So trivial, yet it really ticks you off.

[tonyb]

Nah. Most popular entertainment is forgettable fluff. Nothing new in any of that, though. The stuff that remains is but a small fraction of what's produced.

But wotthehell, there's a place for cotton candy. But if that's all a person knows, a high quality chocolate would be a revelation. Or so I would hope.

 

[ChrisB]

There's nothing inherently wrong with what gets dismissed as "commercial art." Pretty much everything about which we wax rhapsodic on the Lounge was mass-produced product manufactured by workers-for-hire. The people who made the movies, the music, the fashion, and much of the other stuff that we relish from the Era were, in essence, just grinding it out for the piece rate. That a lot of so-called "commercial art" has endured and a lot of "fine art" has been forgotten has to tell you something.

This is something that NC Wyeth had to deal with as his son gained acclaim as an “artist”, while he himself was an “illustrator”. He is nevertheless appreciated today as an artist, and his illustrations have outlived the the works for which they were produced.

 

[ChrisB]

Nah. Most popular entertainment is forgettable fluff. Nothing new in any of that, though. The stuff that remains is but a small fraction of what's produced.

It’s like prospecting for precious metals: you have to sift through a ton of dross to find a speck of gold.

 

[Fading Fast]

The thing is, people can blame the Education System all they want -- but the best way to get kids interested in The Pleasures Of The Mind is to expose them to those pleasures when they *are* kids. If you want kids to be interested in serious reading, have serious books around the house. If you want kids to appreciate music, expose them to it. If you want kids to think, show them that you, yourself, think.

And don't be snobby about media -- there's a lot of good media out there. I didn't learn to enjoy opera, modern dance, and jazz because I took courses on them in college. I learned that they were enjoyable when I was five from watching "Mister Rogers."

I grew up at a time when the tail-end of an "educational" media ideal could still be seen - stations like PBS put on opera, had a show on books or other "high-brow"culture and networks would give some time over to similar events as the general "attitude" was that these "higher culture" things were good for you / made a better person, etc. I know these things can still be found in niches, but they are much less visible and impactful than when they were on one or more of the only three or four major stations available.

I am not advocating for a return to that world - as there, IMHO, was value in the exposure, but too much noblesse oblige in the motivation - but do wish there was some meme (grrr) that encouraged exposure to these cultural corners - a general view that, yes, some art takes time to appreciate but is worth it. If Lizzie is right about needing exposure when young, then thank God for the boob tube and local library because that was my only exposure as a kid as my family wasn't listening to classic music, reading Shakespeare or discussing Plato.

I think the real problem is the way we've made it an "either/or" proposition. It's entirely possible for one person to get equal enjoyment out of Chaucer, Anais Nin, and a Batman comic book, or Mozart, Fats Waller, and Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers. There is no such thing, really, as "high" and "low" culture -- the idea that there is is simply a means of artificial class distinction.

I agree completely and would also note that there are plenty of smart, enlightening ideas in "pop" or "mass market" culture. We - here at Fedora - have wrung a heck of a lot of deep philosophy out of the original "Star Trek" series and, IMHO, the second Nolan Batman movie was a brilliant philosophical work that just used the Batman construct to convey its ideas. One more example, some of the best rock music has lyrics equal to some much lauded poetry - "Sympathy for the Devil" is simply a poem set to music.

And even if some pop art or music or show doesn't have a "deeper" meaning, good "mindless" entertainment still has a place in making life a little better, a little lighter, a little more fun.

 

[LizzieMaine]

"Sullivan's Travels" is a first-class exploration of that fact. A movie I can't recommend highly enough for its message, even though the point of the picture is that a good movie doesn't need a message to be good.

One thing people tend to forget about public television of the NET era is just how diverse it was. It's unfortunately gone down in memory as a time of grainy black-and-white shows featuring long-faced old white men in suits pontificating in dull head-shots (the origin of the phrase "talking heads"), but in reality there was a lot of really interesting programming in that era -- all kinds of music, not just highbrow stuff, all kinds of drama, comedy, and conversation. There was nothing especially highbrow about "The French Chef," for example -- the whole idea was to make "fancy cooking" accessible to Joe and Jane Blow, not to perpetuate the idea of it being some kind of exotic foreign fare fit only for the Eee-lite. And there were some things on NET that were downright earthy -- Jean Shepherd's specials were the same kind of stuff he did on radio.

I enjoyed "educational TV" as a kid, not because it was "educational" but because it was often a lot of fun. Its entire purpose was the democratization of culture, not the exaltation of it.

 

[Fading Fast]

"Sullivan's Travels" is a first-class exploration of that fact. A movie I can't recommend highly enough for its message, even though the point of the picture is that a good movie doesn't need a message to be good.

yes, plus, Veronica Lake.

 

[HanauMan]

I went to the Guggenheim Museum in NYC to educate myself on modern art and it was interesting. However, I also went to the Cartoon museum in San Francisco and I was blown by an original Bill Watterson panel of a Calvin & Hobbes cartoon. And that was fun.

I studied art in high school and university but at the end of the day I still prefer a Norman Rockwell illustration over a Picasso.

 

[tonyb]

It’s like prospecting for precious metals: you have to sift through a ton of dross to find a speck of gold.

That's why I pay little mind to most current popular entertainment. I just don't have enough time left to spend it on diversions that don't compel. And besides, I'll learn of the good stuff eventually. I don't need to be the first to know.

