With unemployment on the rise and the economic crises weighing down heavily on American shoulders, the federal government agreed to pass the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act last February to remedy the debilitated condition of the United States. A small provision within the ARRA to fund the non-profit art sector is a way to help ensure employment for millions of Americans and stimulate the billions of dollars the US arts and entertainment industries generate annually. What’s at stake here is the frightening notion of losing a non-profit arts sector that contributes to the cultural education and creative inspiration of the American people. Although the provision is a necessary step in assisting our ailing national economy and thereby improving the political and social framework that comprise our national culture, it still may not produce any sizeable improvement for the US entertainment industry.If the economy is poor, then how can we expect non-profit organizations to continue to secure the same grants, endowments, or donations that they have received in the past? In a thriving national economy, the booming success of corporations and their industries helps to provide for the existence of non-profit enterprises. However, the current economic situation in the US is characterized by no such success as individual companies struggle just to put out fires on their own doorstep. Therefore, it would be ridiculous to assume that anyone else besides the federal government could afford to have the interest in keeping the doors of these non-profit enterprises open. In the arts, the shutting down of museums, city concert halls, and other non-profit programs can only take away from the exposure and consumption of truly American creative culture. Unfortunately, a similar trend could be following suit in the private sector—collectively setting up a regrettable wipeout of our own cultural impact. In the profit driven realm of movies for example, our films are already surrendering their American cultural identity in order to “translate” better internationally and pull in a greater return. Whereas American film used to reflect its own culture in a sophisticated and thought-provoking manner, most big studios are more interested in depicting nationally-ambiguous and shallow-structured cookie-cutters that can sell easily across cultures (Hirschberg 2004, 2). Losing the non-profit arts sector might leave an already fragile American culture exclusively and dangerously in the hands of corporate moguls more concerned with turning a profit. But it is unlikely that this small portion of the stimulus package will be able to produce immediately significant results, simply because the enormous companies create a much bigger cultural and economic wake.
We cannot forget that private entertainment companies, from movie studios to magazine publishers, already provide millions of jobs and use their industry’s power and appeal to generate massive sums of money in our national economy. We must also understand that these media markets are ultimately run by an elite group of mega-corporations that make up the oligarchies of their respective industries—which in many cases are massive conglomerations with a stake in several of the different media industries. The problem is that smaller start-up companies that could potentially offer job prospects and economic worth cannot compete with the “big dogs” like Viacom, AOL Time Warner, or News Corporation (to use cable TV channel owners as an example). TV mogul Ted Turner was quoted in an article by professor and media expert Robert W. McChesney’s as saying, “The days of starting up a cable-television network or trying to do it from outside the media business are over. It’s almost impossible” (McChesney 2004, 179). But this is applicable to much more than just television; it is the little guy trying to make it in music, motion pictures, book publishing, etc. So without the prospect of non-profit enterprises providing jobs for the market in the entertainment industry, no “newcomer” companies can be counted on as a large-scale reliable source of employment. Instead, jobs would have to be secured with the conglomerates, or not in the arts at all. However, this is not meant to condemn the success of these companies because their success is the true barometer of the entertainment industry. Therefore, it would be foolish to assume in our recession economy that the small clause of the ARRA aimed at rescuing the non-profit art sector is a make-or-break issue for the industry. It is important because some attempt at a financial rescue is worth a lot more than no effort, but the beast that is the entertainment industry isn’t teetering on the brink of collapse without it.
This is especially true since $50 million is very nominal for a national project with a sweeping goal and pales heavily in comparison to the overall $787 billion allocated by the stimulus package. Conceivably, the economic ramifications of investing this small amount on the non-profit arts could prove to be an equally unimpressive endeavor. It’s not that the validity of the $50 million provision to the bill should be in question; rather, it is a meaningful sign showing that the federal government cares about the economic value that the non-profit entertainment industry has provided. The money is certainly not wasted as any financial boost can help fuel the independent success of these organizations that, in turn, produce jobs and contribute financially to the national economy. But the reasoning behind such an unsubstantial number is a matter of concern, and may serve as a future explanation as to why this part of the bill could have an insignificant impact.
If the ARRA plans to preserve US cultural infrastructures in the entertainment industry, then it has done right by first providing financial aid as a means of economic revival. Although this is no intentional appeal to a sort of neo-Marxist ideology, most culture (including the social power of the creative arts) is heavily influenced by the state of the economy. But how the arts and the economy work together to create a cultural impact is a matter of debate. McChesney argues that creativity spurs from the social and political impulses of artists that are autonomous from the commercially driven interests of media owners (McChesney 2004, 193). On the other hand, Cowen sees the entertainment market as a cooperative and positive force for artist creativity, citing several creative geniuses who admittedly found their true art after first finding great wealth (Cowen 1998, 18). Both are probably true for different people because the creative process is also a very personal one. However, there is something insincere and counterfeit about Cowen’s explanation for creativity in the arts, and I do not believe that a similar pattern can be as true in an economic recession. Artists will have a difficult time chasing scarce money while they develop their true passion for their respective art. Though the economy may have supported this practice in the past, it is not a valid method for success anymore. Cowen sees the success of the market and the artists’ individualism going hand-in-hand, insisting that any involvement with government aid would take away from market influences and add an undesirable bureaucratic element (Cowen 1998, 40). At the other end of the spectrum, McChesney points to the commercial fat cats in the entertainment industry as their own hindrance to a competitive free market for the arts. What’s different now with the economic recession is that the current American market doesn’t have nearly the same funding from consumers and private donors that graced the arts when he wrote his piece about a decade ago. Times have changed and industry needs federal support where it previously did not. The passage of the $50 million for non-profits could help re-inspire the wonder of artistic creativity in people who truly care about honing a talent rather than selfishly looking to turn a profit—a realization that might be the solution to help turn the struggling economy.
