Art

In a free market society, consumers can dictate the value of art – you don’t like something, it has no value.  With a cooperate sponsor, it becomes a harder question.  A corporation pulling money because it does like the portrayal of the assassination of Julius Caesar is one thing, especially when Caser is similar to a current sitting president.  Such a pulling of funding takes a different turn when it occurs after tweeting from the president’s son.

                It should be noted that Delta pulled funding from the New Public Theater, Bank of America just pulled funding from that one play and intends to keep funding the theatre.  Also considering Trump’s comments about Obama – the birther idea, the secret divorce he had proof of – as well as Trump’s mocking of everyone, I find it hard to take the outrage seriously.  Additionally, when Bush JR was president wasn’t there a movie about his assassination? And um, are these companies profiting under Trump because that is a bit weird

                Granted the sponsorship issue makes it more complex – it’s a version of patronage I suppose.  But if the sponsorship is to enable more people to attend theater, something that is priced at of many people’s budgets, does that change the nature?  I’m not sure.  And it is any different than getting companies to stop advertising on Bill O’Reilly or Sean Hannity?  Again, I’m not sure.  I never really saw O’Reilly or Hannity as news but I suppose you could argue fiction vs reporting.

                I admit the question promotes a complex answer.

                What I really want to address is this idea that art is never political.

                Because that is bullshit.  Quite frankly.

                Look, not all art is political.  Some of it is simply created to make a buck.  This true of Shakespeare; he may have felt a higher artistic calling, but he still wanted to make money.

                But some art is political or makes a statement.  Guernica springs to mind.  The Nazis used art as propaganda.  Let’s be honest.  And what about certain memorials- those are arts, but aren’t they also in some sense political?  Have you seen some of the Nazi illustrations for Little Red Riding Hood?

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And let’s talk JC itself.  It’s true that Shakespeare most likely wrote it to make money in some way – simply by getting in an audience.  But to say that JC is unpolitical, nope.  Look at the interplay between the common people and those in power. 

                And it isn’t just JC.  The Grimms’ were interested in folklore, true, but they also published the stories to give Germans, German cultural heritage.  Not surprising.  So, politics exist where you don’t think it does.  Art doesn’t have to be political, but it can be.