The story of Selena Quintanilla is quintessentially American – so why did Netflix order it as a Latin American original with a tiny budget that meant filming in Mexico and paying writers (and other staff members) much, much less than they would have gotten in the U.S.? “Their love for Selena, the writers said, drove them to take the job despite the low wages, but all expressed frustration at the disrespect they say they felt being underpaid and overworked for a series that quickly dominated Netflix’s own top-10 charts in 23 countries following its December 2020 release.” – Los Angeles Times
Issues
What Hollywood Could Learn From The ‘Kim’s Convenience’ Scandal
The sitcom’s actors took to social media to say more about the series’ abrupt end – and the series itself. Their posts “threw into sharp relief the ongoing reluctance of producers and executives from Hollywood to Toronto to trust and empower Asian actors, writers and directors to tell their own stories — and as Yoon and Liu both pointed out, few of the writers for Kim’s Convenience were of Asian descent.” – Los Angeles Times
Scottish Government Gives Multi-Million Rescue Package To Edinburgh Festivals
“The Edinburgh festivals have been offered millions of pounds in emergency funding in the face of widespread fears they may never fully recover from the severe impacts of the COVID pandemic. The Fringe, international and book festivals, which help make up the world’s largest annual arts season, have been forced to very significantly curtail this August’s events, the second year running it has done so.” – The Guardian
Kim Jong-Un Is On The Warpath Against K-Pop
The Dear Respected Leader has “called it a ‘vicious cancer’ corrupting young North Koreans’ ‘attire, hairstyles, speeches, behaviors.’ His state media has warned that if left unchecked, it would make North Korea ‘crumble like a damp wall.’ After winning fans around the world, South Korean pop culture has entered the final frontier: North Korea, where its growing influence has prompted the leader of the totalitarian state to declare a new culture war to stop it. But even a dictator may have trouble holding back the tide.” – The New York Times
UK Politicians Are Increasingly Fighting The Culture Wars
As in the US, UK politicians are wading in to debates about statues, history, and the culture that defines the country. – The Guardian
Beating The Pandemic: Science Sure, But The Arts Had A Big Role
Provincial governments and public-health authorities have, understandably, been focused on science getting us out of this – but, less understandably, they’ve neglected allowing (never mind encouraging) artists to explore the possibilities of how outside-the-box creativity could make this pandemic (or future ones) less isolating and more livable. – The Globe and Mail (Canada)
Federal “Save Our Stages” Aid Is Tied Up And Not Getting To The Arts
This stunning state of affairs stands in bold contrast to the initial PPP and the more recent restaurant relief funds, which were on their way to businesses within days. – Variety
Abu Dhabi, Hoping To Become Cultural Tourism Destination, Pumps More Billions Into Arts
The capital of the United Arab Emirates, whose government wants to diversify its economy away from oil and catch up with Dubai as the UAE’s major draw for foreign visitors, is adding $6 billion over five years to its budget for the cultural sector. While some of the funding will support media, music, and cultural heritage, much of it will go toward completing the museums — most notably, the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, with a building designed by Frank Gehry — that will join the now-open Louvre Abu Dhabi on the emirate’s Saadiyat Island. – Artnet
Performance Venues Are COVID-Safe At Full Capacity If Audience Wears Masks: Study
“According to the results, the wearing of masks cuts the spread of aerosol droplets by 99 per cent, with those transmitted also travelling much more slowly. Professor of biophotonics at [University College London], Laurence Lovat, says: ‘Andrew Lloyd Webber is right. If theatre-goers wear appropriate masks and follow other rules already in place, theatres become safe places to go to.'” – WhatsOnStage (London)
New York City Mayoral Race: What The Candidates Have To Say About The Arts
“As the June 22 primary draws near, we rounded up the top six contenders” — in alphabetical order, Eric Adams, Kathryn Garcia, Dianne Morales, Scott Stringer, Maya Wiley, and Andrew Yang — “and summarized their priorities for the sector if elected.” – Hyperallergic
New York’s $25 Million City Artist Corps: Here, At Last, Are The Details
“Just over a month ago, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that as part of NYC’s post-pandemic recovery, the city will be investing $25 million in … a new recovery program aimed at hiring over 1,500 artists to create works throughout the five boroughs this summer and beyond. Today, he finally revealed more info about exactly how this program will work, and how artists can apply to take part in it.” – Gothamist
Are Board Members Of UK Cultural Institutions Being Punished For Disagreeing With The Government?
The science author and historian Sarah Dry withdrew as a trustee of the Science Museum Group in March after she was asked to support the government’s position on contested heritage. Meanwhile, the re-appointment of the Bangladeshi-British academic Aminul Hoque as trustee at Royal Museums Greenwich was vetoed by the government earlier this year, prompting Charles Dunstone, the chair of the museum board, to resign. Hoque was reportedly rejected because of his focus on “decolonisation”. – The Art Newspaper
Venice Cruise Ship Ban Ends — Ships Return To The Lagoon
Residents were caught by surprise on Thursday when a cruise liner sailed into the lagoon city for the first time since the pandemic began, despite prime minister Mario Draghi’s government declaring that the ships would be banned from the historic centre. The 92,000 tonne ship MSC Orchestra collected 650 passengers before leaving for Bari, in southern Italy, on Saturday. – The Guardian
Tickets Or NFTs? Do You “Own” The Experience?
