Commercialism

Saw a show last week with a friend which I loved, and she hated, claiming that it was far too "commercial" for her tastes.

Took me a while to put my finger on why this bothered me so much. A think it's mainly because, well -- whoever said that "commercial" was necessarily a bad thing? It's wrong to entertain people?

The protest, I imagine, comes from those who say that it's wrong to sell out one's artistic integrity for the sake of making a buck. Which is undoubtedly true, not least because it doesn't actually *work*. But, y'know -- in my opinion, the error lies in viewing art and commerce as being two forces that are at war with each other. One without the other doesn't really have value, right?

It's an attitude I hear from a lot of other artists -- a sense of resentment at having to reckon with market forces. They'd rather just be able to focus on being creative, rather than focus on having to connect their creativity to an audience. My response to this is, well, duh. Of *course* you'd prefer to just have the fun part without any of the work. And that's just too fucking bad, innit?

For my part, working with marketing and producing has, I feel, made me into a significantly *better* artist -- because I can't respond solely to the needs of my own creativity, but to the needs of an audience -- y'know, the people who are paying me to provide them with a service? I should probably be paying attention to them. Just a thought.

(That said, those aren't terms I'm thinking in when I sit down in front of a word processor. At that point, it's just me and the story. Eventually -- via rewrites, readings, et cetera -- I turn on my left brain, and that is emphatically A Good Thing.)

A comparison I heard a slam poet make was that performing is a lot like making love to the audience -- yeah, it's possible to do it in such a way that you're only servicing your own needs. And it's possible to do it in such a way that you're only servicing theirs. But everyone has a lot more fun if you can find a way to pleasure both.

Aside from producing some awkward images -- I've certainly been part of performances where it felt like I was being gang-raped by the audience -- that's as effectively as I've ever heard it put.