Nicholas
Reid reflects in essay form on general matters and ideas related to
literature, history, popular culture and the arts, or just life in general. You are free to agree
or disagree with him.
AN ELITE FORM OF DUMBING DOWN
Recently,
I came across the following quotations from the philosopher and cultural critic
Hannah Arendt. They appeared in her essay “The Crisis in Culture”, first published in 1961 in her collection of
essays Between Past and Future. At
this point in her essay, Arendt was distinguishing between “culture” (basically
great and challenging works which have come to us from the past) and
“entertainment” (what is ephemeral, undemanding and basically intended to fill
up our spare time).
She
wrote: “those who produce for the mass
media ransack the entire range of past and present culture in the hope of
finding suitable material. This material, moreover, cannot be offered as it is;
it must be altered in order to become entertaining; it must be prepared to
be easily consumed.”
Of
real works of art, she goes on to say: “their
nature is affected when these objects themselves are changed – rewritten,
condensed, reduced to kitsch in reproduction, or in preparation for the movies.
This does not mean that culture is
spread to the masses, but that culture is being destroyed in order to yield
entertainment. The result of this
is not disintegration but decay, and those who promote it are not the Tin Pan
Alley composers but a special kind of intellectual, often well read and
well informed, whose sole function is to organise, disseminate, and change
cultural objects in order to persuade the masses that Hamlet can be as
entertaining as My Fair Lady, and perhaps as educational as well. There
are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and
neglect, but it is still an open question whether they will survive an entertaining
version of what they have to say.” [Underlinings added for
emphasis.]
Of
course, after most of 60 years, there are some things here that now sound a
little dated. Perhaps we could substitute something like Mamma Mia! for My Fair Lady
and we might say “the music industry” rather than “Tin Pan Alley”, a phrase which means little nowadays. We might
remark that it would be television and the internet rather than “the movies” which now do most of this
cultural simplification, although the movies are still part of the process. If
we read only these quotations, we might also think that Arendt is
attacking pop culture and the mass media per
se, and in therefore (to use the easy insult word) an “elitist”. In fact
she isn’t. The essay as a whole makes it clear that she understands the
legitimate functions of the mass media and also the necessity for
“entertainment”. Then we might consider how, over the past haf century, television and film have been more readily recognised as media capable of rising to the status of real art.
But
having said all this, I think the substance of these quotations still stands, is
still a valid and accurate comment on our current cultural situation, and has
stood the test of time.
I could break off my remarks at this point,
and simply say “I agree” or “Well said” to Hannah Arendt. But you
know the sort of verbose and pompous chap I am, so I cannot refrain from amplifying her
comments by giving modern examples of the deleterious process she describes
Item: Concerning “a special kind of
intellectual” I am so tired of hearing academics on radio and elsewhere
informing the masses that “poetry can be
FUN!!” I have never doubted the literal truth of this statement – since
when has there not been a rich tradition of light and amusing verse? But the subtext
of this statement now is “Let’s forget
that wearisome, serious thing poetry is. Let’s make it easy-peasy. Let’s not
produce anything that requires serious reading and thought.” So roll on
academics producing light, whimsical verse designed to grab Demos. Result?
Demos thinks that this is all poetry need be. After all, isn’t that what
Professor XTZ said?
Item: “Let’s produce operas in such a
way that they are relevant; that they speak to people now; that
they don’t trouble people by getting them to decode in any meaningful way what
the opera really has to offer.” Result? Patronising modern-dress (or
undressed) productions of classic operas that narrow their meaning to something
topical and often trivial. Audiences are not invited to enter into the
imaginative world of the composer or librettist. They are invited to see a show
similar to a “musical” or to a soap-opera such as they can watch any evening at
home. We don’t want all this high culture stuff, do we? The whole process is patronising inasmuch as it assumes that the audience of this particular art form is too stupid to themseves be able to pick up whatever modern resonances an opera, produced in traditional style, has to offer.
Item: “We have to get the youth
audience. We have to get a new generation acquainted with the great
plays of Shakespeare. So let’s produce Shakespeare’s history plays on
television as if they are Game of Thrones. Lots of power plays. Lots of sex.
Lots of violence.” Thus was born the Hollow
Crown series, filmed in 2012 and 2016. Sure, Shakespeare’s plays are indeed
full of sex, violence and power plays – but this series stripped back and
greatly abridged the texts whenever there was the opportunity to show the blood
and guts, and filmed them like a horror show. I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t
admit that I quite enjoyed the two seasons; but there is absolutely no way that
this will get young people pursuing Shakespeare seriously. More likely, when
confronted with a full Shakespearean text or an uncut production of a
Shakespeare play, people who have seen the Hollow Crown series are more likely
to yawn and ask “Why isn’t this more like
Game of Thrones?”
Thus
I could witter on with more relevant examples, but my basic message should be
clear. “A special kind of intellectual”
is still on the loose, and Hannah Arendt is still right.
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