{"id":101,"date":"2017-10-15T20:38:52","date_gmt":"2017-10-16T00:38:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/?p=101"},"modified":"2017-10-15T20:38:52","modified_gmt":"2017-10-16T00:38:52","slug":"is-all-art-in-danger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/uncategorized\/is-all-art-in-danger\/","title":{"rendered":"Is all art in danger?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Capitalism, while it has allowed a small handful of corporate executives to dominate the entertainment industry for over a century, has also made way for artists that appeal to niche communities to find both their voice and an audience for their vision without the approval of or investment from large corporations. Many of these viewers are among those who are cutting their cable and searching for alternative forms of entertainment. In a society where six major corporations control all mass-media, growing numbers of people want to hear unique, authentic, and previously untold narratives that are not shared by these popular major networks and instead are available on-demand, shown in indie cinemas, written within online blogs, and presented on street corners. These independent artists, who were previously incapable of amassing a fan base without the name recognition and financial wherewithal of a major corporation, have become legitimate competitors and leveled the playing field in the 21st century by harnessing digital distribution and smart-technology.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race | Season 9 Teaser\" width=\"940\" height=\"529\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/g2oIIdZaIl4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race<\/em>, an American reality competition television series, is a show where drag queens compete for the title of \u201cAmerica\u2019s next Drag Superstar,\u201d through a series of challenges comparable to a mashup of <em>America\u2019s Next Top Model<\/em> and <em>Project Runway<\/em>. The content may not be attractive to those who are not active followers of drag culture, a minority within the LGBTQ community, yet <em>RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race<\/em> is celebrating nearly a decade of being on the air. Because of working-class access to efficient avenues for the successful independent production and distribution of art, all art is therefore not in danger of becoming the same, despite culture\u2019s mass production.<\/p>\n<p>The mass production of homogenous art is a symptom of the \u201cCulture Industry,\u201d a cultural theory proposed by Theodor Adorno in his book, <em>Dialectic of Enlightenment<\/em>. This industry describes popular culture as artificial, recycled, and soaked in capitalist ideology intended to permeate into the general population\u2019s subconscious. Adorno argues that all art is either mass-produced or heavily influenced by the culture industry and that it significantly marginalizes or eliminates anything that doesn\u2019t adhere to its ideological rules. While Adorno was correct about this theory during his lifetime since it was impossible to reach audiences on mass-media platforms in the twentieth-century without the aid of major corporations, he never benefitted from the use of a personal computer, and twenty-first century technological advances have provided an environment in which unique traits can thrive rather than be trampled out by consumerism.<\/p>\n<p>In fact, in many ways independent artists have become the main benefactors of capitalism as the technology used to create and distribute content is now within reach of the working class. In 1965, Intel\u2019s co-founder, Gordon Moore observed that the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every year since their invention. \u00a0He predicted that this trend would continue for the foreseeable future (Moore\u2019s Law). \u00a0By 2007, digital camera technology had achieved the equivalent quality of 35mm film. \u00a0Directors no longer needed to shoot on film, send it away for processing and edit their work in expensive post production studios that had to be rented by the hour. \u00a0Video could be captured directly to hard drives and edited on a personal computer. \u00a0Production costs plummeted. \u00a0With digital content and broadband internet becoming widely available in people\u2019s homes, alternate forms of distribution became available to producers as well. \u00a0\u00a0These technological improvements in the creation and distribution of art caused software and equipment prices to drop dramatically.<\/p>\n<p>RED Cameras, which are being used across big budget and low budget productions alike, can be purchased used for just under $15,000 and expensive lenses can be rented, bringing the creation of TV shows within reach of independent artists. \u00a0Likewise, completely professional recording setups can be purchased for under $10,000. \u00a0What used to require a major investment from a large company that makes decisions based on what content will be most profitable can now be financed by a few people with working class wages. \u00a0Theodor Adorno, who died in 1969, was unable to foresee how Moore\u2019s Law would affect these changes in the power paradigm of content creation in the twenty-first century. \u00a0He could not predict that artists would become as autonomous as they have today. \u00a0This enables them to be far less susceptible to the corruption of the culture industry and less vulnerable to having their artistic vision stripped of its individuality.