Quality, Not Just Kitsch

Exactly!  Stanford Nutting hits the nail on the head:

...the problem is this: without the creative input, formula will only get you so far for so long.

There is an unpredictable and almost uncontrollable element in any creative work. Talent and inspiration are gifts from God. The challenge to any artist is to channel and apply these talents responsibly so that they bear good fruit. This is the challenge to producers and managers as well.

Without this wild and dangerous fire that burns in the hearts of people who produce art - whether it’s visual art, films, written works, or what have you - you have nothing. It really does begin with the content. We can try to sell the sizzle, but it’s the steak that nourishes. We can try to follow empty formulas, but it’s the truth within that carries the show. We can try to “quench the Spirit” (1 Thes. 5:19), but our lives will only grow cold if we do so.

And this fact is linked to what I’ve written about elsewhere and called the Catholic Ghetto. When markets become contrived, you can get by with bad products. For example, yesterday I went to my daughter’s Christmas concert at her school. Much of the music was poorly performed, but the audience, filled with parents and relatives, didn’t care – which is as it should be. An audience at a school play or concert is a contrived audience. People off the street, regular people not related to the performers, would never pay to see these kids play or sing.

Likewise, much of what passes for Catholic art or drama or children’s television programming would never be tolerated if there were a real market for such material, and not the contrived market of the true believers who are desperate for crumbs that fall from the table in a culture-at-large that is starving them.

Anyway, the upshot of all of this is that Catholic artists must begin to recognize that the market of regular people will indeed pay for good content, but that such content must be developed and marketed to them, keeping in mind that it may be art, but it’s also a business (without keeping this in mind, Catholic artists are bound to get taken advantage of, as all talent tends to be taken advantage of). To fall back either on empty formulas with bad content (as some producers do) or to get lazy and rely on the contrived market that will accept bad content without complaint (as many who produce for the Catholic Ghetto do) is wrong.

And yet, as they say, “That’s show biz!”