The provisional stimulus can help improve the arts sector and its economy, but the effort to produce true art is a necessary stipulation. The role of the artist is to come up with something that is innovative, different, and exciting by using other artistic influences to create something uniquely their own. Yet the tendency of the creative markets is to sell the public on products within a “formula” that has already proven successful. But how can we rationally rely on such a business model that is already weakened in the current economic crisis? As the media market gets bigger, McChesney blames the failure of current arts on the pressure to give people what they want (and have always gotten) as a means to maximize profits and trample genuine creativity in its path (McChesney 2004, 199). As a result, destructive barriers are set to keep out new artistic talent while the overall quality of the entertainment industry’s product becomes diluted with rehashed mediocrity. According to Hollywood producer Jonathan Taplin (Mean Streets, Under Fire), the overabundance of remakes and sequels has started to dissolve their reputation as sure-fire moneymakers, as recent box office evidence shows audiences have grown weary of the worn-out trend (Taplin 8). If the ultimate goal of the stimulus package provision is to ensure growth and continued forward expansion within the entertainment industry, then we cannot let the conservativism of staying with what always worked before serve as some economic rescue plan. The American consumer is too smart—or perhaps now too money-conscious—to buy shameless replications of past entertainment successes. Nor will they help bail out an industry that cannot strive to create something original and worthwhile. Subsidizing the arts with public funding is counter-intuitive and hopeless if the industries cannot do their part to help themselves as well.
In principle however, the objective of the provision for the creative arts is to help stimulate growth to prevent a situation where the entertainment industry can no longer support itself. As evident in the current economic crisis, the economy drives the market—and not the other way around. It is perfectly understandable that people may not have the financial means to indulge in media the same way that they did in years past, and as a result, the creative arts industry is hurting. A current solution to maintain low-budget production and maximize profit is illustrated by the overflow of US reality-TV, in which the void of creative labors of paid actors and writers is filled by consumers who willingly work on the same product they consume. Certainly this has its own issues of whether quality in content is being compromised, even though these types of shows continue to have significant popularity. But suppose that the economic downturn were to hit the US entertainment industry hard enough that these companies were unable to afford the number of creative minds and resources necessary to create a good product. Then it would be rational to assume that the American public would have no reason to purchase or invest in US entertainment goods because they are better served looking to offshore markets. If America no longer had the capacity to produce anything worthwhile or valuable, then how could any audience (not just US citizens) be expected to buy American? In this case, the cultural impact would likely be a serious decline in American “soft power”. What is scary is that we are already experiencing this very problem. Although some blame can be chalked up to the issue of “anti-Americanism” and the vast advancements of foreign entertainment industries, “the time when America was the world’s dominant pop culture power may be ending…in the music business, regional artists are already replacing the global superstar and it is possible that this balkanization of world culture will affect all audiovisual mediums” (Taplin 20). So in this sense, the stimulation package could help America re-establish a global influence to some degree, and consequently help improve the economy with profits made overseas.
With its massive conglomerations and exceedingly powerful private sector, the American entertainment industry is a juggernaut with or without the provision in the ARRA. Nevertheless, the non-profit art enterprises should mean a great deal to American citizens who are concerned with the entertainment industry because the two sectors—though structured very differently—share fundamental similarities. They both have a tremendous impact on United States culture and how it is perceived in domestic and international markets; and peoples’ response to the culture we present directly affects the economic success of the industry in terms of consumption. There was a time when the arts and entertainment were likely America’s greatest export and the rest of the world valued this contribution. If the US hopes to recover from the current economic recession, then any initiative to improve such a national novelty is money well spent.
Works Cited
Cowen, Tyler. 1998. “The Arts in a Market Economy”. In In Praise of Commercial Culture, 15-43. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Hirschberg, Lynn. 2004. “What is an American Movie Now?”. New York Times, November 14. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/14/movies/14HOLLYWOOD.html
McChesney, Robert W. 2004. “The Market Uber Alles”. In The Problem of the Media, 175-209. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Taplin, Jonathan. Crouching Tigers: Emerging Challenges to U.S. Entertainment Supremacy, 1-21. http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~jtaplin/CrouchingTigers.pdf.
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