Same Old Song and Dance

So anyone with access to a screen has probably heard about the whole Chalamet thing by now.

During that interview, you could literally see (at least from my interpretation) Matthew McConaughey sitting there thinking stop talking…stop talking…please stop talking.

Yeah, it was dumb, dismissing theatre and ballet as 'dying' and then tossing in that little “I lost 14 cents in viewers" thing. Not great.

Maybe it's age, maybe it’s too much insulation, or maybe it’s what happens when things start going really well, really fast.

But there’s a certain esprit de corps in the art world. Recently, Quentin Tarantino said as much when firing back at Rosanna Arquette for criticizing him for his use of racial slurs in films, including Pulp Fiction, a film she had a minor role in.  

Ironically, Tarantino has previously caught flak himself for taking potshots at Paul Dano and the Matthew Lillard. The audacity.

The point is, none of us is immune to ego, especially among creators.

My family, however, has zero compunction about keeping my ass in check - whether I think it's deserved or not.

You don’t have to love every medium; hell, you don’t even have to like them.

But you do respect the industry and its professionals as a whole; what you’re doing now only exists because of who and what came before you.

While it unfortunately came across as a smug ‘better than’ attitude, the funny thing is the very things he said were ‘dying’ were once themselves considered cutting edge and controversial.

Ballet was once considered too sensual due to its physical intimacy. The tight costumes and exposed legs were borderline scandalous. The opera was too loud, emotional, and political. And theatre was long considered lowbrow.  

Even film, now the ‘elite level’, was looked down upon.
It’s also worth remembering that acting wasn’t always considered a particularly respectable profession, either.  

Every ‘pinnacle’ in the arts has had its moment, and thinking you are at the peak is pretty damn confident in an industry already dabbling in AI and digital replication.

Also, never underestimate your potential backlash. Half the internet already doesn’t like Chalamet for whatever reasons they may have.

You really think they weren’t going to jump on this bandwagon? Of course they were, whether they truly cared about the arts or not.

He’ll be ok, though. Studios tend to forgive a lot if you make money or attract attention, but hopefully, he’s a little wiser for wear now.

Chalamet and Marty Supreme left the Oscars empty-handed but still faced some unspoken criticism. From the legendary Misty Copeland coming out of retirement (fresh off a hip replacement, no less) to perform in a Sinners tribute to Alexandre Singh’s not-so-subtle jab in his acceptance speech for his short film Two People Exchanging Saliva:

We make films because we believe that art can change people’s souls. Maybe it takes 10 years. We can change society through art, through creativity (through theatre and ballet) and also cinema.

And in the same month that artists are taking shots at the industry and each other, others are going out of their way to preserve it.

Artists John Mayer and McG bought the old A&M lot (the one that became the Muppets studio) and renamed it Chaplin Studios, which seems almost romantically nostalgic (and I’m a sucker for that).

But this isn’t just some random old lot. This is the place that Charlie Chaplin built in 1917, where he and his brother worked until the 50s. It’s now a Los Angeles Historic Cultural Monument.

But this $44M purchase can seem strange at a time when recording studios aren’t what they used to be. You don’t even really need one anymore; you can record at home if you know what you’re doing.

A lot of the mid-tier studios are gone or barely hanging on, while Hollywood is starting to migrate out of Southern California for greener pastures.

So to any solely 'logical' thinker, it looks like a pointless investment at a time when everything seems to be moving away from physical space.

But when you consider that space was also where greats like Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Mayer himself have recorded, where We Are the World was made, it’s not really about the building, is it?

Mayer called it an ‘emotional asset', and I will be adopting that term for every dopamine-related purchase going forward.

And he’s not wrong, because that’s what this is all about: legacies. Stuff we can’t imagine our lives without.

Most of us want to be so original and groundbreaking, and many people are. The past was made by those people, and it’s the foundation every new generation builds upon, whether they acknowledge that or not.

But legacy and relevance are precarious at best and fleeting at worst if you’re disregarding the very thing that made it possible.  

Those who earned their place in time never forget where they came from.

Today's 'cutting edge' is just tomorrow's relic. And if history has proven anything, it's that eventually, it all becomes the same old song and dance.

Heather Papovich is the voice behind Unfinished Business, a weekly essay series where real life meets pop culture, and how to get through both without (mostly) losing it.