The Most Relevant Art Forms

Cafe Society
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I heard a theory once that the movies are the most relevant art form in today’s society, because if people suddenly stopped making movies, everyone would notice their absence. In contrast, poetry is more or less irrelevant, because if there were suddenly no more new poems, relatively few people would notice or care.

The validity of this theory is debatable, but if we suppose the theory is true, how would you rank the arts in terms of relevance to society?

My list:

  1. Movies – We’re used to a steady diet of new movies all the time, year round. Movie theaters can’t (or, rather, don’t) show reruns, and people would definitely notice if new movies stopped coming out.

  2. Television – TV can rest on its laurels a bit by recycling its old stuff – as it does every summer. It could do that for a while without people noticing that new episodes weren’t coming out.

  3. Popular Music

  4. Books – Most people aren’t always looking for the newest books that are just coming out; instead, they’ll often read mixtures of books that came out in the past few years, as well as stuff from decades (or centuries) ago. Books stay on bestseller lists far longer than movies stay at the top of the box office.

  5. Video Games – New releases are widely anticipated, but the medium doesn’t quite yet have the mass penetration to make it rank higher.

From here it goes waaaay downhill…

  1. Poetry – Those New Yorker readers would notice sooner or later.

  2. Art – Few enough people see what’s already out there; fewer would notice if there was no more new stuff to be seen.

  3. Sculptures – Ditto art, but with even fewer people.

  4. Architecture – Last, because not many people even think of modern architecture as art, unless it’s one of those self-consciously artistic structures that make headlines now and again – and those are few and far between.

Agree/disagree?

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D’oh! I knew I’d forget something. Stick modern classical music (or however you want to call it) in there between, oh, art and sculptures.

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  1. Music
  2. Books
  3. All the rest except architecture
  4. Architecture
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You seem to be running two different criteria simultaneously, and applying them ad hoc. One is “How long until people notice it’s missing” the other is “How long can the industry survive with it missing”. Those two are totally different.

In reality the first thing people are going to notice will be TV shows. Aside from that brief summer re-runs period you mention, 99% of the population will notice that there isn’t a new episode of their favourite show within 2 days at most. The top rating TV shows pull in something like 20% of TV sets, meaning that almost every household will have at least one person who will notice that their favourite show is running repeats.

Given that most households have at least 2 residents and most people watch multiple shows with great regularity I think we could safely say that better than 95% of people would be well aware of a cessation of new TV shows within 48 hours. Indeed if no explanation were given it would be the water cooler topic of conversation within 48 hours.

In contrast I only go to see a movie at best once a month. I don’t know what the national average is, but it’s probably about the same. And most movies will screen for 2 weeks anyway. So realistically I wouldn’t notice a lack of new movies for at least 6 weeks, and I suspect most people would be the same. Only after the looked at the screening times and saw exactly the same list as last time would they think it was odd.

This is very different from how long the industry can survive without new material. As you say, TV can obviously survive without new material for a couple of months, but everybody is well aware of that fact. The movie industry survives less well without new material because I’m not going to pay money for repeats of old movies, or for movies that I can buy on DVD for less than the price of a ticket.

However if you are talking about how long the industry can survive books are towards the absolute bottom of the list. There are so many books in existence now that the industry wouldn’t even notice the absence of new books for 5 years at most.
Consider that the average bookstore probably only has 1000 titles on their shelves. That’s probably 1 day’s output from US printeries. If all books stopped being written right now bookshops could probably survive on last weeks material for the next 50 years without any difficulty or major change in business plan.

That’s not to say people wouldn’t notice a decline in the quality of books published, or notice that Terry Pratchett of Steven King hasn’t released a new book for a while. But comparing the situation to TV the industry could survive on re-releasing old material (re-runs) without affecting sales for far, far longer.

The same applies to everything else. If your standard is how long the industry could last on reruns the list becomes very, very different to a list based on how long until people notice.

Based on how long until 95% of people notice no new material is being produced. (This assumes first-hand experience and informal communication only. A NY Times front page story that no new poetry is being produced could of course change the answer radically)

  1. Television – 48 hours maximum until everyone either notices their favourite show has stopped being broadcast, or has talked to someone complaining of the same.

