Today I read that the Madison Equal Opportunities Commission and the Alcohol License Review board "are working to expand access and opportunity in local entertainment" for people of color. Emily Genco of Madison Commons has the story.
In a city where 86 percent of the population is white, according to a 2011 estimate from the American Community Survey, bars and other entertainment venues can expect a fairly uniform clientele. But after notable closures of popular venues that attracted African American patrons and enforcement of restrictive entry policies at others, diversity – or lack thereof – in the city’s entertainment scene has drawn concerns. Both the Equal Opportunities Commission and Alcohol License Review Committee are working to expand access and opportunity in local entertainment.
Bars and clubs serve as community centers, where people come together. Without access, groups in the community are marginalized and their quality of life diminished, said Brian Benford, president of the Equal Opportunities Commission. “If you take that [access] away in entertainment, that’s a huge part of the fabric of the community, and that is missing. There’s no doubt about it.
Let me start by asking: where did this 86% white statistic come from? Wikipedia confusingly has two stats. One is that Madison is 75.66% white while the other, presumably from 2000, is 83.96%. The racial breakdown of our city according to the 2009-2011 American Community Survey 3-Year Estimates at census.gov is around 80%. There's no doubt that Madison is very white but we're talking a potential 10% difference here which translates to thousands of people.
Numbers aside, the article does a decent job of describing the problem. But it's too bad the problem is defined so narrowly here. It's about the decline of black-owned clubs and bars as well as the well-worn territory of hip-hop. While these issues contribute to a lack of diversity in entertainment options here in Madison, they are too often portrayed in the media as the only issues. More clubs like R' Place and more hip-hops shows around town would be good things but they wouldn't in and of themselves rid Madison of a lack of diversity.
The article doesn't mention a lack of venues for Madison's Latino community nor our Asian community. Or any other racial minority besides African-American. The president of the EOC, Brian Benford, is quoted as saying, "There’s a lot of things we need to talk about as a community, but in the beginning let’s talk about the lack of venues, the lack of diversity within venues." The emphasis is mine here. If you're interested in providing diversity of cultural and entertainment opportunities in Madison, you have to look beyond black vs. white, beyond bars & clubs, and beyond hip-hop as being the ultimate barometer of a Madison's diversity on this front. Being an alabaster bohunk, my first-hand knowledge about this issue is spectacularly limited but let me offer a few anecdotes.
My father-in-law, who is black, traveled to Milwaukee last year to see a production of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. Although it was staged here this past spring by the UW, there's no way he could have known that (and I think he had every right to be skeptical that it would ever be performed here) and so he traveled 90 miles one way to take in a play about the African-American experience. How often do Madison's theatre troupes perform plays with people of color as lead characters and their experiences given center stage?
Movies. Tonight at 9:15 there will be a screening of the Tamil language film Thuppaki at Eastgate. Movies aimed at Madison's Desi community are brought here monthly, if not more often, yet you'd probably never know it if you didn't look at the Mad Indians site. While I'm not expecting Rob Thomas or the rotating cast of movie reviewers at Isthmus to get a screener copy of Thuppaki, it deserves to be listed. It's even going to have English subtitles. Hell, even Marcus' website doesn't have it. (Oddly enough, 77 Square lists a Hindi language film, Jab Tak Hai Jaan as opening here tomorrow.)
At Mexican restaurants in Madison I've seen handbills for music events featuring Mexican and Mexican-American bands –at a club in McFarland. I can't seem to find anything online about this, unfortunately, but I'd swear to this. But I don't recall seeing these events publicized in the major arts & entertainment rags in town.
In the end, I think there's more – much more – to diversifying entertainment options in Madison than having hip-hop shows downtown. It will take efforts on the parts of performing artists, venue owners, patron, the media, the city - everyone - to create a truly diverse palate of entertainment here in Madison.
10 comments:
As someone who has worked with local promoters to book Tamil language films in the past, I can tell you that the relative obscurity of the screening times of those films isn't deliberate on the part of Marcus–it's a product of the way those films are booked.
Usually, any of two or three Wisconsin-based film bookers will work with overseas distributors to ship a print to the US. Those promoters then recoup their money by renting out theater spaces on slow nights at theaters around the state, wherever and whenever they can get the best deal on a rental price (this used to be at Westgate Art Cinema here in town, but has shifted east along with management that is friendly to these sorts of shows).
The promoters essentially four-wall the print across the state, focusing on highly promoting single screenings in as many cities as humanly possibly during the period that they have the print (quite literally–I've had promoters banging on projection booth doors asking for one half of a film to be loaded in the car before the second half is complete.) As such, they focus on mobilizing an audience they know will come out for a screening, rather than trying to reel in new patrons. They rely on an established network of reliable filmgoers, eschewing the conventional model of mass advertising and mass audiences.
Marcus will occasionally book one of these films themselves, but only if it has some sort of US distribution and a HUGE following. And even then, audiences are small, just because the one-off screenings are more popular as communal experiences.
Bottom line, these types of shows have always been hard to cover in local media because they exist in this weird long-tail of niche cinema–the bookers identified a small but reliable niche of the local filmgoing public and aggressively pursued them. Perhaps that's an approach that could be replicated with theater or music events.
Clarification: "Four-walling" involves a promoter or entertainer selling tickets to a film screening themselves, rather than the venue booking a film as part of their regular weekly programming.
