Quote:
Originally posted by Jerome:
When you remember that even the most common, down to earth people used to go and watch Shakespeare's (and his contemporaries') plays, and more than that - enjoy them - then the situation seems somehow very sad.
And what I just contributed to the discussion I have no idea. But I felt like a rant. 
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I agree with you 100% [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] But even Shakespeare had to pander to popular market forces. He included nods to the royal family ala the Banquo King procession in MacBeth to please King James, in effect catering to his 'sponsors'. He also included numerous bawdy jokes and toilet humour (cf the Porter in MacBeth) in order to hold the limited attention spans of the... less civilised in the audience.
Indeed, in the 5th century BC Athens, Aristophanes rewrote the ending to his comedy 'The Clouds' in which he included additional singing, dancing and overall visual eye-candy, which he believed to be superficial and trite, solely to please the fickle, unsophisticated tastes of Athens' 'simpler' citizenry.
This doesn't detract from the overall quality of either Shakespeare's or Aristophanes' plays, but I think it suggests that there have always been commercial interests interfering with art. There are just more people around these days, and so the pressures are greater. But, so long as genuine artists exist who write what they want to write and damn the commercial pressure, then we'll be able to keep ourselves entertained with some high-quality media.
[ 05-20-2004, 07:56 PM: Message edited by: The Hierophant ]