Arts or entertainment?
High culture must take lower road to survive
MATT PETERSON is a
senior English and news
editorial major and a
Daily Nebraskan colum
nist.
A federal study entitled
“American Canvas,” recently com
piled by the National Endowment
for the Arts, has shown that many
Americans don’t comprehend the
cultural significance of art to their
lives.
Bureaucracy strikes again.
Faced with crippling budget
cuts, the NEA has decided to
devote its already dwindling
resources to a study that confirms
what the government has already
concluded: The American people,
as a whole, perceive the arts as lit
tle more than a cursory federal
concern.
Although the impetus of the
193-page document would appear
to be essentially redundant, the
study does manage to offer a num
ber of legitimate solutions as well
as a challenge to the mass media,
amongst others, to “step in and
help save the arts in America.”
As a dubious member of the
aforementioned sector, I feel com
pelled to rise to that challenge and,
in so doing, suggest that it is this
very medium which can affect the
solution.
First and foremost, although the
government must reaffirm its
obligation to provide the most
complete public education possi
ble, it has no responsibility in
funding the arts directly for the
simple fact that Americans have
not demanded it. At the same time,
as a liberal arts student, I under
stand the cultural relevance of the
arts in any society, but particularly
in one as progressive and diverse as
our own.
The solution to this dilemma
lies in simple awareness - and by
“simple,” I’m not suggesting
another 200-page study that will
only be read by those who already
recognize the problem and have
agreed upon the solution. Nor
would I propose a newspaper arti
cle on such a study buried in the
Omaha World-Herald, which
proved to be the eventual source of
my own “enlightenment.”
Rather, I would suggest that the
artistic community accept the mer
its, and assume the practices, of its
bastard son - entertainment. The
NEA grants a cursory observance
to this suggestion as well, but
amidst the could’ve, would’ve and
should’ve, that comprise the great
majority of the document, this
message is inevitably lost:
“Artists and administrators will
have to search for ways to meet the
entertainment industry halfway -
to demonstrate the attractiveness of
their creative work and how it can
add depth and richness to the con
tent of commercial entertainment.”
Predictably, any sort of recipro
cal gesture is entirely absent from
this line of rhetoric. If the enter
tainment industry must entertain an
“injection” of the arts, the arts
must be willing to tolerate the
“corruption” of entertainment.
In other words, the arts must
sell out, or, in the immutable words
of the once decidedly commercial,
now decidedly defunct, rap group
3rd Bass, “Pop goes the wease
‘cause the weasel goes pop.”
In a country in which “pop cui
ture” has inevitably defined cul
ture, at least since the advent of
television, the arts have no choice
but to sell out. If the nonprofit
artistic community is to sur
vive, it, like any other insti
tution, must evolve. “Canvas”
admits that many arts organi
zations are elitist, whether class- or
race-based, and no longer cater to
the “communities they claim to i
serve.” £
What’s more, the audience Ilk
for such antiquated arts is aging,
and private support is consequently
dwindling. This is not evolution -
it is stagnation.
Rather than assessing the stag
nation of its own community, how
ever, the NEA proclaims the mass
media - particularly television and
the film industry - to be the source
of America’s collectively diminu
tive attention span.
According to the study, the
average American household
devotes eight hours of every day to
its television; of those eight fun
filled hours, a little more than an
hour is comprised of paid adver
tisements. Comparatively, about 42
seconds of that eight-hour span is
donated to public-service
announcements, which may pro
mote the arts but are far more like
ly to promote fried eggs
keeping your brain off drugs.
Otherwise, the FCC only
requires the networks to devote
three hours per week to educational
programming - apparently “educa
tional” is a relative term, as most
people would be hard pressed to
point out those three hours in any
given week.
The report continues its critique
of mass media by pointing out that
the average budget of a single
Hollywood film “represents 75
percent of the entire grant-making
budget of the NEA.” The study
acknowledges that such financial
success comes as a result of the
television and film industries giv
ing the American people what they
want; but if these
industries are to
meet the challenge
A
presented by “American Canvas,” it
is implied that they must offer the
public what it doesn’t want. While
I agree that our society is sick, I
don’t think castor oil is the cure.
