Creativity versus class; the great brain robbery

I used to love the chaos and emotion of the Brit Awards. Jarvis Cocker mooning, Gerri Halliwell’s open legs, Robbie Williams challenging Liam Gallagher to a fight, Adele silencing an entire venue with her performance of Someone Like You, Stormzy defending the victims of Grenfell. Drunkenness! Mayhem! Audience interaction!

This year’s Brit Awards were perhaps the most nonchalant yet.

This year’s Brit Awards were perhaps the most nonchalant yet. A notably vibe-free affair; the music community was so unbothered that hardly any award winners turned up to accept their statues. Not even a posh Jack Whitehall taking jabs at the industry was enough to give the show soul. Viewers called it boring and critics found it outdated, with Mark Beaumont of The Independent suggesting: “If any state-of-the-industry insight emerges tonight, it’s one of struggle, of hollowing out, of ladders raised.”

Above: Even comedian Jack Whitehall taking jabs at the industry wasn't enough to give this year's Brit Awards some soul.

In their speeches, two winners - The Last Dinner Party and Myles Smith - used their platform to speak up against the dissolution of support for emerging artists and depressing closure of grassroots venues up and down the country. Smith, winner of the Brits Rising Star Award, said:

“If British music is one of the most powerful cultural exports we have, why have we treated it like an afterthought for so many years? How many more venues need to close? How many music programs need to be cut? To the biggest venues and arenas around the world: if artists selling out your arenas and your stadiums started in grassroots venues, what are you doing to keep them alive?”

These days, the big cheeses only care if you’re rich or viral.

Small venues are where the magic happens. Watching an up-and-coming band up close before they hit the big time; the sheer hunger reverberating through their guitar strings, giving your goosebumps goosebumps. But in a mega-uber-super-capitalist era, who gives any fucks about those new, scrappy artists trying to make it big in front of giddy crowds?

These days, the big cheeses only care if you’re rich or viral. Instead of £10 entry in a cool small bar, dynamic pricing at big music venues is controversially surging tickets to hundreds of pounds. Where hundreds of years ago the working class would grab pit tickets to Shakepeare’s Globe, this year’s run of Much Ado About Nothing starring Tom Hiddleston was shifting standard tickets at £300 a pop.

Even You Me Bum Bum Train, heralded as one of the most thrilling, radical immersive theatre experiences in the UK, has been regularly name-checked on gossip sites for prioritising the 1% in their supposedly balloted ticketing scheme. A notable visit from Jeff Bezos and pals inspired the show’s volunteers to write an open letter questioning the creators’ ethics. 

Above: This year’s Cannes schedule features Meta, who just a few months ago were the subject of a scathing book called Careless People, which discussed their unethical approach to growth, and the genocide in Myanmar.

Creativity is steadily being siphoned off; created by the few and attended by the few. Studio space is unaffordable. Internships still don’t pay. And the people being hailed as ‘visionaries’ tend to have rich parents, PR teams, and private school creds. Art education is piss poor, and investment is lower than ever. Grant-in-aid funding for arts and cultural organisations fell by 18% between 2010 and 2023, and local government funding for culture declined by 29% in Scotland, 40% in Wales, and 48% in England between 2009/10 and 2022/23. Some local authorities have stopped their cultural funding altogether. 

Cannes is the perfect example of greed usurping creativity. It’s a capitalism-by-numbers extravaganza of shiny ads and random celebrities.

This is a social class issue. The creative industries are still reluctant to take working class talent seriously, aside from spotlighting them occasionally in a tick box exercise. An anthology of working class authors? How generous of you! But when you lose the rawness and the accessibility of art, it all becomes a bit ‘meh’. A bit samey. Mass produced, formulaic and exclusive. I know, because I’ve seen it happen to the ad industry. 

It’s the Cannesification of the creative industries, in which the work itself is less important than the guest list of people invited to see the work. 

Cannes is the perfect example of greed usurping creativity. It’s a capitalism-by-numbers extravaganza of shiny ads and random celebrities; drunk ad tech guys groping women and selling DSPs, and then… some work. The creativity is secondary to the chance to chat clichés on a panel before taking selfies by a DJ booth (“LOOK! IT’S FATBOY SLIM!” the blurred Instagram stories say). 

It’s who knows who, and who knows you. And if you’re lucky enough to be a ‘rising star’ shipped out on a sponsorship of some kind, you’re simply being permitted a momentary taste of the high life. “This is how it could be… if you play the game.” It’s words and pictures, but for rich people. A big glass box that the peasants can’t penetrate.