? The only movies that are “art” are made by local film makers with no budget who use their home video cameras to make the film?
This kind of sweeping generalization does good to no one. If you’re going to blog about artistic failure, it would be more interesting to talk about what specific incidents you see as causing failure, or how the system is set up to make artists fail.
As an actor, I can certainly see that the Hollywood budgets are such that it’s very difficult to take risks because the producers might lose their shirts financially, and that makes for some artistically stunted work. Saying it that way is much different than calling them all “workaday hacks.”