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Author
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Topic: Be Mused (February 2002)
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Earl Green
True Believer
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posted 03-14-2002 02:01 AM
   
The February 2002 Culture & Media update is now online. Any and all thoughts and/or anguished pleas for part three are welcome here.  (Hey, it seems like a good night to be delusional.) |
Kevin Ott
True Believer
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posted 03-14-2002 02:09 AM
I’m not quite sure what’s going on here. Are there still people who complain about sellouts? Are there people past the age of 16 who accuse artists of selling out to the man? Do we take these people seriously?I think that most artists realize that if they want to attain some kind of success with their art, be it popular or commercial, they’re going to have to make some sacrifices along the way. I’m a professional writer, and have been since leaving college five years ago. I have friends who are professional writers, and other friends who wanted to be professional writers but chose to undertake more lucrative career paths, and kept writing on the side. Nobody who knew me as the guy who wrote kick-ass poetry in college has yet accused me of selling out, and I don’t know that other creatively-oriented friends of mine who have run into that problem. Maybe Earl is right, and it’ll happen sooner or later, but I think that most thinking people understand the balance between successfully being creative and successfully paying the rent, and the few that don’t understand that balance rarely have cogent arguments in favor of a truly bohemian lifestyle. They’re pretty easy to ignore. Certainly there’s a problem with the cast of Friends receiving a million bucks an episode, just as there’s a problem with athletes’ salaries. (Actually, it doesn’t bother me so much that actors and athletes get paid so much as it does that teachers and cops and public defenders get paid so little. I would have no problem with David Schwimmer taking home a few thousand benjamins every week if teacher salaries were similar, but I guess we’re being realistic with the amount of money there is to go around.) What saddens me is that so little cash goes from the public into artistic ventures that aren’t composed of demographics and based on past successes. (Again, I don’t mind the Armageddons and the Pearl Harbors so much as I mind the fact that there aren’t more American Beauties and Fellowships of the Ring. I’d like to turn on commercial radio and hear Erin McKeown and John Mayer, and I’d like to turn on NBC and see quality journalism.) We would all do well to seek out artifacts we’re not sure we’ll like, and pay more attention to the stuff that doesn’t get as much play. If we all sought art instead of relying on what’s sold to us by the biggest advertising firms, maybe the concept of selling out wouldn’t be so horrific, because there would be a greater variety of stuff out there to choose from. "Popular" wouldn’t necessarily have to be so synonymous with "bland." I have a thing that I do with food I hate. Every year or so, I taste it again to see if I still hate it, or if my tastes have changed. Using this method, I’ve successfully reintroduced spinach, coconut and chocolate cake into my diet (brussels sprouts, however, are still fighting a losing battle). It might be a good model to apply to art. If we keep exploring our tastes to see how they change, sometimes we surprise ourselves. I’d like to see us all surprising ourselves a lot more often.
[This message has been edited by Kevin Ott (edited 03-14-2002).] |
Pattie Gillett
True Believer
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posted 03-14-2002 02:10 AM
First of all, how can someone argue that someone who works (and is able to make a lving) in the arts is anymore of a sellout than those of us who make a living doing anything else? The vast majority of us aren’t doing what we necessarily envisioned when we were starry-eyed kids. Most of us aren’t even happy in our jobs. (I’d have to say that by managing to still work in the field that you enjoy, Earl, you’re far ahead of most of us.) Many of us have to make decision everyday that, if our jobs weren’t at stake, we would likely make differently. That, to me, is more of a “sell out”, than tailoring your own creations to an audience, because, through it all, they are still your creations. Moreover, isn’t a great artist, at least in the eyes of the world at large, someone who has the ability to translate something profound to a very large audience? We value that ability in most creative people. We revere it, in fact. Is anyone calling George Lucas a sell-out just because he managed to touch something in a large number of people? I seriously doubt it, though with George’s estimated net worth, I think he could afford to buy himself back.
