I believe that in today’s culture, especially in America, we aren’t looking to a lot of media with “lighter fare”. With the exception of Tik Tok, a lot of issues that are coming to their apex have to do with life and death (ex. Climate change, female reproductive rights, trans rights, immigration safety, war, the incarceration system, the ongoing feminist movement, etc) so it is harder for people to try to ignore those issues. We know that we love to laugh but, our news and our adults have emphasized that we cannot stand idly by and try to escape what is happening in front of us. To be fair, the 1930s attempts to get out of the Great Depression were a lot more challenging than today’s time, economically. Yes, as Dickstein mentions, the arts are what can relieve an exhausted nation
1but, even arts today are reflecting not an escape but a satire or, even direct relation to the issues that we face today.
For example, a new show that has gained ground recently is The Politician
2. It garners attention because of its star cast but truly represents the government today through a high school class president’s struggle to win the election. It isn’t a story that is meant to leave behind the issues of our upcoming election. It takes those concepts, emboldens them, and shows us an eerie look into the future of how the election could turn out. Another example is Broadway’s smash hit, Hamilton
3. On a global scale, Hamilton appealed to all audiences. It was not a happy ending yet, it called to what America was truly lacking: diversity and understanding. It didn’t try to distract the public from what was “really going on” rather, it emphasized the issues that America was facing outside of the theater. As of late, our media reflects the issues we want to discuss because we know now, better than ever, that hiding from them cannot get us any better at understanding them.
- Dickstein, Morris. “How Song, Dance and Movies Bailed Us out of the Depression.” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 1 Apr. 2009, www.latimes.com/la-oe-dickstein1-2009apr01-story.html.
- https://www.insider.com/the-politician-netflix-critics-defense-2019-10
- https://www.bbc.com/news/av/entertainment-arts-42464676/hamilton-creator-it-s-a-story-of-america-then-told-by-america-now
