Du Fu and Li Bai critique modern media as art
Who cares what those pot companions think, but they're quoting Peep Show anyway
[For new readers, previous episodes featuring the poets are here, here, here and here.]
Li Bai’s residence. A large screen sits in one corner. An exquisite Tang dynasty vase, which has been used as an ashtray, sits unsteadily on top. LI BAI and DU FU are disconsolate on the sofa.1
DU FU: Never mind. I didn’t really want to watch it.
LI BAI: There must be a problem with the transmitomancy. The next century gets better reception. For some reason there’s a black spot here. It works during thunderstorms and Years Of The Ox.
He goes over and smacks the set. The vase jumps. The blizzard on the screen is uninterrupted, but between crackles and pops the Emperor Hirohito is briefly heard calling on his forces to surrender.
DU FU: Honestly, I will be just as happy reading the classics.
LI BAI: My dear friend. You are so right. How can this mass-produced pabulum compare with real art? He picks up a well-thumbed illustrated copy of Dream of the Red Chamber.
DU FU stares disconsolately at the blizzard. Underneath the set are obscure hieroglyphics. S O N Y.
DU FU: Well, is that entirely fair?
LI BAI putting down his book: Oh, isn’t it?
DU FU: I mean, this isn’t the 1960s. “Mass culture” isn’t even a descriptively accurate phrase any more. We have a vast profusion of content to suit the most refined taste. Arguably —
LI BAI jumps up: No, but the criticism is still the same!
DU FU: Arguably, the commercial media of today has far surpassed the so-called classics. Why, West Side Story has a more complex plot than anything Shakespeare wrote.
LI BAI sits down and gestures resignedly: continue.
DU FU: Modern television has produced great art. Think of The Wire or Mad Men. And there’s been progress! Since the 1990s, acting is far better and more naturalistic. Dialog has got more sophisticated too. Take Tag. It’s a buddy movie, a guy movie! But along with the physical slapstick, the wit is so character-based, it has such high expectations of its audience.
Comedy is better. The old sitcoms with their one-liners, laugh tracks and cheesy stereotypes have been replaced by much subtler, cleverer work. Shows like Seinfeld raised people’s expectations and explored new ways of doing things. The same thing happened in stand up. Imagine acts like Benny Hill or Little And Large now! They were great for their time, but they just wouldn’t cut it any more. Stuart Lee – (LI BAI groans.) It’s a debate for another time, but you must admit, what he is trying to do would be incomprehensible to an earlier generation.
And then there’s music. Classical music is wonderful, but it was so constrained by its technical limitations! Everything had to be live. The “pure” voice of an operatic soprano — that’s the only kind of voice that will carry in a big space! Now we have amplification, you can use a much wider range of voices, a Tom Waits growl or a Jagger yelp.
More importantly, amplification lets you play for a bigger audience live. You don’t need a rich patron. And audio recording expands the audience even more, because you cut out the middle man of the written score. 19thcentury music could only reach its audience as printed material, so even to replay it required years of training. Classical musicians — they’re obsessed with correct technique! The whole culture is about getting the notes right. Then a few very expensive geniuses still manage to find their soul after all that training. This is another distortion, imposed by the need to faithfully reproduce work from the black-and-white of the score.
LI BAI refills his glass: And to what do we owe this, this cornucopia of progress?
DU FU: The underlying ideas are pure Adam Smith. Incentives and market size matter. Technology expands the audience you can reach. So now it’s worthwhile going into the field. Artists are always complaining they can’t make money. That’s a sign of progress, you chumps! What do you expect, to do a job you love, have a chance at stardom, and also get paid like an actuary? And the intense competition creates incentives for quality and innovation. To stand out as a pop star, in the seventies, you needed three chords. Now you have to be a triple threat — singing, dancing, acting.
Film is the same. Remember that Peep Show episode in the theatre? “I’ve got Heat on DVD at home. For less money than this, we could be watching Robert de Niro and Al Pacino.” Who’s going to get the best actors, your local theatre which can fit a hundred people, or a film with a potential audience of a hundred million?
LI BAI: I love going to the theatre.
DU FU: Of course you do. Because you’re a snob. You’d rather watch something mediocre that costs fifty quid so you can boast about it. Anyone can watch telly — but the theatre, the theatre is expensive. Never mind that the best playwrights put their best material out on film!
Another thing: mass media educated its audience. It’s not just that the jokes and acting got better. They taught people what to appreciate. Remember when Reservoir Dogs came out? Artistically it’s a nothingburger, but it was a mass market film with fully-fleshed out villains and a complex plot structure. So then we got the “cult movie”, a kind of halfway-arthouse movie that young men would like, and the tricks they introduced expanded what the audience would accept.
But on the other hand, with the personalization of modern media, and the precipitous drop in broadcasting cost, there’s room for truly artistic niches to survive. Think of Ripley: it’s a whole series in arthouse black and white! Netflix can fund it because they are just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. If you like that sort of thing, it’s there for you. We really shouldn’t call it mass media any more, we need a new word to cover mechanically reproduced art, because there is nothing “mass” about Ripley or Patriot.
He pauses to draw breath. LI BAI gives the screen another smack. The Delphic oracle tells Croesus that if he crosses the river Halys, he will destroy a great empire.
LI BAI: Interesting arguments! But I’m sorry to tell you —
DU FU: You disagree, of course…