Artistic Integrity... Completely Gone?

[nobody]

I got into a discussion with my roommate tonight about artistic integrity, wondering if there are ANY movie/tv show makers out there who haven't "sold out" (for lack of a better term).

Seth McFarlane was the spark that started our conversation. He's the man behind "Family Guy." For those of you who don't know the show, FG was an animated show on Fox. It was very contraversial- and Fox ended up canceling it after 3 seasons. When FG was released to DVD recently it cleaned up in sales. Now Fox has asked for more seasons of FG- and Seth happily crawled back to them.

Fox is going to massacre the show, censoring it beyond belief. They've already heavily censored the reruns, rendering them unwatchable. This wouldn't have happened (or would've happened to a much lesser extent) if Seth would've sold new episodes to Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim." But I have a feeling that, because Fox could pay more, Seth went where the big money was.

Seth also just recently announced that there's going to be a FG movie- straight to video. The movie will come in two different versions: a PG version and an R version. Why is he trying to suck up to the PG audience? Probably to win over fans of the NEW, tame episodes. And to pretend he isn't a sell out, and to appease his old fans, he's releasing an R version for the rest of us. How wonderful (*sarcasm*).

I do understand that sometimes artists have to give in A LITTLE, for the greater good of getting their work released, but some "artists" take that giving a little too far. Seth's more than willing to hack up his art for cash. He's lost my respect, that's for sure. A lot of famous people have lost my respect recently as well. I'd go into them in detail, too, but this post is already extremely long.

MY QUESTION: Is there anyone out there in celebrity land who hasn't given up their integrity for some reason or another? I'm looking for some new art to enjoy.

[Eirik]

Did you consider the possibility that he went back to FOX because they owned the rights to air his show.  And if they did own the rights, would you prefer that he "keep it real" and not make any more money off of his creation?  Did you consider that making the racy stuff in video rental format is a great compromise between people who like adult material and people who are concerned about what's aired on public air waves?  

Artists have the same aspirations as anyone else and are as interested in a buck as you or I.  Sometimes -- just like the rest of us -- they make compromises to that end.  This guy tamed down his show to make a buck.  The rest of us spend 40-50 hours a week away from our families to make (almost certainly) less.  Are we selling out too?  At least this guy can go the viedo route and have it both ways, and since he's doing so, I don't see your problem.  

Disclaimer: I've never seen Family Guy and I have no knowledge of how racy it was, how tame it's become, or who owns its airing rights.

[ulthar]

Eirik hit on what I was thinking.  I believe we, as 'consumers' of the art, have a tendency to put the artists up on pedestals and think they are solely in it for the 'art.'

The situation that immediately comes to mind is Metallica and the Napster deal.  So many people seemed to think Metallica was guys really into anti-establishment, etc, etc.  It turned out they were businessmen trying to make a living, and when they felt like someone was stealing from them, the pushed back.  I think it was this disillusionment with their 'persona' that ticked so many people off, moreso than their position on music sharing specifically.

At the end of the day, we don't really know McFarlane's motivations in creating FG or his goals to achieve in his career.  Maybe he does not really care if it is PG or R or how much he had to tone it down to get Fox to retake it (as I recall, and this is just memory, it was not racy in a sexual sort of way, it was just VERY iconoclastic and non-politically correct).  If the original edge is what made it popular, the watered down version(s) will flop, and the market will have spoken.

I remember laughing my BUTT off at some of the earlier episodes, then finding it got old.  By far, the funniest character was Stewie, and his stuff was not really 'racy' was it?  Just the wierd juxtaposition of a baby saying the things he said (when babies are supposed to be sweet, full of love and innocent).

Truthfully, while I was disappointed it got canned, I really don't care if it comes back.  Resurrections like this generally don't live up to the expectation.  I'm quickly losing my faith in Fox for being at the top of my network list, so long as they keep The Simple Life on the air (which I refuse to watch) and continue to call Arrested Development the funniest show on TV (it ain't).



Post Edited (03-31-05 07:43)

[nobody]

I use a lot of my free time to write. I don't make a living off of those writings. I've never attempted to sell anything I've written. If I tried to sell my work, however, I'd be open to listening to proposed edits- but at the end of the day, if I wasn't satisfied that my work was being presented the way I wanted it, I'd walk away. I wouldn't sell my work to butchers just to make some extra cash- even if it was a LOT of extra cash. You might not believe me, and there's really nothing I can do to prove it, but that's the truth.

I understand that I work 40+ hours a week every week, doing things I don't exactly want to do at a job I don't particularly enjoy. But I have to eat, right? The difference is, I don't have enough money in the bank to avoid this necessity. Seth has enough of a financial cushion to keep from doing what I need to do for a living. And Seth, at this point in his career, with FG on his resume, has enough room to work with other smaller and less constricting outlets. There are plenty of companies who would be happy to work with him, I'm sure. The only problem is, they can't hand out big paychecks like Fox can.  

I honestly don't know what Seth's exact feelings are on his edited/censored work... but it seems to me that he gave in much to easily for the promise of more money. Like I said before, Fox is killing his old FG episodes, cutting out some of the funniest jokes, in order to appease "everyone." If I was Seth, that would drive me insane.

Yes, he should've given up on FG if Fox held all the copyrights and wouldn't sell them back to him. I would've respected that a lot. And he could've sold "American Dad", his new show, to "Adult Swim" or some other mature media outlet. Maybe then AD would've been funny. We'll never know, now.

[Fearless Freep]

Did you ever consider that talking about Seth McFarlane and 'artistic integrity' to begin with is funny considering how much FG is a painfully, laboriously, unfunny knock-off of "The Simpsons" in the frist place.  I keep a few videos on tap to wacth between Teen Titans, Futurama, and Inuyasha and much of  that is just tp keep from leaving the tv running through FG.