 

[LizzieMaine]

When I realized that "Rosie The Riveter" was a line-for-line parody of Michaelangelo's Isaiah, my view of Norman Rockwell changed dramatically. You can take his stuff at face value, or you can see the layers he's hidden in the paintings -- sort of like looking for the "NINA" in a Hirschfeld cartoon. Either way, he offers as much as any "fine" artist.

 

[Fading Fast]

When I realized that "Rosie The Riveter" was a line-for-line parody of Michaelangelo's Isaiah, my view of Norman Rockwell changed dramatically. You can take his stuff at face value, or you can see the layers he's hidden in the paintings -- sort of like looking for the "NINA" in a Hirschfeld cartoon. Either way, he offers as much as any "fine" artist.

On the flip side, every once in a while, an artist or musician will acknowledge that others have read a lot more into his / her work than he / she intended. Of course, there's the argument that great artists create work that can be interpreted well beyond what they intended - sure, okay, but sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Mick Jagger has repeatedly claimed that fans have seen incredibly deeper meaning in and read more complex ideology into the Stones' lyrics than he and Keith ever thought about. In a recent interview I saw on PBS with Mick, he truly seemed amused and bemused by it.

 

[GHT]

That's why I pay little mind to most current popular entertainment. I just don't have enough time left to spend it on diversions that don't compel. And besides, I'll learn of the good stuff eventually. I don't need to be the first to know.

That's my sentiment entirely, having just spent 14 weeks recuperating from surgery, not being able to move about, boredom soon settled in. Books and the internet were a help, but daytime TV left me questioning the will to live. Some of the dross put out was so dire that sticking pins in my eyeballs had more appeal.
It didn't occur to me at first, but I quickly cottoned onto the fact that most TV shows can be seen on YouTube, where, the crud like, bottom common denominator shows can easily be discarded.

 

[LizzieMaine]

As the story goes Buster Keaton once sat impassively on a stage as some goateed, pipe-smoking cineaste declaimed on the hidden meanings of his work, and then turned to him and asked him to explain a particular scene. Buster replied "Well in that scene, I was trying to be funny."

 

[tonyb]

There are people who make a career of deconstructing Beatles tunes, in attempts to cast light on why so many of those songs have such long legs. One fellow in particular is very good at breaking down into layman's language just what the musical theorist's terms mean and their effects on what we hear. It's interesting, even to one as musically illiterate as I am.

Did Paul McCartney have any conscious awareness of just what he was doing from a musical theorist's perspective? Highly unlikely. I don't believe he ever learned to read music. But that doesn't mean he wasn't doing it, though. Great ears, and an extraordinary gift for melody.

There is such a thing as overthinking. In most creative endeavors, it's the vibe at work more than the thought. Most of us can return to our better work and see that, yeah, that's why that works so well. But that wasn't where our heads were while we were doing it.

 

[Bruce Wayne]

It’s like prospecting for precious metals: you have to sift through a ton of dross to find a speck of gold.

I always use the phrase onr had to shovel a lot of manure to get a beautiful rose.

 

[Harp]

Apparently a well-rounded liberal arts education isn't so highly valued.

I typically singe academic advice to the young with the observation that they will probably work in three or four different fields before retirement
unless medicine or science is selected as a vocation, and, my experience is that college will not specifically prepare them for this.
Learning to think, to reason, weigh evidence, agility and acumen will be the cornerstones of their life career. Nothing better prepares
for life than the humanities.

 

[tonyb]

I typically singe academic advice to the young with the observation that they will probably work in three or four different fields before retirement
unless medicine or science is selected as a vocation, and, my experience is that college will not specifically prepare them for this.
Learning to think, to reason, weigh evidence, agility and acumen will be the cornerstones of their life career. Nothing better prepares
for life than the humanities.

A truly well-educated person knows how little he knows, or ever will know.

I've witnessed much damage done by people who think a little knowledge makes them experts. A smarter person knows to either gain more knowledge or to defer to the more knowledgeable.

Yes, I do believe that some people are more intellectually gifted than others (although I've yet to see a reliable way of measuring it), but even the brightest among us will barely scratch the surface of human knowledge.

A solid education ought to leave a person knowing at least that, and to conduct himself accordingly. He ought to leave the academy with intellectual humility and, we would hope, knowing how to think critically. There is no field (other than politics, maybe) where those attributes aren't of real benefit.

 

[Harp]

This is something that NC Wyeth had to deal with as his son gained acclaim as an “artist”, while he himself was an “illustrator”. He is nevertheless appreciated today as an artist, and his illustrations have outlived the the works for which they were produced.

The entire clan had chops, A struck fame with his haunting portraiture but NC stirred the imagination; especially those of children. Adore his work immensely.

 

[Haversack]

Harp wrote: "...but NC stirred the imagination."

Not only that. His depictions of pirates in his illustrations for Stevenson's Treasure Island set the standard in the public's mind's eye for what pirates look like. Without his work, there would be no Pirates of the Caribbean. (for better or worse).

 

[Doctor Strange]

Don't get me wrong, I TOTALLY ADORE NC Wyeth... but Howard Pyle (who was more or less his contemporary) also had a hand in creating the public image of pirates.

 

[tonyb]

Don't get me wrong, I TOTALLY ADORE NC Wyeth... but Howard Pyle (who was more or less his contemporary) also had a hand in creating the public image of pirates.

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Yeah, but did he ever do Jesus with a mullet?