Virtue of Middlebrow: "Get Out" & David Carr
"Get Out" did not win best picture at last night's Oscars.
The movie happened to be very entertaining to summer audiences. This probably relegated it to "middlebrow" in Oscar voters' minds therefore not eligible for the patrician "best picture" category.
Also its genre was horror. Silence of the Lambs was the only movie to break the horror ceiling and win best picture.
Yet "Get Out" penetrated a lot of minds. Minds that otherwise would have been closed either because it would never have fallen on their cultural radar ("black people don't want me watching one of their movies") or psychological defenses tend to block it.
Middlebrow is something more patrician institutions need. The New York Times suffered such a loss when midwest former addict state school educated scrappy David Carr died at only 58.
Carr protege/colleague/friend Ta-Nehisi Coates told a podcaster his mother made a practice of championing overlooked people, and she launched a college scholarship for 'C' students. When Marc Maron, also a former addict asked Coates about Carr, Coates replied with a question "did you two ever cross paths? He would have liked you. He would have liked you a lot. He was another one who liked C students."
After winning the National Book Award, Coates took an assignment with Marvel comics to write the next 26 issues of Black Panther. Keeping one foot in middlebrow.
Middlebrow should be a protected class in Silicon Valley. Let's ask Freada Kapor Klein if Level Playing Field Institute can champion state school grads.
The movie happened to be very entertaining to summer audiences. This probably relegated it to "middlebrow" in Oscar voters' minds therefore not eligible for the patrician "best picture" category.
Also its genre was horror. Silence of the Lambs was the only movie to break the horror ceiling and win best picture.
Yet "Get Out" penetrated a lot of minds. Minds that otherwise would have been closed either because it would never have fallen on their cultural radar ("black people don't want me watching one of their movies") or psychological defenses tend to block it.
Middlebrow is something more patrician institutions need. The New York Times suffered such a loss when midwest former addict state school educated scrappy David Carr died at only 58.
Carr protege/colleague/friend Ta-Nehisi Coates told a podcaster his mother made a practice of championing overlooked people, and she launched a college scholarship for 'C' students. When Marc Maron, also a former addict asked Coates about Carr, Coates replied with a question "did you two ever cross paths? He would have liked you. He would have liked you a lot. He was another one who liked C students."
After winning the National Book Award, Coates took an assignment with Marvel comics to write the next 26 issues of Black Panther. Keeping one foot in middlebrow.
Middlebrow should be a protected class in Silicon Valley. Let's ask Freada Kapor Klein if Level Playing Field Institute can champion state school grads.
