Monday, December 12, 2005
I am reading with sadness the obit in the Times for Richard Pryor.
This comes on the heels of the grand goodbye for Rosa Parks and days after the 25th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon in front of his Central Park West apartment. I want to write here on Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner since so much gets said after someone passes I think its a shame the words aren't said when they are good and alive. Also I think there is hardly any ability today to contemplate their combined work or speak to the larger meaning of it.
Harold Pinter's Nobel speech
http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture.html
recently spoke of truth in art and truth in politics. Of course the acclaimed speech is banned here and papers of record ignored him (Pinter!). It is widely quoted and talked about all over the world but like he says "(in America) it never happened". There is an unvarnished assault on truth in our country that has a foul social impact.
I believe the majority of works by Lily & Jane wouldn't make it to mass media if they were staged today for the first time. It isn't just that the content was so contemporary and 'wouldn't fly' today because issues etc. are different it's that there has been a dumbing down of the American public. Mostly by design it is often ascribed to the consolidation of media and the lack of broadcast programming in the public interest. The vast majority of Americans cannot contemplate 'issues', equity, feminism or the state of the state. Before the public could embrace pseudo-reality shows (which are scripted and staged), pabulum plots on sit-coms and corporate music groups the critical thinking part of the nation's brain had to do a spontaneous disappearing act.
Us oldies are blessed to have been able to go a long way with entertainment by the likes of Lily & Jane. It was a lot more than just entertainment, a diversion to agreeably pass some time. The monologues, plays and films shed light on society, prejudice, justice, the role of the state vs. the individual and vice versa. My fear is that with each passing day we come further away from seeing a phenomenon like this again. The loss won't be just a poorer entertainment experience. That would be neither hear not there. But the experience that engenders introspection, critical analysis of state policy, advocacy for the down trodden, etc. will vanish.
As it stands this country cannot look at itself, at least not in mass media and I fear it cannot in private. Our testimony that it wasn't always so exists in the recorded art of Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner.
This comes on the heels of the grand goodbye for Rosa Parks and days after the 25th anniversary of the murder of John Lennon in front of his Central Park West apartment. I want to write here on Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner since so much gets said after someone passes I think its a shame the words aren't said when they are good and alive. Also I think there is hardly any ability today to contemplate their combined work or speak to the larger meaning of it.
Harold Pinter's Nobel speech
http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/2005/pinter-lecture.html
recently spoke of truth in art and truth in politics. Of course the acclaimed speech is banned here and papers of record ignored him (Pinter!). It is widely quoted and talked about all over the world but like he says "(in America) it never happened". There is an unvarnished assault on truth in our country that has a foul social impact.
I believe the majority of works by Lily & Jane wouldn't make it to mass media if they were staged today for the first time. It isn't just that the content was so contemporary and 'wouldn't fly' today because issues etc. are different it's that there has been a dumbing down of the American public. Mostly by design it is often ascribed to the consolidation of media and the lack of broadcast programming in the public interest. The vast majority of Americans cannot contemplate 'issues', equity, feminism or the state of the state. Before the public could embrace pseudo-reality shows (which are scripted and staged), pabulum plots on sit-coms and corporate music groups the critical thinking part of the nation's brain had to do a spontaneous disappearing act.
Us oldies are blessed to have been able to go a long way with entertainment by the likes of Lily & Jane. It was a lot more than just entertainment, a diversion to agreeably pass some time. The monologues, plays and films shed light on society, prejudice, justice, the role of the state vs. the individual and vice versa. My fear is that with each passing day we come further away from seeing a phenomenon like this again. The loss won't be just a poorer entertainment experience. That would be neither hear not there. But the experience that engenders introspection, critical analysis of state policy, advocacy for the down trodden, etc. will vanish.
As it stands this country cannot look at itself, at least not in mass media and I fear it cannot in private. Our testimony that it wasn't always so exists in the recorded art of Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner.
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