3AM Girls Club

In the last couple of years I've gotten really into women's basketball. A large portion of (mostly online) discussion involves the financials of the teams and the leagues. How are ratings? Are the investors going to make their money back? The WNBA is subsidized by the NBA owners (which isn't really true) is brought up constantly.

This lens gets applied to pretty much any other stuff I'm into. How did the movie do at the box office? Did the game sell enough to keep the studio open? And increasingly I feel like I'm being told I have to care if the investors make money enough to justify art being created and I'm sick of it.

I Saw The TV Glow was a movie that didn't make back it's production budget according to public box office numbers. At best it broke even. But it's also a movie that I believe will have a generational impact for trans people and acceptance for trans people.

So many things I love, and that people love, are cult classics. Things that didn't succeed financially at the time but have become appreciated over time. The Scott Pilgrim movie. Alan Wake. Beyond Good And Evil. Oscar Wilde and Edgar Allen Poe died in poverty but how well their work sold at launch isn't talked about at all.

At the same time I want the people who make things I think are good to be able to continue making things that are good. But there are so many factors involved with the capitalism of art that play into it too. And I know you can't get certain kinds of movies or a video games, a Barbie (2023) or even an I Saw The TV Glow without an investment from a company or a rich person.

Is it ethical to enjoy things but refuse to engage in the financial discussion around it?

There is a book called The Gift that has interesting things to say about all of this (at least, interesting to me).

One of the main themes of the book is that there are (at least) two kinds of ways we interact with each other: ways that strengthen our ties to each other (which the book calls gifts) and ways that are more transactional and don't build relationships (financial transactions). And art always involves a gift from the artist(s) to the audience (even if there are financial considerations).

Is it correct? I don't know, but I find it an interesting viewpoint to view our culture through, where we members of society are all too reluctant to give anything to other members of society and everything is becoming financial.

Even regarding financial transactions, it seems to me they can range from compensatory (it cost me $10 to make this, I'll sell it to you for $10) to extractive (I am going to work to figure out how to get the absolute most profit for my time and effort, with no regard for the impact on anyone else). Maybe all transactions are a mix of gift and financial, differing only in proportion?

I hate the financial side of art. I realize art costs money (sometimes a LOT of money) to create. But it seems like at a corporate level, the financial consideration overrules everything else. And somehow that mindset has infected our entire society. (I suspect I know why and it has a lot to do with being a "melting pot"). And the financial mindset isn't conducive to art, because part of art is a gift, an attempt to share something in an effort to build a relationship. And economic transactions HATE that, hate leaving money on the table.