locating our molecules

"Hollywood has become very good at predicting what its audiences want to see" stated an article in The Atlantic this week -- I submit for consideration the fact that we, the public, do not know what we "want to see" until we see it.


We see something we didn't see before, and we say, "Wow, that was terrible" or "Man, that was great" ...it is up to the maker of art -- whether movies or any other form of art -- to offer us something.


Art should be created, and then offered to the public.  The public should not be dragged in to approve or do a thumbs-down or give guidance - we are not the artist; we are the audience, the viewers / readers / appreciators. ...


The article also quoted:  "It's an entertainment factory in which the audience is both consumer and product.   Its purpose is not just to please consumers but to condition and create them."


I think that first sentence there is not correct, though.  I don't think the audience is "both consumer and product."  I think it's this way:
With television, the
seller is Hollywood, the
buyer is the advertisers, and the
product (being purchased) is the audience.


While with film, the
seller is Hollywood, the
buyer is the audience, and the
product (being purchased) is the movie (tickets).


Anyway -- anyone who makes art probably wants to earn profits from it and that's great, they should - but when they try to guarantee the profits by dumbing-down the art, making it "relentlessly average," then they've squooshed the art down and transformed it into a getting-in-money machine.


(Like a zombie --
"Get the money."
"Get.  The money."
"Get.  The.  Money."
["Is it safe?"
"Is-it-safe?"
"Plastics."
"There's a great future in plastics.  Think about it.  Will you think about it?"]...)


In his book Life, Keith Richards discusses songwriting and describes searching for, and practicing, sounds and songs with Mick Jagger and the other band members, and he says something like -- that they didn't try to figure out what the audience would like, or what the audience might "want"; rather, they discovered (from the bluesmen whose records they listened to and studied) and created (writing their own songs) sounds which they themselves liked, and then shared them with the audience. 


Offered them.  Taking a risk.  Not trying to guarantee themselves a profit by asking "the public" to help them write the song and sing it for them.  Art.  Not a getting-money machine.  (And they MADE a ton of money.  They didn't need a "money machine" to be profitable, because they worked hard and their art was good.)  This is how it looks to me.


The first time I saw Muddy Waters perform was in a movie (a Martin Scorsese documentary) about The Band called The Last Waltz.  When he first began singing "Mannish Boy" I was really startled because I had just not ever before heard blues. 


It's like having your -- molecules -- re-arranged. ...(Like -- "WHATT??!?  Then -- "Hmmh."  And -- "--Oh."  And then -- "Wow.")  As a person in the audience, and a member of the public, I couldn't possibly have known I would "want" that. 


I couldn't "want" it because I didn't know of it.  Only went to that movie (the first time) because it had Bob Dylan in it.  I knew of him!  But I couldn't want what I knew not of. ...


Art should be created.  And then offered.  Not "tested" on the public during the process.


...Man!
I'm a rollin' stone
I'm a man, Child
I'm a hoochie coochie man
well, well, well, well
hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry...







-30-