An expanded public education
in the arts is unequivocally the
long-term solution to our cultural
problem, and I believe the only
governmental responsibility in the
matter.
In the meantime, however, a
middle ground between the arts
and entertainment must be
achieved for their mutual benefit.
A selfish solution
Suicide unfair to friends, family
LANE HICKENBOTTOM
is a senior news-editorial
major and a Daily
Nebraskan photographer
and columnist.
“Hey Lane.
4 “Hope all is going better than
here. Question for you: Have you
ever thought about suicide? I think
/ might have. ‘The walk of life is
traveled by the multitude. However,
every so often a hapless soul is left
by the wayside.’Me.”
In November of my freshman
year here at Nebraska, I received
this alarming e-mail message from
my best friend, Matt, who was .
going td school at Carleton College
in Northfield, Minn.
Matt and I had been best friends
for years. We went to school togeth
er. We went to work together. And
after my parents moved from
Pocatello, Idaho, to Cabot, Ark.,
during my senior year, we even
lived together.
We were more than friends, we
were brothers.
I knew that he had been down
and out about some problems he
had his first year in college. He had
been caught smoking pot three
times by his resident assistant, was
caught up in a web of three intimate
relationships, his two best friends at
his new school despised each other,
and for the first time in his life, his
grades were going to hell.
But suicide? I never thought he
would contemplate that.
I was shocked and puzzled. I
tried to give him a call, but he was
not home. I didn’t know what to do.
I didn’t think he would leave this
world without saying goodbye first,
but maybe that was what the e-mail
was. With nothing else to do, I
thought seriously about the mes
sage for a while.
How could I not?
My best friend was somewhere
feeling miserable. So much that he
was even thinking about taking his
own life.
I let my thoughts wander and
got a vision of myself calling my
mother. In a somber voice, I told
her that I withdrew from classes so
I could go back to Idaho for Matt’s
funeral.
The vision of telling my mom
this sent me for a loop. The tears in
my eyes started to roll down my
cheeks. I was crying for the first
time in several years.
After regaining composure, I
went to my friend Nathan to show
him the message. Once again, I
bawled like a baby away from his
mother. He asked if I would like to
“get out of here.” I definitely want
ed to, so we went for a walk around
campus.
We did not talk, just walked. My
mind raced and everything seemed
to be either muddled with confu
sion, or so clear and simple it
seemed uncanny.
We took a break from our walk
at the Sheldon sculpture garden, a
favorite place of mine, where we
talked about things and finally
changed the subject. Although the
situation was in the back of my
mind the whole time, it was refresh
ing to take the focus off of Matt for
a few moments.
Before this situation ever came
about, I was thinking a lot about
death during my own freshman
year, which was plagued with prob
lems.
During that time, I had come to
the conclusion that I was not at all
afraid to die, nor would I have
much remorse if my life ended at
any one time. Although I never con
templated suicide, I thought about
it a lot. S
But the Matt situation gave me
new light.
I started to see things clearly
about my own life. During that
walk, and for the first time ever, I
realized that it was not my life that
would be most affected by my
death.
The life that I live is not mine to
end. “■
It is my family’s life. It is my
teachers’ life. It is my friends’ and
peers life. It is the life of every
body around me and the life of my
God.
Death is a coward’s way out.
Everybody dies at one point in his
life, but he owes it to the people
around him to duke it out for as
long as possible.
Life is not something that a per
son has ownership of in the same
manner that a car has a title, giving
whoever owns the title complete
authority over it. The life of a
human being is owned by society,
and it is robbery to steal the title
away so that one can do whatever
he chooses with it.
Life is special.
I finally contacted Matt that
night on the phone. Luckily he had
not been as serious about ending
his life as I feared he was.
Before I had a chance to tell
him any of my new realizations on
suicide, he went on to explain his
thoughts that suicide hurts so many
people that it is not fair to think that
it is justifiable. My thoughts, exact
ly
By the conversation’s end, he
was feeling better, laughing and
enjoying himself. !
Iwas, too.
«
Death is a coward s way out. Everybody
dies ... but he owes it to the people around
him to duke it out for as long as possible.”
John Sypal/DN