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Dave Thomer
Guardian of Peace and Justice in the Galaxy
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posted 03-14-2002 02:11 AM
I wish I hadn’t packed away my copies of William Goldman’s screenwriting books. There’s a great bit in Adventures in the Screen Trade where he talks about how important it is for screenwriters to do something else than write screenplays. The screenwriter has so little power, and is so at the mercy of the stars and the producers and the directors, that it’s easy to lose any sense that there’s something of yourself in the work that you do. Instead you spend your time writing Perfect Parts for Perfect People. It pays well, and you get the good table at Spago’s, he says, but in the end you have no soul.What’s interesting is that Goldman doesn’t say ‘Don’t write screenplays.’ He writes plenty of them, and seems to enjoy doing so. But, he says, do something else, too. Do something you can care about totally. I think that’s the difference between a sellout and someone who’s creative for a living. The latter puts her talents to work on others’ behalf, helps them express what they want to express, and maybe expresses something of her own in the bargain. But that act of expressing for another is what enables them to turn around and create something really personal, regardless of who else gets to see it. (I tend to agree with Earl for the most part, that we create in order to share something with others. But sometimes I think we do it just to communicate something to ourselves.) Earl’s promo work is what pays for the PC that he uses to write and design theLogBook. You can’t have the one without the other. |
Earl Green
True Believer
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posted 03-14-2002 02:41 AM
Wow, almost sounds like you're saying we're the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out, or something similarly profound there, Dave. Novel concept, that!  I will confess, upfront, right now, that I don't remember what it was that sparked me to write that piece a few years ago with quite the tone that it took on. (My fingers just move on the keyboard, folks - the stuff comes pouring out of me, and it says what it wants to say.) I think the more significant focus isn't the "selling out" angle, but the exploitation angle - rather, the self-exploitation angle. Sure, there's hardly a young music act on the radio today that isn't something one could easily define as a sellout, but they obviously wanted that stardom at some point (or, perhaps, some misguided, overbearing pageant mom/dad from hell pushed them into it, but I kid Leann Rimes). Case in point: Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera. Those two children creep me out. The images they choose the present...it's enough to make me feel like I'm watching someone sell their kids into prostitution. Okay, maybe that's a bit harsh, but hopefully it conveys the creepy sensation I get that I should be averting my eyes anytime they show up on TV. (Their music, honestly, I couldn't care less about - their sound, like their image, hits me as a manufactured construct; but I digress.) However, it must be noted that even though Britney's mom balks at her choice of clothing (or choice to leave most of it off), this is how the artist chooses to present herself. And she ain't dumb. It gets her lots of attention. Whether it's good attention or not...well, she's chosen to deal with that too. To quote a book about Crowded House, a band about whom I gushed extensively elsewhere on this site of late, bassist Nick Seymour ditched his friends' punk band to join Neil Finn's yet-unnamed new rock group, and one of Nick's bandmates accused him of selling out. Another one guessed much closer to the correct answer: "No, he's buying in." |
slgorman
One of the Regulars
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posted 03-19-2002 03:24 PM
As someone with a "mainstream" job (I work in health care education) that actually consists of being a licensed health care provider who now teaches others (it's kind of like two jobs in one), but who dreamed of acting, writing, and stand-up while young I find calling people who's main job is artistic in nature as "sellouts" funny. I mean, honestly, I'm the one who sold out. I chickend-out and decided to go the safe route, go to college in a nice, employable major, and then get a nice reliable job in said major. Yes, I went to a liberal arts college, but I wasn't a liberal arts major. And every time a student tells me I should be in front of a camera or crowd after a lecture (yes, I actually get that) I cringe inside a little. What if I'd had more confidence, or self-esteem, or solidity at home during my formidable years? Would I be where I am now? Who knows. But I figure anyone with enough guts to try to do anything artistic for a living has got more guts than I do. |
Earl Green
True Believer
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posted 03-23-2002 04:13 AM
There's a flipside to the "creativity as corporate-industrialized process" issue, though - that of altering people's perceptions. I myself wouldn't mind getting back into 3-D animation, CGI work, and maybe someday wind up working for some outfit like Foundation Imaging or Lucasfilm. Now, there's a much greater chance that I'll be hit by a bus tomorrow, but I would find more comfort in stuff that's meant to be fiction from the word go than I sometimes do in my current job, which is writing and editing news promos. We've recently had a wee spot of bother surrounding our basketball coach at the University of Arkansas, and I've occasionally been asked to find clips of him looking angry...okay, granted, the man's been ousted from his position due to his recent tendency to make incredibly inflammatory comments, so we're not going to show him cutting down the net after winning the Final Four a few years ago...but given that he's a basketball coach, I've been thinking maybe we show him doing that rather than trying to deliberately find file video of him looking angry. The latter seems too much to me like we're trying to steer the audience's feelings one way or the other. This sort of thing comes up semi-frequently. Maybe having to come up with stuff every day that will - at least in theory - intrigue the viewers enough to tune in isn't a job for someone with ethics in these areas. (So Kevin, if you're looking for something else to cross off your list... just kidding!) | |
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