“People naturally default to thinking of the arts as one of the things we choose to do with our free time and our money, depending on our taste. Looked at this way, an arts experience is no different from eating out or going to a ball game. The current debate about whether artists should speak to policy or politics from the stage is framed to reinforce the default thinking about the arts as entertainment.”
Tag: 11.22.16
How Disney Worked Real Polynesian Culture Into ‘Moana’ – And Made It Fit Into Disney Archetypes At The Same Time
New York Times music writer Nate Chinen, who grew up in Hawaii, picks out the traditional elements and scrutinizes the ways in which Disney used and adapted them (and yeah, maybe co-opted, too).
How Did So Many Children Become Convinced They Remembered Abuse That Never Actually Occurred?
Remember the Satanic-ritual-abuse-in-day-care panic of the 1980s and ’90s? Here’s a look at how the false memories of the young victims-that-weren’t got implanted and took hold – and how some of them handled it when, years later, they came to understand that what they thought they remembered hadn’t really happened.
Does Having A Family To Take Care Of Really Interfere With Creative Success?
Siddhartha Deb: “The idea of the great, undomesticated artist is itself, of course, one of the enduring fictions handed down to us by the industrial age. … If domestic responsibilities appear singularly detrimental to artistic practice, it is not because of the repetitive tasks they involve.”
Dana Stevens: “I’ll get back to you on that question as soon as I’m done picking these rainbow sequins up off the floor one by one, then sorting this mountain of discarded clothes into boxes.”
Twitter Has Become A Playground For Poets
“Amid the trolls and politicians blasting out 140-character broadsides, poets and their readers have embraced Twitter as a vehicle for higher language. The premium Twitter places on brevity and emotional honesty is uniquely well-suited for an artform that so prizes not just candor and exhortation, but verbal economy.”
All Of The Lessons This Filmmaker Learned From Spending Four Years Making A ‘Microbudget’ Movie
First, you’re never ready to make a film. (Then there are 11 more lessons, at least in this installment of the story.)
Dear Theatre People: Now Is The Time To Stand Up
Don’t let the Hamilton cast stand alone, this editorial says: “We can choose in this moment to speak, to use our words and take a stand. And it is not only in our lives as private citizens that this work can be done. Art can be activism. And theatres can take a stand and be leaders in their communities, both modeling equity, diversity, and inclusion and speaking out about it.”
This Notion Of Fakes In The Art World Prompts The Need For A Definition Of Real
“What is it about a specific piece of art that makes it become seen as an esteemed creation, while something entirely similar can be viewed as nothing more than (quite literally) a vessel for disposing of human excrement? This was the brazen question that researchers at the Faculty of Economics and Business at the University of Leuven in Belgium recently tackled using the scientific method. They published their results in the journal Human Nature in October.”
28 Things That Would Make The Visual Art World A Better Place
“What if the art world was a lot more integrated into the world world? What if the art world and the world world existed in a state of mutual accountability to one another? What if art was valued as a shared cultural transmission that brings people together despite difference, instead of as a luxury good that promotes class division?”
Behind The Scenes Of Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” (And The Two Times He Quit)
A new book details it. “For all the fun it looked like everyone was having, it turns out the climate behind the scenes wasn’t always such a joy. (Though, to be clear, there was plenty of that, too. Tired joy, to read the staffers’ accounts. But joy nonetheless.)”