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| TAKING MEASURE: 1932's "Love Me Tonight" |
In the majority of circumstances, numbers do not lie. Whether read from a calendar, scale, bank ledger, or receipt of services, they empirically reflect our activities. Progress in life is reported tangibly --even literally-- by the passage of days, the movement of pounds, the balance in our financial accounts, the tally of minutes spent dallying on mobile technology. It is easy to define success or failure based on simple math. We see it every day with the box office totals streaming from the world's film capitals: divide the earnings for any given release by the allotment of screens on which it is displayed, taking into consideration initial budget and marketing costs. Something as unique as a motion picture composition, labored and debated over by a multifaceted confederation of trained technicians and performers, becomes a finite commercial entity. Success or failure is interpreted by how many people pay for admission or streaming access; whether they sleep, eat, text, or make love in the darkness of the theater has little impact upon its "bottom line". (Awards are ultimately linked to plaudits from deserving "insiders", but that, too, is mainly another strategy for raising a project's profile --and thus its profits. This rule of thumb of course holds less weight over time, when revision-minded critics are more removed from the circumstances surrounding a production and more easily romanced by its content.) Twitter.com operates on a similar model: "trending" is when a hashtagged phrase or word emerges in popular conversation; whether those comments are positive or negative is irrelevant. As astonishing and even callous as it might read to the uninitiated, humans themselves are ranked as recognizable brands in the entertainment and marketing industries (as anyone who has ever dealt with Q ratings can attest). Social media bestows power to anything as long as it is mentioned, and the internet makes it possible to count the "hits" to every page or comment thread. Twitter operates blind to the color or quality of discussion, and in that respect is a bit like television --a medium in which sports, "reality" (loosely-scripted, tightly edited soaps or gameshows), late-breaking news, and any variant of extreme stunt can command equal or more heft than more thoughtful fare. What counts to advertisers and their paid programmers are time slots --clocked periods-- as registered by Nielsen boxes and DVR playback. The degree of craft or complexity invested in programming is second to viewers: who, where, and how many. (This would be an apt time to reference 1976's "Network," the caustic, achingly relevant satire in which a news anchor's on-air mental collapse and eventual assassination is a sensation amongst tuned-in households and thus a boon for its station.) Of course, Art (with-a-capital-"A") cannot be judged by numbers, because quality is debatable, and worth subjective. If the Mona Lisa is the most-visited painting at The Louvre, what is to say some kind of rendering does not exist on the reverse of its canvas that is equally, if not more, riveting? And what if that sketch or painting was the work of a "nobody"? For argument's sake, it could be a mere doodle with vast implication regarding the Reason for Existence. Two nights ago, a Francis Bacon triptych fetched a record-shattering $142.4 million at Christie's New York, surpassing Edvard Munch's The Scream as the most expensive, and therefore (according to press reports) "valuable" work ever sold at auction. Does this elevate a previously obscure composition into a higher echelon, now qualifying it as a legitimate masterpiece?
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| Three Studies of Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon (1969) |
I have been reflecting upon the relative value of numbers because I have arrived at a quantifiable milestone of my own. As of one week ago today, I can honestly report an increase of five pounds on my body since the launch of this blog. I realize this is a bit of a departure from this last train of thought, and I blush for the blatant circumlocution. Achieving an "even five" prompts me to reflect on the influence of numbers, significantly integers, on how we gauge progress. Anniversaries are generally marked by the completion of larger spans; otherwise, we would be driven mad and immobile by observing every second and sub-second and sub-sub-second, etc. This is a little of what goes into my own way of thinking, especially given the prevalence of counting in the Obsessive-Compulsive breed. Fortunately, should you (for whatever perverse reason) seek a window into my mind, its somewhat-loopy cartwheeling is not particularly remarkable nor brilliantly calculated. I am no John Nash-esq case of exceptional, choreographed madness, mapping subtle patterns and drawing threads. Nope, my disability stems more from the plain ol' brain-body deficiencies that follow nutritional wantage. Some friends and family continue to challenge my claims of progress, if not remain oblivious to them; however, I know how much I have tried to change. It is admittedly not as much as I am capable of, and I move forward, dragging my heels, shuffling in onwardly-stretching curls. It is funny, because sometimes with my wonky walking routines I literally take two steps forward, one back. It is one of those disordered ticks, but a tendency that also speaks to my development on a larger scale (pun acknowledged). I tend to retreat after making gains, in most matters.
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I will conclude this winding chapter with an explanation of its title, a salute to what has been universally lionized as the season's front-runner for Best Picture. Not to minimize the wrenching, hellish hardships of Soloman Northup, but I too have been, by my own doing, indentured. If we are again to speak of anniversaries, I have spent roughly two-dozen years, almost four-fifths of my life, chained to fears that I will stumble towards obesity --the consequence of ever "letting go" and dismissing stringent eating habits. It is insulting to the memory of those forced into servitude, I realize, but I have acted in my self-imposed sickness as dual master and minion. I arrive at the twenty-four year benchmark by referring to my memories of first seeing Disney's "The Little Mermaid" with my maternal grandmother in the winter of 1989. I sat in the sticky, floor-mounted, itchy seating of Rockland's Strand Cinema upon its initial run, and the searing wistfulness that accompanied the now-classic cartoon remains potent even now. I strongly identified with young Ariel (as most children with a dramatic sense, and thus all children, might); I saw her as a representation of delicate beauty and casual elegance. Needless to say, the beer-bellied Sea Witch, in all her tremendous heft and swagger, did not equally appeal. While the protagonist's charm seemed unpremeditated, the circumference of her waist did not, and I was keenly aware that a slender mid-section was somehow connected with the ancient battle between Good and Evil. Around this time were the first signs of my crippling preoccupation with remaining thin (as I was not of substantial proportions even then), and I cannot but help to fathom that King Titan's winsome daughter played a role in that fixation. Ironically, hers was a bittersweet, lonely crusade for autonomy beyond a trying situation.
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| 12 (x2) SQUARES A BABE: A selection of the princess' finer moments |
Addendum (11/20/13): The cartoon princess archetype and brand has become increasingly pervasive in the seventy-six years since Snow White's introduction at the hands of Uncle Walt. It was in the early 2000s that the full catalog of characters in his studio were marketed as a "line" -- tricked-out with extra-feminine accents that left them objectified and homogenous in their sparkling company uniforms. Last spring, Disney faced a PR disaster when it attempted to release a new version of "Brave"'s lead figure, Merida, to fit within that established and wildly successful pattern. This move raised the ire of feminists, fans, and even the film's female co-director, who had envisioned the character as a feisty tomboy archer in late-adolescence. Cut to two days ago, exactly eight months after the initial rumblings, when an Upworthy blog posted one very talented British artist's Disney-fied reinterpretations of major historical heavyweights, including 2013 Nobel Prize-nominee and Taliban target Malala Yousafzai. This series of illustrations is a fantastic follow-up and companion piece to Canadian photographer Dina Goldstein's bitterly clever images of fairy tale heroines placed in bleak contemporary settings. Each manages to carefully observe and skewer these sexual, reticent icons --so freely traded within the modern Mickey Mouse set-- along with the disturbing implications of their new direction.
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