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net\/logosrupaulsdragrace\/images\/c\/cc\/RpdrS9group.jpg\/revision\/latest?cb=20170202214931\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-106 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/files\/2017\/10\/RpdrS9group-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"622\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/files\/2017\/10\/RpdrS9group-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/files\/2017\/10\/RpdrS9group-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/files\/2017\/10\/RpdrS9group-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/files\/2017\/10\/RpdrS9group-640x360.jpg 640w, https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/files\/2017\/10\/RpdrS9group.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 622px) 100vw, 622px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In <em>RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race, <\/em>RuPaul begins each season by selecting contestants from independently uploaded YouTube audition videos. The drag queens that populate the show come from a range of diverse backgrounds in terms of experience and access. Some queens come on the show after years of success in the global queer scene, while others have yet to perform outside of their hometown\u2019s underground gatherings. Throughout the show, participants get in drag and take on themed challenges, often involving costume design, lip sync performances, comedic routines surrounding queer life, and \u201creading,\u201d which is drag terminology for making fun of one\u2019s peers. Challenge winners are rewarded with cosmetic items, designer clothing, and queer vacation destinations and cruises. When the queens are not performing or working on their constructions, they are filmed sharing coming out stories, experiences with homophobia and transphobia, and discussing queer politics. The show depicts a vibrant and thriving queer culture living outside of the norm, something Adorno\u2019s Cultural Industry deemed impossible. \u201cThe eccentricity of the circus, the peep show, or the brothel in relation to society is as embarrassing to [the Culture Industry] as that of Schoenberg and Karl Krauss,\u201d yet,\u00a0RuPaul has been providing a window into his perspective on these aspects of counter culture for ten years (Adorno, 108).<\/p>\n<p>Those who agree with Adorno might respond to <em>RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race <\/em>by arguing that this community has been adopted by the Culture Industry in its efforts to provide something for everyone and corner the market.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cSharp distinctions like those between A and B films, or between short stories published in magazines in different price segments, do not so much reflect real differences as assist in the classification, organization, and identification of consumers. Something is provided for everyone so that no one can escape; differences are hammered home and propagated. The hierarchy of serial qualities purveyed to the public serves only to quantify it more completely. Everyone is supposed to behave spontaneously according to a &#8220;level&#8221; determined by indices and to select the category of mass product manufactured for their type. On the charts of research organizations, indistinguishable from those of political propaganda, consumers are divided up as statistical material into red, green, and blue areas according to income group\u201d (Adorno, 97).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And indeed, RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race is aired on VH1, a division of the multi-national, entertainment conglomerate, Viacom. Adorno could say that the show is no different from other productions, that its only purpose is to provide an \u201cescape from the work process in factory and office&#8230;by adaptation to it in leisure time,\u201d and that <em>RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race<\/em> is not inoculated against \u201cthe incurable sickness of all entertainment\u201d (109). Adorno would have a difficult time, however, explaining how <em>RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race<\/em> conformed to the executive powers \u201ctables, their concept of the consumer or themselves\u201d (96). \u00a0\u201cThe more all-embracing the culture industry has become,\u201d Adorno claims, \u201cthe more pitilessly it has forced the outsider into either bankruptcy or a syndicate\u201d (107). Yet, RuPaul is nothing if not an \u201coutsider,\u201d and he is flourishing on television.