  2. Sporting events — 2 weeks. It’s impossible to say for sure but I am almost certain that if all sporting events nationwide were cancelled everyone would hear about it within 2 weeks. This is more a reflection of the sheer passion of sports fans than their numbers (even though numbers are high).

  3. Movies – 6-12 weeks before most people are aware that nothing new has been produced.

  4. Popular Music ---- 13 weeks. This one’s tough to call. Most people over 25 don’t keep track of the charts in any real way. But popular music is such a pervasive cultural element, and most people regularly listen to a radio station that plays at leats some popular music. I think most people would realise they hadn’t hear a new tune within 3 months or notice the dearth of new music stars.

  5. ** /Books/Video Games** – 18 months minimum. Dopers are not average people. If the statistics are to be believed most people only manage about one book a year. Even assuming they are mostly waiting for new titles it’s going to take 18 months before 95%of people have noticed there are no new books. Even fewer people buy video games.

  6. Plays 5 years. But that’s an even wilder guess the rest of my list. Even though I rarely see really new plays myself I still hear some of the hype generated by the really big productions. So I’d probably notice if nothing new was on Broadway for 5 years. But it could be much longer. I think most people would notice within 10 years at leats.

  7. Poetry — Indeterminable. I haven’t knowingly read any poem, written in the last 20 years. I have no doubt that I have done, but I can’t remember ever doing it. As such I couldn’t actually tell you that there has been any poetry published in the last 20 years. And while I’m in no way a great fan of poetry I’m not an illiterate Philistine either. If I am typical then most people can’t be certain that poetry didn’t stop being written in 1985. As such if it stoped today we wouldn’t have a chance of noticing until 2025 at the very earliest.

Everything else is on par with poetry. Indeterminable, but certainly in excess of 20 years.

Snap poll.

What’s the creation date of the last movie you saw that you can date with any accuracy? I can date the last movie I saw to this year.

What’s the creation date of the last poem you read that you can date with any accuracy? I remember reading a poem referencing the Chernobyl nuclear accident. So I can date it to within 20 years.

What’s the creation date of the last painting or architectural style that you can date with any accuracy? I can’t say that I can date anything more recent than Andy Warhol. I’m have seen more recent paintings, I must have. But I would have to be specifically told they are more recent to know that.

**Based on how long the industry could continue on re-runs without altering their business model. **

  1. Sporting events. Less than a day. It’s simple really. If I can’t see my team play I ain’t going to pay to see my team play.

  2. Movies – 2 weeks. Profits would start to fall seriously if there were no new screenings after a fortnight.

  3. Television – 3 months. Ratings decline even during the summer season. After 3 months with absolutely nothing new there would need to be some serious restructuring to get anyone to watch art (as opposed to news) on TV.

  4. Plays I don’t know enough about the stage industry to really comment, but I gather a lot of the profit comes from new productions. I suspect that with no new productions there would need to be a major shake up of the industry.

  5. Video Games — 4 months. Pretty much the same boat as pop music IMO below, but with less scope for hype.

  6. Popular Music — 6 months. A lot of the music industry is hype anyway. By cycling through their current stable of stars and hyping previous failures and wannabes as the latest hot act the music industry should get through 6 months with old material. They could probably last out 2 years without seriously changing their business plan.

  7. Books— 5 years. See above.

  8. Poetry— 20 years. Like books, but moreso.

  9. All else---- indeterminable. The industry, such as it is, is mostly self-contained and the products non-disposable and intangible. I can’t see any obvious reason why a change in business plan would be needed.

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Hey, great post Blake – very well thought out. I didn’t intend to use two sets of criteria; my comment about television recycling its old stuff was based on the idea that there are so many repeats and pre-emptions during the regular season anyways that they could slip them in for a while without people noticing. But I think you’re right, and ultimately people would catch on very quickly to the fact that there were no new episodes of TV shows being made. I do think, however, that it would be a much shorter time period for people to realize that no new movies were being made. Big movies are released literally every week and enough people go to the movies every week or so, that I think a time period of 2-3 weeks would be more realistic for people to realize what was going on.

