{"id":4138,"date":"2010-06-17T07:52:02","date_gmt":"2010-06-17T11:52:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=4138"},"modified":"2010-06-17T07:54:43","modified_gmt":"2010-06-17T11:54:43","slug":"most-culture-funding-inevitably-pays-for-crap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2010\/06\/17\/most-culture-funding-inevitably-pays-for-crap\/","title":{"rendered":"“Most culture funding inevitably pays for crap”"},"content":{"rendered":"

While providing some deeper explanation for the not-really-in-context sound bite provided by Alberta’s culture minister, Lindsay Blackett, Colby Cosh<\/a> points out the truth of the matter:<\/p>\n

\n

The other knowledge that critics ought to be prepared to display is some familiarity with the material Blackett\u2019s department actually funds. I figure you can\u2019t say it\u2019s not crap unless you\u2019ve at least poked it with a stick. Can the indignant Paul Gross, who received $5.5 million from the Alberta taxpayer for Passchendaele<\/em>, claim intimate familiarity with In a World Created by a Drunken God<\/em> or Caution: May Contain Nuts<\/em> or The Last Rites of Ransom Pride?<\/em> If not, then why is he shooting off his mouth? It would surely be much more sensible for Gross and for like-minded critics to admit that most culture funding inevitably pays for crap — that the arts world is, in fact, a colossal pyramid of crap<\/em>, inherently necessary to provide the nurturing and elevating environment from which a few items of permanent value might spring.<\/p>\n

But that is something the culturati can never admit. Kirstine Stewart, the general manager of CBC\u2019s English television operations, reacted in the Globe<\/em> to Blackett\u2019s comments by saying \u201cNobody can ever question the quality of what we do here in Canada, creatively or otherwise.\u201d Surely this is a much more revealing and intriguing comment than Blackett\u2019s. Does she mean that questioning the quality of Canadian television and film is literally impossible? Or just that criticism is inherently objectionable, a malum in se<\/em>? And at the risk of appearing to take sides, I must ask: which attitude ultimately seems more healthy and likely to encourage improvement — Blackett\u2019s, or Stewart\u2019s?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Of course, a sensible government wouldn’t be spending any tax money on subsidies for TV and movie production (New Zealand’s most recent study showed a pretty big net loss for their various cultural tax breaks and subsidy programs).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While providing some deeper explanation for the not-really-in-context sound bite provided by Alberta’s culture minister, Lindsay Blackett, Colby Cosh points out the truth of the matter: The other knowledge that critics ought to be prepared to display is some familiarity with the material Blackett\u2019s department actually funds. I figure you can\u2019t say it\u2019s not crap […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,84,28],"tags":[102,122,101],"class_list":["post-4138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-government","category-media","tag-art","tag-movies","tag-tv"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-14K","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4138"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4138\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4141,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4138\/revisions\/4141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}