<\/p>\n<p>Adorno did not live long enough to see how Moore\u2019s Law would impact content creation and distribution. \u00a0He couldn\u2019t predict The Long Tail that Chris Anderson first wrote about in Wired Magazine in 2004. \u00a0The Culture Industry that Adorno cites is built upon Pareto\u2019s principle:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cThe 80-20 rule, also known as Pareto\u2019s principle (after Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian economist who devised the concept in 1906), is all around us. Only 20 percent of major studio films will be hits. Same for TV shows, games, and mass-market books \u2013 20 percent all. The odds are even worse for major-label CDs, where fewer than 10 percent are profitable, according to the Recording Industry Association of America\u201d (Anderson).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The Long Tail represents the rest of the non-hit content that still has an audience. \u00a0These consumers could not be served during the lifetime of Adorno, however:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cWith no shelf space to pay for and, in the case of purely digital services like iTunes, no manufacturing costs and hardly any distribution fees, a miss sold is just another sale, with the same margins as a hit. A hit and a miss are on equal economic footing, both just entries in a database called up on demand, both equally worthy of being carried. Suddenly, popularity no longer has a monopoly on profitability&#8221; (Anderson).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The net value of The Long Tail may, in fact, be larger than the net value of the 20% (successful hits) Head. \u00a0In \u201cFrom Niches To Riches: Anatomy of the Long Tail,\u201d published in 2006, authors Brynjolfsson, Hu and Smith discovered that although Barnes &amp; Noble carry 130,000 titles, more than half of Amazon\u2019s book sales come from titles that fall outside the top 130,000 sellers.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-104 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/files\/2017\/10\/niches-to-reaches-graph-300x198.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"442\" height=\"292\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/files\/2017\/10\/niches-to-reaches-graph-300x198.png 300w, https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/files\/2017\/10\/niches-to-reaches-graph.png 373w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 442px) 100vw, 442px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This suggests that niche markets make up more than half of the demand of entertainment. \u00a0In Adorno\u2019s time, the market was not capable of fulfilling this demand.<\/p>\n<p>Today, however, the desires of the content producers can lead the marketplace. \u00a0Independent artists can manifest their vision without the help or interference of a major corporation and find their audience. \u00a0With increased competition, artists have more autonomy in the decision-making process and can leverage their specific appeal to niche markets for deals in the mass marketplace that would have been impossible during Adorno\u2019s lifetime. \u00a0These circumstances provide for an environment in which art is thriving. \u00a0Artists have benefitted greatly from the competition among microchip makers to deliver upon Moore\u2019s Law. \u00a0Filmmakers, writers and musicians can work from their homes on technology that they can afford to access. \u00a0Demographics which were once left out of the consideration set of executives at major studios can now garner attention and independent artists can connect with niche markets and monetize their vision without granting decision space to corporate executives who write the checks. \u00a0More interestingly, well-crafted content generated for niche audiences, like <em>RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race<\/em>, can find mass appeal and end up on Viacom.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Works Cited<\/p>\n<p>Adorno, Theodor W., and Max Horkheimer. \u201cThe Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.\u201d <em>Dialectic of Enlightenment<\/em>, edited by Gunzelin Schmid Noerr, Stanford University Press, 2002, pp. 94-136.<\/p>\n<p>Anderson, Chris. \u201cThe Long Tail.\u201d <em>Wired<\/em>, 1 Oct. 2004, www.wired.com\/2004\/10\/tail\/.<\/p>\n<p>Brynjolfsson, Erik, Yu Jeffrey Hu, and Michael D. Smith. &#8220;From niches to riches: Anatomy of the long tail.&#8221; (2006).<\/p>\n<p>Moore, Gordon E. &#8220;Cramming more components onto integrated circuits, Reprinted from Electronics, volume 38, number 8, April 19, 1965, pp. 114 ff.&#8221;\u00a0<em>IEEE Solid-State Circuits Society Newsletter<\/em>20.3 (2006): 33-35.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Capitalism, while it has allowed a small handful of corporate executives to dominate the entertainment&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1808,"featured_media":107,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1808"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":111,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions\/111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/f18-engl117-02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}