Your second list sounds pretty accurate to me, though in a funny way I bet the theater would actually benefit for a while if they could only use plays from the repertoire. A new musical, for example, is expensive and very risky; “Oklahoma!” is a known commodity that many people would still want to see. I imagine Broadway would have a pretty successful season if it only produced works by, say, Noel Coward, Eugene O’Neil, August Wilson, and musicals by, oh, Rodgers and Hammerstein and Andrew Lloyd Webber.

I’ve seen many movies that I know came out this year; I’ve seen at least one that was released just weeks ago.

Post 9/11 – a commemorative poem by Amiri Baraka. But the only reason I read that one was because it had some anti-Semitic comments in it, and made a bit of a splash in the media. If it wasn’t for that I never would have encountered the poem. Before that…I couldn’t say. I probably read one or two in the New Yorker, but I couldn’t definitively say so. I have such little time for poetry, that when I do read it I always go for the big guys and gals from yesteryear: Coleridge, Dickenson, etc.

I’ve seen Stalinist architecture, and I took a tour of Chicago that pointed out some relatively recent skyscrapers. But paintings? Not sure; I’ve been to modern art exhibits, but I couldn’t confidently say when the stuff was made.

So what do you think? Is there actually any validity in this theory?

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I’m not sure I’d call it a theory. It’s more a basis for a theory. But I’m a scientist, I like objectivity. What this does do is provide some sort of objective measure for the relative relevance of different art forms. To me that’s always a good thing.

One problem I can see is that it lacks any method of distinguishing between fame and infamy as it were. An art-form could potentially rate quite high on this list and yet have no real relevance to anyone at all. Consider reality TV for example. As an art-form (and I hesitate to even call it that) it has little relevance to me at all. The only relevance it does have is as pop culture. Yet I would probably notice within 6 months if no new reality TV was being made, simply because I wouldn’t be annoyed by Big Brother or Survivor while channel surfing. Of course that assumes they wouldn’t just show repeats, since I would probably never realise that, but I hope you take my point. Similarly the parents of a teenager may find out that no new pop music is being released when he keeps playing the same music at full volume for weeks rather than for days. Even something like street theatre would probably be noticed by its absence within a couple of years, and I don’t even thinks street theatre players value street theatre. It’s like noticing that your tooth has stoped hurting. You didn’t value the pain, but you can’t help noticing it’s gone.

Because of that infamy factor this on its own isn’t an entirely valid way of deciding on cultural relevance. It’s more about cultural penetration and diffusion. But it seems like a good starting point for relevance. If people don’t notice something’s gone then they can’t really value it.

You could well be right. I was working on the assumption that me and my circle of friends are typical and that the average person goes to the movies once a month. However even with 25% of people going to the movies weekly you probably won’t get 95% realisation within two weeks. Only that 25% will realise after 7 days. And unless they make a point of telling the other 25% they won’t know until they too have gone twice, or at least looked at a screening schedule twice.

But for now I’m happy to say somewhere between 2 weeks and 2 months. Certainly not very long.

Since my acumulated pool of knowledge comes from watching “the Producers” I really don’t know enough to comment. My impression was that a lot, if not most, of the profits are form new blockbusters. That’s not too say the industry couldn’t survive without them, but it would require an entirely different business plan.

I think most people are like this. Even though I distinctly reading several poems last week I couldn’t say with any accuracy when they were written. Almost certainly 20th century, but that’s; as good as I can do. I doubt if most people could date most of the poetry they read or would even care.

I’ve seen some Roman architecture. That’s as much as I know about the subject. So you beat me by about 2000 years. :wink:

Ditto. I’m sure I must have seen painting produced in the last 30 years, but I couldn’t say when. And if someone chose to simply not put dates on them I doubt I’d ever realise that people had stopped painting. And I suspect most people are the same. As much as we might appreciate individual paintings the history of the painting is o no interest at all unless it’s crucial to understanding the painting itself.