Found the problem. This isn't art criticism. This is commerce criticism. Which in a capitalist society is cultural criticism. None of the complaints against Ice-T/Body Count's Cop Killer were that it existed, it was that it was released on a major label The beef against Marylin Manson (prior to the rape allegations) was that he was on a major label. The whole PMRC moral panic was not that artists were making this music, it's that American corporations were marketing it to children. We used to have racists on my show on the reg. Nobody protested them, they protested CBS for giving them a platform. The beef here is not against Dave Chapelle. I mean, obviously there is beef against Dave Chapelle, but there will always be beef against artists, I don't care what art you create. Art pushes the boundaries of society. The beef is against Netflix. Dave Chapelle streaming from his own website is a lot less culturally relevant than Dave Chapelle popping up every time I turn on my Kindle Firestick. The concern is not whether I like it. It's not whether I find it offensive. The concern is whether it shapes what is acceptable to a portion of humanity such that it impacts the lived experience of a large group of people. Suburban white kids screaming "Cop Killer" nationwide is very different from 200 guys at a club in the Bronx. This has never been about what we watch - it has always been about what everyone else watches, how easy it is to watch, how acceptable it is to watch. The beef against Fox News has never been that they're a bunch of horrible, opportunistic old racists, it's that they're a bunch of horrible, opportunistic old racists on every cable system in the nation supported by the ad dollars of companies we all give money to.All I’m saying is if you’re going to criticize art, or have a strong opinion about it; you should have experienced it, first hand.
this take feels exceptionally correct, it sucks so much that when i buy anything my money is being routed straight to things I hate I don't want to support that! but I also want to live. 90% of the funding for the Alt-Rightier-than-Fox network OAN comes from my ISP AT&T and I'll be damned if that doesnt piss me off at least as much as OAN itself
Interesting example. When Louis CK decided to go direct rather than through publishers, he did several comedy specials - professionally produced on his own dime - and released them for $5 a piece on his web site. You could download the entire thing. He asked you not to share it with anyone else, and help him make this thing a reality. It worked, and he made multiple times more money than he ever did on a Netflix/whatever special. Of course, when it came out he was a shit to women, I unsubscribed from his site and lists. But your separation of the artist from the platform is an interesting wrinkle to consider, for the Dave Chapelle thing. If Dave had released this for $5 on his own web site, I suspect there'd be some grumpy tweets and scathing commentary in some issue-specific chat rooms. But little public backlash, and it would have been forgotten by the weekend. But because there is a big-name platform involved that - like you said - feeds it to you when you log in to your device to watch other content... that DOES change things, doesn't it? That's a curious thing to consider, and Marshall McLuhan may have had a point after all that the medium is the message. Or, at least changes the message... The beef is against Netflix. Dave Chapelle streaming from his own website is a lot less culturally relevant than Dave Chapelle popping up every time I turn on my Kindle Firestick.
Dude it's the only thing to consider. It's the difference between "what he says" and "what we all say." Art has always been about access - nobody remembers what some random Assyrian said, they remember what Cyrus the Great had carved on the cliff at Behistun. Art and culture are inextricably about access and patronage. Louis CK was able to go private once he was Louis CK. Prior to becoming Louis CK he was just another poorly-paid comedy writer for fifteen years. Louis CK a year after Caroline in the City gets cancelled? Gets 20 downloads a month. Louis CK after he decides Netflix doesn't pay him enough because he's Louis CK? That's always the flip in entertainment - are you taken advantage of or do you take advantage? We know about the Medicis because they controlled public art, not because they were rich. There were other rich families in Florence but it was the Medicis that sprayed their faces on every third wall. Likewise, Kardashians have far more cultural influence than Dursts, despite the Dursts being richer. If the Rothschilds had bought theaters instead of vineyards they probably wouldn't be accused of owning space lasers today.But your separation of the artist from the platform is an interesting wrinkle to consider, for the Dave Chapelle thing.