Mark - thanks for your comments. I wasn't trying to imply any kind of nonfeasance on the part of Marcus. I was thinking more along the lines of the Chinese films being screened at AMC River East in Chicago. No publicity and all promotion done via word of mouth/social networking presumably amongst the target audience. Despite this, the Chicago Reader still puts these movies in their listings despite no screeners and no reviews. See here:
http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2012/05/04/the-most-important-movie-in-chicago-no-one-knows-about
I can understand Marcus abstaining from listing it but I think that Isthmus and 77 Square are doing people a disservice by not listing Desi movies. Isthmus deserves special criticism since it published an article about Indian movies here:
http://www.thedailypage.com/daily/article.php?article=25136
On that point, I 100% agree. Those shows are super interesting (even to those outside the community currently watching them) and it would be great to see them get better visibility.
Sadly, listings like that increasingly fall between the cracks as "calendar editors" and other such positions at local papers dry up. One could make a full-time job of trying to track the one-off arts events in Madison, but it's a job that there simply isn't money for these days at most outlets. That said, local writers (like me!) do what we can to shine a light on the events that are outside the scope of what usually gets play in the paper in the form of listings and reviews.
"One could make a full-time job of trying to track the one-off arts events in Madison, but it's a job that there simply isn't money for these days at most outlets."
I'm sympathetic to this notion - to a point.
I do not and never have worked for any publication so I am not writing here from experience. Having said that, I do think that as a patron/consumer that one-off arts events do make Madison listings and they appear, in part, because of conscious choices on the part of calendar editors or whomever is responsible.
Take Kiki's House Righteous Music whom I believe you folks had on your podcast recently. We are talking music shows that get listed despite not being put on by a promoted by Tag Evers, Frank Productions, &c. at a club or bar. When the Willy Street Co-op screens a documentary about an all-vegan, all-transgender coffeehouse in Seattle, I see that listed. Revolution Cycles on Atwood did a micro-cinema thing within the past couple years or so. I recall reading the press it got.
So, while I can certainly understand the lack of resources at newspapers contributing to what their arts & entertainment listings look like, I also think that biases/preferences play into it as well. It may be the individual preferences of a calendar editor or it may have to do with the publication's intended audience or the ease of finding out about such events via online sources, or other factors of which I am unaware. (And I'm not claiming any malicious intent here.) From my experience, the one-off events that get listed tend to be aimed at a liberal near east side audience, i.e. - white, middle class. I don't think it's a coincidence that one-off screenings of documentaries are often held at the Barrymore.
What get's listed by major rags and what doesn't is surely a complicated process.
And many thanks to folks like you who spotlight the lesser-known arts and entertainment events. I think that if there were more folks like you or if there was some kind of aggregator for your type of work, we'd find that Madison's entertainment selection is probably more diverse than many people think it is.
Sorry about my typos. *hangs head in shame*
I can't speak to specific outlets (I haven't done calendar listings in a while) but it's not like there's an arcane and super-scientific system. You scrape the web to see what's out there, and you round that out with shows and events that you hear about through your social network. That's bound to have certain inherent biases, certainly.
That said, I think the holes in Madison arts coverage that you mention in your post can be addressed two ways: 1) writers and editors need to be aware of their biases and always seek out events that are outside of their comfort zone. There are plenty of talented folks here in town doing just that. 2) organizers need to do some basic media relations. Figure out who in town writes about your type of event and drop them a note when you have something going on. A little nudge can get a reporter interested if they're primed with basic info.
It's tempting to blame outlets when certain types of events go underrepresented, but we're all human. Events are missed not because they are being maliciously scrubbed from the calendar, but simply because in the media noise from the big event promoters, the small events get missed. We're still talking about journalists-we don't need a pre-prepared story on every event–but the reality is that if finding basic event info is a challenge, it might not get done, to the detriment of the reader.
TL;DR Writers cover what they know, which is inherently biased. They should do better, but event organizers should help.
Sorry, didn't mean to become the arts journalism torchbearer.
"2) organizers need to do some basic media relations."
I agree. As a member of the Polish Heritage Club, I have to say we've found the media very helpful and receptive to our inquiries regarding promotion.
"1) writers and editors need to be aware of their biases and always seek out events that are outside of their comfort zone."
Agreed. How does one encourage that? Anecdotally, I remember that Rob Thomas completely ignored the Polish Film Festival in his column last year. I emailed him asking to include it but never heard from him nor did he ever mention it. I don't want to extrapolate too much from this one episode but it was frustrating considering the festival is not a one-off super small event.
"There are plenty of talented folks here in town doing just that."
Whom can you recommend?
It seems to me that, generally speaking, older folks look to madison.com/the paper iteration for listings. Some look at Isthmus as well. But, when I talk to older people, they almost never look anywhere else. They're not looking at Dane101 and they didn't look at the AV Club Madison (RIP). They're not looking at the events listing at Mother Fools website or that kind of thing. Yet they'd hear about obscure piano recitals and whatnot. Very odd. I suspect being on UW mailing lists is a good way to hear about small events.
An aggregator of local writers looking for out of the way events is sorely lacking.
"Sorry, didn't mean to become the arts journalism torchbearer."
Well, somebody had to do it, right? :)
As far as reaching writers, I'd actually pitch to student journalists. Madison has TONS of them and they're all looking for opportunities to write something to set themselves apart. Dropping a line to the arts editors at the Badger Herald and the Daily Cardinal could work nicely (my big break for AVC was a story on a Romanian film festival written as an intern). Freelancers (the ones who don't have their name on newspaper mastheads, but still contribute) are also a good contact point for something outside of regular arts coverage.
Or you can always pitch it to a local podcast. (*cough* podcast@madisonartsextract.com)
As for the mainstream paper thing, I don't know. It's a problem for proper newspaperpeople to address, not punk blogger jerks like me. I hope for more diversity of event listings in the future though–Madison certainly has an audience for them.
Thanks for the advice, Mark. We'll keep that in mind.
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