Well, it's here. And as I started to say yesterday, I think every time we try to make the intelligent, reasoned arguments about the value of the arts, we make it it worse.
Jill Golick has some further thoughts today, including a list of the battleground ridings where the majority/minority and who's in control will play out.
I think we need to give some thought to who our audience is — the undecided and the voters in the 45 battleground ridings in BC, Ontario and Quebec. Then we need to craft a message that will help them decide to vote our way.
That message isn’t about our needs or what we think Harper will do to us. Maybe it’s about the needs of other Canadians and how a Harper government will effect them. Or maybe we should be painting a vision of Canada as it could be; a Canada that those voters want to share.
Reading her post, though, one little thing does nag at me. We are supposed to be storytellers. And we're the ones who are getting framed here. And our response is to talk about our problems?
That's not just solipsistic, it actually IS a little elitist.
The message artists -- not the Paul Grosses who are speaking for you right now, but YOU -- should take forward in this election is not OUR issues. It's small stories observed of ordinary Canadians, as it were. If Stephen Harper wants to get into a discussion about Ordinary Canadians, well, let's use our nouns and verbs and adjectives and powers of observation and letter writing, and storytelling, and flood radio shows and internet boards, and give them to him. Because the truth of those arguments don't look good for his party, or for this out-of-touch, mean spirited leader. Don't let them frame the argument.
Harper's policies are shit for the very Canadians he's courting. Arm yourself with the facts. Get out and tell THOSE stories.
Which is, you know, kind of our job, right?
EDIT: Now that I think about it, there's a perfectly valid counter to this latest harper "niche" thing accusing artists of elitism. It means arming yourself with a few facts about the average yearly salary of an "arts worker" in this country. I don't know where you get that stuff..maybe StatsCan. Anyway, the thing that occurs to me is that right now in the middle of this campaign, Harper better HOPE he can keep the discussion on things like demonizing artists.
You know why?
Because essentially his vision of the Conservative party is cut from the same ideological cloth as the neo-cons in the states -- the ones who've pushed "market force, shrink the government, deregulate, deregulate" for a generation.
This week we see the wreckage and hypocrisy that has wrought in the USA. Even now as they discuss bailout, it's a bailout that protects the people who burned down the system in the first place, and does nothing to help the actual working people.
If that was my legacy, I'd want to talk about artists too.
15 comments:
Statscan seems to lump artists of all kinds in with spectator sports in many surveys, which is unfortunate.
Still, there's a good bit here. This may be a good start.
Yeah, what is an 'arts worker' anyway? That term makes me feel like I should be giving handjobs in a back alley.
Hmmm...maybe arts worker is exactly the right term.
Will, you are too funny.
Sadly, this is an issue only in Quebec where the conseratives will throw money at them to secure their vote and a majority. The rest of us don't matter. We were written off as soon as the election was called as we are deemed to be among those who live in the urban centers who are already ABC. So, we are easy pickings. As opposed to the car plant workers, who live in areas where the Conservatives wish to gain seats.
I wondered if a concerted effort by all levels of the arts to go dark for one whole day would grab the public's attention: no TV, no radio, no newspapers, no magazines, no Canadian internet, no bookstores, no galleries, no museums, etc. Would the public notice? Would it begin to sink in?
But that's just in my fantasy movie, "The Day Canada Stood Still."
Some numbers from Stats Can are here:
"Earnings... are generally lower for cultural workers than the rest of the labour force. While average employment income in Canada was $31,757 in 2000, actors earned $21,597, painters and sculptors earned $18,666 and musicians and singers earned $16,090. In comparison, senior government managers earn $65,020. As Statistics Canada indicates: “for every successful creative and performing artist there are many with earnings below those of the average Canadian worker."
Well-said, Denis!
I'm rather tired of politicians who only emphasize difference, not community.
As to telling collective stories... I think that's what the arts does, period.
Thanks to j kelly for those great statistics figures too!
Bang on, really.
The problem with the us/them dynamic for the other side is that it's really hard to turn away from. And it looks like dirty pool if you just slap the other message right back on them.
It's a hard rhetoric game to play -- especially with so many folks seeing actors/writers as those beautiful folks with the multi-million dollar mansions at the Oscars and the Emmys (which, y'know, not all of them are but that's not how it's perceived).
