A Defense of Middlebrow

OK, I understand I haven’t written in a while, but I’ve had some serious life stuff thrown at me recently, and I just didn’t have the energy for most of life, much less this blog. And I’m sorry, because writing this brings me joy, as well to my half dozen readers.

Joy is important. Things aren’t great right now for anyone, which means you have to cling tightly to those things which bring you joy. You can’t let anyone extinguish that for you. And the world is full of joyful things, too many to list, honestly.

So anyway, The New York Times did one of their big dumb lists a few weeks ago, and it sent the internet into a minor tizzy, and then a fizzle. There’s a lot of reasons for why we still aren’t firing off hot movie takes at one another, not least of which that it seems silly to be firing off hot movie takes right now. I get it, but it goes back to joy, doesn’t it?

I love movies, have my entire life, but even moreso, I love talking about movies. What good is a movie if you can’t get in a silly argument with your buddy over a burger afterwards. One of the great things about the internet is it allowed you to have that same silly argument with just about anyone. The Times here is just trying to get that silly conversation started.

Look, part of the reason the thing fizzled is no one wants to talk to NYT right now. Why should we? The fun is talking to a friend, and well… they ain’t no friend of mine right now. So it makes sense that people don’t want to center the Times’ list on their own social media because its treating them like they aren’t coddling a dictator right now. I don’t think its the film critics doing it, but they all work for the same paper, so they get the same brush.

So I don’t want to talk to them either, but I still want to talk with someone. Because big, silly lists are my wheelhouse of fun things. So, look, we’ll just link to the list as posted by World of Reel, and pretend its their list. Movies are all about make believe anyway.

Which brings me to a central, if largely unspoken complaint about the list: who is it for? This is a list for The New York Times’ traditional readership: a bunch of largely white, upper middle class, socially liberal urbanites. Yes, the list was made by polling filmmakers and critics, but the final result is designed to appeal those readers. The list is middlebrow through and through.

Look, middlebrow is usually used a pejorative. You will never go broke in any form of cultural or political criticism by taking aim at the middle class. Heck, even the middle class loves dumping on the middle class. Taking potshots at the bland, soulless suburbs is the most generic take on America possible. But we keep dipping in that well, because everyone just laps it up.

The dirty secret though is that the middle class is the best thing about America, or really, any successful society. Show me a society without a thriving middle class, and you have an oligarchy. While the artists will always like to show their bona fides by crapping all over the middle class (but never the rich, who could actually harm them, and artists need to patronize their works… don’t bite the hand that feeds you too hard), its the art which appeals to the middle class that will survive.

What is Shakespeare but the ultimate in middlebrow art? He wasn’t appealing just to the elites, though he wasn’t beneath sucking up to the queen, but he wrote popular plays to be performed for a large audience. He could have his art, but he also had to sell tickets. He had to balance both art and commerce and you know what? There’s nothing wrong with that. Almost every person alive has to balance what they really want with trying to pay the rent.

So the 100 movies list is an exercise in middlebrow. Good. The high-brow folks have their list in the Sight and Sound poll. And I like the Sight and Sound poll, but it’s already carving out that niche. And we don’t really need a lowbrow list because that would be anathema to being lowbrow. There’s something to a list made for middle class folks who pay their taxes, bitch about the government, but then go to their job the next day and don’t take part in the revolution. That’s MOST people. And we like good art, too.

The biggest thing for me is that there is this illusion that middlebrow films are more safe because they appeal to a larger swath of people. And it’s just not true. It actually makes them more ideological, even if it doesn’t seem that way. And here, I will make an example of two films that didn’t make the list, but probably should have.

BlacKkKlansman and Sorry to Bother You came out the same year and both dealt with race in America. I enjoy both movies quite a bit (and I’d argue its one of Spike Lee’s best films… how does he not have a single entry on the list?), but Sorry to Bother You is considerably more “radical” of a film.

But here’s the thing, its a movie that is basically preaching to the choir. For all of its radical politics, its a movie designed only to be seen by people who AGREE with those politics. Was one person convinced to change their point of view? What is the point of the radicalism if its only kept in the safest of audiences?

On the other hand, BlacKkKlansman is a movie essentially about code switching made by a black man, starring a Jewish man, but aimed at a white, middle class audience. He’s trying to take his experience, but make it relatable to the PTA crowd. Sure, it makes the movie far less radical, but its the movie that might have actually changed another person’s mind. He’s taking a “black experience” but recontextualizing it in a way for White America to understand.

It’s the less radical movie, but it is the one that can move the mountain. Middlebrow is the way to reach the middle. And the middle is where most of us live. Yeah, it doesn’t win the cool points with the right people, but its actually harder to make a movie about the Black Experience in America that middle class White People will not only watch, but internalize and maybe learn a thing or two.

Not everything has to be misery and funky camera angles. It’s okay to proclaim a love of middlebrow. It’s where most of us live anyway. Stop lying to yourself. You’re not Charles Bukowski.

Let’s embrace the middle class. We are what makes America. Yes, even our art is pretty good.