For a
creative person one of the most difficult things is to monetise your
work. Firstly there is an inherent practical difficulty involved in
actually finding people who will pay you enough to do the thing that
you love that you can make a living doing it. Beyond that, there is
an inherent conflict between art and commerce.
Pretty
much everyone would much rather be an author or a sculptor or a film
maker than they would work in a call centre taking abuse from people
much stupider than them. Unfortunately, there are very simple
financial realities that mean most of us are very unlikely to achieve
that dream. If even 1% of us were published authors there would not
be anywhere near enough readers in the world to make the number of
books published commercially viable.
The
dream of becoming a financially successful artist – in any field -
is made even harder to achieve if you aren’t willing to compromise
your vision – at least to a certain extent – in the interests of
commerciality. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s very easy
for people to fall in love with their work and become blind to its
flaws. What a writer or artist might think of as a commercial
compromise may often, in fact, be a straightforward improvement to
their work. A good example is True Romance, which originally ended in
Quentin Tarantino's script with the death of Clarence, Christian
Slater’s character; this would have been a needlessly downbeat
ending to a pretty light and upbeat sunny film.
Similarly,
someone may produce truly great work whilst working for somebody
else. Don’t forget Michelangelo painted the Sistine Chapel under
commission.
However
there comes a point when commerce gets in the way of art. Where
lowest common denominator considerations edge out any inch of nuance
or depth to a piece of art. There was a time when we used to blame
American teenagers for the dumbing down of film. Now the foreign
market is considered the biggest culprit. Everything has to be easily
translated and culturally understandable to audiences all around the
world. Established properties are considered preferable to new
intellectual properties, as they are a known quantity and easier to
market. There have been 7 X-Men films in fifteen years? No matter,
let’s make some more!
Then
finally, comes the snapping point. What if you’re working for
idiots? People whose every artistic instinct is wrong? People have no
clue what they’re doing but who hold the purse strings and can
therefore force you to dance to their tune? Many people, for the sake
of politeness, or through a misguided belief that they can overcome
these problems and remain true to their artistic vision, plough on
under such circumstances for far too long.
It’s
understandable. So many of us have dreams of being an artist that we
will suffer almost endless indignities in pursuit of our dreams.
However, for the sake of the work, and for your own pride, there
comes a time when you have to say “Fuck it!”