“Tickets are keys to experiences. These keys have a finite life and finite utility. That’s because the majority of rights issuers want to maintain control of the ticket and access to the experience until the experience is complete. NFTs, by contrast, are (and are portrayed as) owned assets. This is groundbreaking for digital content, offering a way to both claim and prove ownership for a medium that previously had no method to certify authenticity. This doesn’t work for tickets.” – Medium
The Behind-The-Scenes Disasters That An Arts Festival’s Public (Hopefully) Never Sees
“From natural disasters to cast mishaps, from visa snafus to failing voices, the team at Spoleto Festival USA has been there, done that and has the war stories to prove it. And here you thought those beads of sweat on their foreheads were from Charleston humidity.” – The Post and Courier (Charleston)
Does Los Angeles Need A New Arts Mega-Donor To Replace Eli Broad? Naaah
Carolina A. Miranda: “Let’s retire the outmoded idea that the most important factor in a city’s cultural landscape is the presence of some white knight bearing a checkbook and grandiose ideas about turning bulldozed Los Angeles neighborhoods into the Champs-Élysées (as Broad once described his vision for Bunker Hill). In fact, a moneyed philanthropist can wreak havoc on public institutions.” – Los Angeles Times
Amsterdam Is Falling Apart
“Sinkholes are appearing in its small streets, and nearly half its 1,700 bridges are rickety and need repairs, frequently requiring trams to cross at a snail’s pace. As a huge project to shore up the canal walls gets underway, the city is beginning to look like one gigantic construction site.” The New York Times
Author Naomi Wolf Spreads So Many Anti-Vaccine Myths That She’s Banned From Twitter
One might even call them all lies. “The author variously claimed that vaccines were a ‘software platform that can receive uploads’ and that ‘the best way to show respect for healthcare workers if you are healthy and under 65 is to socialise sensibly and expose yourself to a low viral load.’ In her most recent post, she argued that ‘vaccinated people’s urine/feces’ (sic) needed to be separated from general sewage supplies/waterways until its impact on unvaccinated people via drinking water was established.” – The Guardian (UK)
How Academic Freedom Ends
Just look to Hong Kong, where by the time a group of University of Hong Kong academics gathered in a town hall meeting in May. “The assembled faculty pressed [administrators] on whether HKU would provide legal assistance if they were arrested for allegedly violating the law while working, what to do if students reported professors on a government tip line, and what educators may be forced to teach.” There was no reassurance: “The marching orders to suppress freedoms are being dutifully carried out not by police or the authorities, but by fellow colleagues, and even students.” – The Atlantic
Can We Ever Trust A Recorded Image Again?
A new documentary “focuses on surveillance and the cop-worn body-cam in specific as key topics, exploring the headquarters of the Taser, drone and camera manufacturer Axon in search of insights on the police state’s expansion. But this inquest soon gives way to a more expansive interrogation of the treachery inherent to every photo and frame of video, warped and modified and presented with purpose.” – The Guardian (UK)
Kim’s Convenience Actor Calls Out Producers, Pay Issues
Actor Simu Liu plays Jung Kim in the show, whose fifth and final season is dropping on Netflix Canada. It’s a critically lauded show with a lot of comedy buzz. But, says Liu, the producers (who were “overwhelmingly white”) discounted input from Asian cast members; the actor also said that the actors were paid at an “absolute horsepoop rate.” – CBC
Saudi Arabia Aims Its Cultural Diplomacy Blitz At Greece
“The major partnership,” announced in May, “will include funding for archaeological preservation of the historic Al Fao region in the southern part of Saudi Arabia, and an exchange of expertise on heritage and museums, archaeology, antiquities, cultural festivals, and modern culture. … Previous partnerships with France, Germany, and the U.K, took place before the murder of [Jamal] Khashoggi. Yet Greece seems to be moving ahead despite calls to boycott the kingdom.” – Artnet
Why Is Philly’s Post-Pandemic Arts Budget So Anemic?
Other cities are thinking big: Chicago’s Arts 77 has $60 million for individual artists and arts organizations. “City departments from parks and rec to libraries, community development, streets, and schools would all participate. … New York City has set aside $25 million for a municipal jobs program that aims to put 1,500 artists to work in communities across the city. San Francisco has started a pilot program with a similar focus. Los Angeles has established a $36 million arts recovery fund to help support arts organizations.” But in Philadelphia, there’s no plan for the arts. – Philadelphia Inquirer
Mellon Foundation Is Giving $125 Million In Recovery Funding To Artists And Small Orgs Across New York
“[The project called Creatives Rebuild New York,] which has also received contributions from the Ford Foundation and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, will provide up to 2,400 artists with a no-strings-attached monthly income and will endow 300 full-time salaried positions at small- and mid-size arts organizations across the state.” – ARTnews
Some Performance Venues Are Having Way Too Hard A Time Getting Federal Relief Money
“As the emails finally started arriving late last week, some business owners got the good news they had been long awaiting: They would be awarded a piece of a $16 billion federal grant fund intended to preserve music clubs, theaters and other live-event businesses devastated by the pandemic. But other applicants ran into fresh obstacles — including the discovery that the government thinks they’re dead. It was the latest bureaucratic mishap for the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant initiative, an aid program created by Congress late last year.” – The New York Times