That's a perfectly true statement.
No one can relate to artists. Artists do often operate on the margins. Even people like me -- writers for television, who are arguably toiling in the most relatable, populist form of the arts, tend to be irascible, ornery, opinionated. It's our job to reflect the world or truth through invented characters. Other artists work in weird media, perform or paint or draw or display works that critique or criticize or provoke.
But that's not what Harper waded into the other day when he talked about "ordinary Canadians" not caring about the arts. About it not resonating when they come home and see people prancing around at galas.
Well, I don't go to galas. But this isn't about me. And it's not about you either. And it certainly isn't about Gordon Pinsent and Wendy Crewson. Set that aside.
Harper threw down the gauntlet. It's about "ordinary Canadians."
The problem with the sneering Harper strategy is that it's based on ideas that a majority of Canadians do not support. So the only way he can shore up his support is to put people at war with each other. He's at war with his civil service. He's at war with scientists, and Doctors, and Elections Canada, and any number of other identifiable groups.
It's just our turn. Doesn't make us special.
But this time he poked a group that gets pissed off at consistently being told that they're elitist and don't matter to the country. So cultural workers, going forward, remember in all things the Harper characterization and sneer. It's time to speak of the real incomes, the real lives, the real jobs that Harper is sneering at here: a world that includes carpenters, drivers, costume makers, seamstresses, production assistants, recording engineers, front of house managers, camera operators, electricians, designers, graphic artists, animators, coders, administrators, clerks, lighting designers, caterers, chefs, photographers, violinists, and all the people who plan and execute all those small town cultural festivals, fairs, and concerts that Canadians are so rightly proud of.
Wendy, Colm, I love ya, God knows I do, but when you give your press conferences and go on Canada AM you're at least partially playing into his rhetoric. Why not step back -- just this once -- or better yet, use your voice to tell the story of the "Ordinary Canadians" Harper tars with his brush.
J. Kelly actually came up with some figures from Statscan in a comment below. Why not say something more like this:
"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."
And remind people, that if cultural workers are "Ordinary Canadians" too, then why is Harper so hell bent at attacking such a wide swath of the economic engine of this country? Aside from the "cultural" arguments [which members of the government have said, outright and privately to representatives of the creative unions DO NOT MATTER TO THEM IN THE LEAST] when you argue the economic reality you point out how foolish his wedge-making rhetoric is, and how much his contempt is out of touch, and exactly the mean-spirited nature that's dogged him his whole career. This is NOT an admirable man. I don't care how many sweaters they put him in.
Connect yourself to the other 30 million people in this country. We are ordinary, Mr. Harper. You are not. But Shame on You for making ordinary-ness, and not excellence, the yardstick by which things are supposedly judged.
It seems like you're uncomfortable with anyone who seems to express a vision for the future. Could it be because you have none, other than the ruinous free markets to the rescue cant that has brought our neighbour to the south to the brink of economic collapse?
I'm an ordinary Canadian -- with some pretty ordinary contempt for you, sir. Thanks for spending 240 million of our dollars on an election we didn't need. Asshole.
9 comments:
Yup. When was the last time someone's parents said
"don't work for the government, dear - be an artist."
A great many people in Canada - and elsewhere - grew up and grew old wishing their parents had said such things to them.
Time for a few thousand message t-shirts, I think.
The message?
"Artists ARE 'ordinary Canadians!"
fortunately I'm just a TV writer so i think the ordinary folk and I get along just fine.
Wow great post.
*applauds*
I could have smacked Gordon yesterday. Way to play right into Harper's game and shoot us all in the foot.
All the way with The Economic Argument.
I think it's kind of impossible to engage in any kind of conversation with them about this... The more evangelical right wing tend to want to TELL you and not really discuss anything. That's what makes them so frustrating, but also so incredibly strong.
So, even trying to debate the economic nature of the arts is going to probably go something like this:
CON: Artists are nothing but bums, leeching off the Canadian government and then whining about it when their money supply gets cut off.
ARTIST: That's not true! the money we take is used to create jobs and brings in billions of dollars for Canada.
CON: "That's not true!" Mew, mew mew. Whatever, whiner.
That's why I'm always embarrassed whenever ACTRA rolls out the same folk and sticks them in front of a podium. No one's really listening to them, they just see what they want to see and hear what they want to hear - it's feeding the fire.
The "prancing about at galas" smoke-blowing certainly doesn't help, but I don't know that it's more than a symptom. The underlying assumption that makes that kind of rhetoric resonate is that what artists do isn't "real work."
It might be easiest to take the potshots at the more glamorous targets, but people who think that way really don't take the workaday stuff any more seriously. And an awful lot of people think that way, mostly because they just don't think it through. I think they just can't wrap their minds around something they consume at their leisure not being produced at ours.
(And the idea that said "prancing" is work too is really beyond the frame of reference. Making nice with lawyers on the phone pays my mortgage. Making nice with opera donors in an evening gown gets me dinner, and I probably have to sing for it into the bargain. Minute for minute, pretty much the same amount of actual work.)
MARGARET ATWOOD's take:
"To be creative is, in fact, Canadian
Mr. Harper is wrong: There's more to the arts than a bunch of rich people at galas whining about their grants"
Well said, Denis.
End of the day, what matters to every Canadian in every industry is the tail of your post: this man would have Canada follow in the footsteps of the Friedmanites to the south and destroying culture is the first step in destroying the lives of every ordinary Canadian.
Cast your vote wisely, Canada, or you may find yourself without the ability to prance into your auto plants or a doctor's office while foreign investors prance away with our natural resources.
Post a Comment