See-Through Films essayist Jerry Walden sparked something when he said: "I believe that the motion picture is the dominate art form in America in the 20th century. But, unlike most other art, there is a strong, two way interaction between motion pictures and middle class cultures, especially in the USA. Never before has money from the middle class shaped what an art form has produced."
Rodney Lee Rogers replied: "Very interesting and insightful. You have to throw popular music in there as well as a dominate art form of the 20th century and I believe you will find the same theory applicable of the middle class influence. Like most things American and part of the beauty of America, it is the centralist middle class that drives participation. We are probably one of the first counties to wrestle that control from the upper class and their patronage of the arts, though it still very much exists today in America in the fine arts.
"The dark side of this middle class interaction is that the art form must remain populist and appeal to a broad spectrum in order to be consider "successful" and generate a revenue stream for it's creation. Success in the U.S. is also quantified by money and popular favor. Lot's of it. If you check out KINGS that awesome NBC series (which did not get enough of populist interest to continue), it wrestled with the idea of the benevolent dictator verses democracy. Which one is better for the arts and it's quality in general? Hard to say. Great art has been created in all political systems even when repressed. A very interesting additional line of thinking is what are the common factors across all political systems that promotes and increases quality of art. Is it a factor that can replicated or is quality simply a product of the individual artist and can't be fostered within any system."
So, in this "new movie paradigm" everyone is talking about, where now will the middle class 'patronage' (i.e. support) drive the medium?
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