Oscar’s quite the cat

I sit here watching the Oscars, giggling to myself because someone thanked the NFB, because Leo is a democrat, and because Catherine Deneuve is disdainful about the uncultured Americans.

And I am reminded of Peter Hall’s book Cities in Civilization, of the chapter on Los Angeles more specifically. Hollywood, an icon because it is the seat of the cinematic industry.

Tonight I am thinking about how what makes culture is that it is made. It is not what we preserve in glass cases, what we isolate from change, it is the new ideas we have and the discussions they create. It is our way of living, not the way we used to live.

Culture is its own great enemy: if we are too busy trying to protect it, afraid to see it change, it will inevitably die. It will no longer be relevant. Somewhere, that may be where many of our artistic institutions have stumbled. It their efforts to preserve the great classics, they have made it a challenge for us to use their language, even to borrow it. Fear that quality will be lost has made these institutions nostalgic reminders for the white-haired crowd, and irrelevant to those of us who have instead reverted to other more accessible, and more open forms of cultural communication.

This is why cultural education and protection is not served by reductionist views of identity that are based on idealised histories, even if they so frequently comes to the forefront in nationalistic projects.  Our cultural baggage is only useful if it allows us to maintain tools to create different, diverse, and current ideas.