Yes, Virginia, Someone Does Eventually Have to Pay the Rent for that Room!
Rachel is an expatriate who lives in London, works for a fancy film company, and often resorts to "wanking off" her boyfriend in the back row during terrible productions.
Virginia Woolf stipulated that the single prerequisite for creating art is ”a room of one’s own.” However, who pays for this room? Who subsidizes the artist’s living so as to allow him or her the opportunity to create, explore and inject society with things beautiful and thought-provoking? Inadvertantly, a recent New York Times article sparked a heated, often vitriolic debate on the subsidizing of artists and wanna-be’s in the city. The article discusses the effect the economic crisis is having on hipster subdivisions of New York, such as Williamsburg, namely the crush on real estate and local businesses as the financial lifeline provided by the hipster generation’s parents back home in Upper Middle Class, USA has abruptly dried up. Without those monthly bank transfers from Mom and Dad, rents are becoming harder and harder to pay, and the buying up of prime real estate is all but stalled. Local vegan cafes and designer consignment shops are having trouble making sales quotas without the normal onslaught of the trust fund crowd (who’s going to by up all of those intentionally distressed plaid shirts?) Upon reading the article, I began to peruse the comments page, and was shocked to find entry after entry defaming these ‘trustafarians’ and their parents. And what’s more, it wasn’t just open judgement, there was a specific cadre of people most offended – the young artistic community. I have followed this online skirmish for about a week, and have seen that there is a typically unheard contingent that is putting words to their frustrations: those that have talent, training, and ambition but who, due to financial constraints and lack of outside funding, must sideline their artistic and creative pursuits in favor of survival. Yes, they tend to find ways to commit to the second full time job of following their dreams, but it is by no means with the same dedication and energy that they should and want to commit. And, any early career and training opportunities that do exist are frequently unpaid, basically leaving this amazing pathway open only to those who can afford to offer up their days for free. One commenter offered up this example:
“As a ‘fact-checker’ at San Francisco Magazine I worked 9-5 shifts without seeing a single dollar. With the option of working part-time and interning 3 days a week, I split my time between restaurant work and the magazine business. My younger more priveleged counterpart spent the full 5 days a week honing her networking skills while mom and dad foot the bill for her Pacific Heights apartment. Can you guess which one of us is now Managing Editor?” – Amanda Huelse
The Real Deal.
Some of those coming down on the side of those lucky few who arrive in New York fully funded claimed that art, through the ages, has rested on patronage, and they are completely right in saying so. Michaelangelo had the pope, Fitzgerald had Zelda’s family money, Sofia Coppola has the residuals from The Godfather fueling her engines – no one is denying this. In fact, the crux of my argument is not in lambasting the idea of subsidizing art and the makers of art, it’s that America’s artistic community, and indeed its government, has turned its back on rearing a new generation of voices and minds. There are no resources in place ready to pluck those that could bring us the next Grapes of Wrath, or The Piano Lesson, or Rhapsody in Blue from the hostess stands of Manhattan, or the trenches of clerical temp work, and bring them into the fold, and simply give them a chance to inform or reflect our worlds in ways that society can appreciate. This has been the fundamental life cycle for the arts for centuries, and to the confusion and shock of most Americans, is still very much in practice today in Europe, Asia, and many other parts of the world. Somehow we have lost the plot and, if we are not careful, we will be left behind. Soon, the only voices that will be heard are those that have been lucky enough to not have to struggle to get showcased, and really, does that make for good drama? Or a good novel? Undoubtedly, I like my artists tortured, and not just existentially.
Filed under: Acting School, Actors, Art, Broadway, Economics, Education, Film, Fucking Awful, Hipsters, Playwrights, Sex, Television, Theater, Why | Leave a Comment
Tags: Acting, Broadway, Cut Myself, hispters, life's not fair, London, people with money, Rachel, Relevance, Sex, So Help Me God, Society, Subversive, Theater, tortured artist, trust fund, trustafarians, williamsburg
No Responses Yet to “Yes, Virginia, Someone Does Eventually Have to Pay the Rent for that Room!”