sellout
last night, late after watching starlight express megaboot on stream, a friend who we havent talked to in a while popped into the call. and for context he had recently shared a vent about how commercial art is and how difficult it is to make money off of art without selling your soul, i didn't reply at the time i was on a plane.
but we had the chance to talk a little about it now. and first he complained about how corporate broadway was, like it was a new thing, specifically "where is our Angels in America now?". my reply is we have Jellicle Ball don't we? we have Rocky Horror performing Sweet Transvestite on CBS? we have lots of good plays, specifically Giant im a fan of as a long time Roald Dahl reader and hater.
but he's not wrong. we have definitely made progress, but it doesn't feel like it's moving any faster or taking up any more of the public attention. whether it's the 80's or now, those few standout shows are the minority.
in his life, this applies more to poetry and the struggle to get under a good publisher. but this is what i told him.
just because the money isn't there, doesn't mean the audience isn't. your audience is people just like you, in his case queer and kinky, and just like you they are marginalized by the system, just like you they are struggling to make ends meet. the people will connect to your work, the more individual the work the more it will mean to someone searching for just the thing that gets them like no other, and those people will be just as broke as we are.
the audience is there. they are not the ones with money. but that makes your art mean all the more to them.
does that suck? yes. does that mean you'll struggle to make your time's worth, to grow your reach, or even survive? yes. but that's a struggle the whole artist community is under, it is never about whether your work is "worth it" or not. so i dont judge artists really for "selling out", but the decision isn't changing to fit what people want to see. its changing to fit what the people with the money want to see.
because there is always someone out there who wants to see exactly what you want to make. they're probably just also broke.