[peter johnson]

Check out "Arrested Development"  -- making no concessions to anyone/sink or swim, they're doing their own show, by gawd! . . .
Myself?  I would "compromise" just about anything to get out of this pit of bank-work to get a chance to make a living doing showbiz full-time.
I did meet with David Ossman of The Firesign Theatre this weekend, and know that he and his cohorts have turned down any number of offers that would've watered their art down --
And as a result, I bet not many of you reading this -- beyond Vermin -- even know who they are . . . which would be the flip-side of "selling out" . . .
I would say, try not to judge individuals too intensely.  For every George Carlin or Jonathan Winters who refused to do "drunken Indian" or "pop the balloon" bits, there are hundreds of Buddy Erdos's (who? -- exactly!), who chose "Artistic Integrity" & ended up in poverty.   Showbiz is a quagmire that sucks its lovers & victims down alike.
Walk 2 miles in the jungle, then tell me you sneer at the jaguar . . .
peter johnson/denny crane

[dean]

What about people who had no integrity to start off with?

Besides, what constitutes artistic integrity?  Because Sam Raimi did Spiderman 2, a big budget mega-movie sequal, does that mean he has compromised his artistic integrity by being involved in a sequal which may not have any artistic integrity [though still an excellent film] rather than stay with more cult geared movies?

On the Family Guy issue, Seth could have had any number of thoughts about resurrecting the series.  If you had a project that you really enjoyed doing, which got cancelled and then taken back again, would you turn them down?  Personally if I felt that a show I loved to do had the chance to be out there again, I'd take it.

[raj]

Television, especially broadcasting, is a mass medium.  It's purpose is to hit the widest target possible, not to have "Artistic Integrity".  What were FG's original ratings? (I don't know, I could never get into that show.)  If it was "too edgy" as it was, well then back to the drawing board.  If you want more AI then look at cable, or just straight to video.  But life is full of compromises.

[Mr Hockstatter]

That's one (of many) reasons why I have virtually no interest in anything coming out of the major studios.  hollywood loves to b***h about censorship, yet of course they're the biggest censors since the fall of the Soviet Union.  Oh boy, they got fined for Janet Jackson's frankentit episode, how terrible.  Yet to include any political point of view not strictly in line with their political ideology is utterly verboten.  By the studios themselves.  Like any obnoxious teenager, hollywood thinks censorship is all about the really important things like boobs and swear words, and as far as diversity of opinion or philosophy, well, who cares about that?  

I don't understand why the few people in hollywood who are actually non-PC put up with it.  The guy you're talking about obviously has enough money to live like a millionairre for six or eight lifetimes, he's no starving artist.  It's like those pro football players who leave one team and go to another, because they were offered 17.5 million a year from team A, and 18 million a year from team B.  What's the difference?

Oh well, I don't watch that crap anyway.  Gimme a straight to video R-rated movie anyday over some overblown hollywood movie star doing a drama about [insert politically correct topic of the day here], and then sucking a bag of coke up their nose and agreeing with each other about what superior people they are.

[Mr_Vindictive]

I'm completely on the other side of the fence as you Nobody.  I'm a die hard Family Guy fan and have grown sick of seeing the same episodes over and over and over and over.

I'm quite glad that Seth is making new episodes for Fox.  I don't agree with Fox's politics and such but Family Guy is a show I'd kill to have back on the air.  I'm sure it'll be just as good as it ever was, and I seriously doubt that Seth will tone it down too much.  The guy isn't all about money, he's also about the fans.  

Calm down.

Take a breath.  Wait until the show premiers and then if it sucks, then you can say you told us so.  Until that point, don't worry too much about it.  Have faith in Seth.

[Eirik]

I'll raise the point again: maybe FOX has airing rights to the show.  In that case, he'd have to fulfill his contract to them before ever using the concept anywhere else.  So maybe he's fulfilling the end of his contract in a format they'll use so he can do the videos and take it somewhere else later?  Like I said, I don't know, but that is very possibly the case.

And of course, maybe he as an artist is satisfied with the show as FOX wants it.  You said yourself, you'd consider edits to your writing to get it published so long as you were still satisfied with the work.  Maybe this guy is satisfied with it -- only he can know.

Not trying to be argumentative - it's just that lots of fans complain about artists selling out without knowing the details.  Lots of times artists are condemned for selling out when really all that happened is that they ran out of ideas.  Personally, I think that's what happened with George Lucas - I think he had two good movies in him and that was it.

[dean]

I'm with Skadoi on this one, I'd kill to have the show back on [though I'm still not sick of the old episodes.]

Just wait and see, nothing is worse than a knee jerk reaction to something that we don't actually know how it will turn out.

First, express your concern that it will be crap, then watch if it will be crap.  Don't condemn completely before you have seen the finished product.

[AndyC]

I'm still trying to get my head around the idea of Family Guy as a great example of art.

[ulthar]

AndyC wrote:

> I'm still trying to get my head around the idea of Family Guy
> as a great example of art.
>

He says on a bbs where we consistently refer to such motion pictures as "Sorority Babes in the Slime Ball Bowl-O-Rama" (another favorite of mine) as FILMS.

[renegadefury]

The new Family Guy better not end up like that new Ren & Stimpy.

I don't think there's much artistic intergrity anymore in mainstream entertainment, stuff won't even be made if market research shows there's no potential audience. I personally am not so forgiving about artists selling out. Sure, everyone whores themselves out to a job, so we should take it easy on them right? But an artists job should be to make honest/uncontrived art, that's why I support them to begin with. If I start failing at my job, I'd get fired. And with entertainers too, if they start selling out, I'll stop giving into them, most likely cause the art would suck, not just because of the selling out in itself.