Getting the other message out is going to be hard -- especially with the other platforms not being as strong as they could be. This is turning into a landslide of poor spin-doctoring on the other side of the game.
I'm sorry guys - but "arts worker" smacks of the elitism they accuse you of...unless its Will's sort of worker which I can understand.
How about craftpersons? Because seriously, there is more at stake than writers and artists, musicians and actors. We're talking carpenters, painters, electricians, etc...all the "get in there and get your hands dirty" kind of jobs.
You're also talking transportation, which if your drivers are like ours (they are) then they have a stake in this as well.
Communicate to the Canadian masses who people in the entertainment industry really are... their neighbors right next door.
Why should artists get handouts to do their work? I do my work without Government welfare.
Is it worthwhile to remind people of the numbers of industries that receive "government handouts"? Auto, oil, lumber, fisheries, agriculture, aeronautics, steel, mining, health care - for a start.
I agree that the left and centrists have not expressed themselves clearly or succinctly on this issue.
It is all about perception, and Harper will win this election on the basis of his spin on reality.
Judy H seems to be a Torybot.
But Judy, I tell you what. If you can come back to me and show me that the following industries receive no "handouts":
Auto
Mining
Oil
Farming
Manufacturing
Technology
Academic
Medical
Retail
Then we can talk. The income generated by the arts in this country far exceeds the value of the 'handouts' as you call them. The conservatives know this. They have the stats.
Money spent on the arts is in fact provides a better return on investment than anything provided to the farming or auto sectors, and probably others.
Handouts also go to Universities, to educate the populace and increase value. Do you unplug them?
It's one thing to spout ideology. Quite another to be so completely ignorant when the information is so easily obtained at your fingertips. Use the Google, girl. Edumacate yourself.
So why don't we give everyone a handout? It would be fair wouldn't it? And where does the money come from? Oh yeah, the tax payer.
Which is what we're all trying to be here.
Nope, Judy. You don't get to throw out the troll questions til you show proof that you understand how the economy works. Go find that evidence that there are all these other industries in Canada that don't receive 'handouts.'
Better yet, Judy, post your tax return here. You can block out your name. Prove to me you don't get handouts.
Cause I'm betting you do. Troll.
Judy is making it sound like a giant cheque arrives once a week with our personal names written on it, and like everyone in the arts de facto gets money thrown at them by virtue of being in the arts.
I *personally* do not get a "handout", my INDUSTRY gets financial support to employ a select number of people on a select number of projects. Financial support, that is, same as what the Oil industry gets, and fishing, etc. You've seen the list. And yet Harper is the real artist here, painting this industry to seem like coddled whiners.
This is not a whine, it's truth: every artist has worked in what Harper might call an "ordinary" job. I worked retail (subsidized!), did stints for both levels of government (subsidized!), taught at a university (subsidized!), wrote publications for a hospital (subsidized!), and also for a lumber company (subsidized!).
Along the way, I ate a burger, drove a car, heated my house, and talked on a cellphone while my mother was in the hospital.
Oh, and I had a cigarette or two, possibly made by tobacco grown in Ontario. Yup, that's subsidized as well.
And yet, I've never worked as hard as I do in this industry. If what we're getting is a "handout", I feel like an idiot. I could work an 8 hour day, have my weekends, and still get handouts if I'd stuck to any one of my "ordinary" jobs. And I'd have plenty of time to attend galas.
Don't fall into the trap. What we do is an ordinary job. As ordinary as my friends who work for Enbridge or Imperial Oil or Wilfred Laurier University or a not-for-profit organization. Everyone I know goes to work, has responsibilities related to their work that they must perform and is paid for their work.
What Harper is doing has already been characterized by DMc as driving a wedge between "artists" who are labeled "elites" against everyone else, who are labeled "ordinary". It's very clever. Very effective. Very Republican. I think I could be listening to a speech by John McCain.
Our problem is that we have no other leader calling out Harper's distortion of the truth.
None of our satirists are yet on the air either. In the US, McCain and Palin have been losing ground against Jon Stewart, Colbert, and the late night talk show hosts. The recent David Letterman piece is priceless.
So, we are tarred with a brush of untruths - but the damage is done unless Quebec saves us.
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