The Era of Wasted Genius, or The Failure of the Contemporary Audience

Yes, I realize that geniuses of many eras were often wasted, as in "under the influence." Here I mean in the other sense, as in "used or expended carelessly, extravagantly, or to no purpose."

You see, I believe the state of being a genius is 1) a condition of relativity, having meaning only when used to draw comparison to those around a given person, and therefore 2) a constant throughout history (i.e, there is always going to be someone who will be a genius in comparison to everyone else around at the time).

And in that way, since we'll always have geniuses around, it may seem odd to express a lament for "wasted" genius, but there's a third component of genius that requires a receptive audience to provide them with the feedback they need to achieve their greatest height. Wikipedia defines "genius" this way:

Genius is something or someone embodying exceptional intellectual ability, creativity, or originality, typically to a degree that is associated with the achievement of unprecedented insight. [emphasis mine]

"Insight," which is generally somewhat (though not completely, obviously) time and place determined, is the part of genius that requires an audience that can recognize it.

And so I was both pleased and dismayed to have a friend share with me a passage from the Martin Scorsese documentary on Fran Lebowitz, Public Speaking. I haven't yet seen the film, but I've been eating up all the segments shared on YouTube. Here's one of the trailers:



In the trailer (if you're not watching it), Fran notes (and I fully agree) that "If we have horrible politicians, it is your fault."

That relates directly to the passage my friend highlighted, which is discussed in this review of the documentary:

And Fran is confident. Everyone’s constantly apologizing these days. They don’t want to offend anybody. They sacrifice their beliefs in order to be a member of the group. But an artist is separate from the group. Chances are if the celebrity is busy hanging out at clubs, being part of the moveable celebrity feast, he’s a shitty artist. Artists are square pegs who don’t fit in the round holes. They get depressed. But they survive by putting forth their insights, which so many of the silent multitude can relate to.

Fran says AIDS killed not only the best artists, but the [best] audience!

Let’s start with the artists… Those who died were the coolest. How do we know? THEY WERE GETTING LAID! Only those who were not having sex survive. Fran says if the dead came back to life, they’d be stunned who’s a star today, all the second-rate wannabes.

And it used to be that the audience was critical, demanded excellence. Now money trumps everything. Sold a lot of tickets? Then you must be good! You can’t criticize anybody who’s rich. [emphasis mine]

There was a comedy club I used to attend in London, when I lived there, that was a crueler version of boot camp for stand-up comedians. I mean, you had to be somewhat established to get a gig there, but you knew you had better be ready for it. This audience took extreme pride in not only making the comedians leave the stage, but in making them break down and cry. The hecklers were only about 1 million times more daring, smart, and, yes, funny than the average comedians there. But average comedians were not the point of this place. This club was an incubator for comic geniuses with skins like rhinos.

I recall one young guy who was trying to tell a fairly lame joke involving "Star Trek" (far too popular for this crowd's taste, and way too open to ready puns and "beam him up Scotty" heckles). At a certain point he lost complete control of the room (you know this when the audience members aren't even shouting out their heckles toward the stage, but sharing them among themselves). But something clicked inside that kid. He grew as determined as anyone I ever saw, and, through a positively brutal barrage of catcalls and boos, he finally made it through the joke. The audience gave him a standing ovation.

THAT was an audience. Demanding as hell, but generous to those who really fought to deliver.

I'm a big believer in the notion that each generation gets the art they deserve. To deserve great art, you must be a hard-working, critical audience. If you're not pleased with the art you see, demand better. It's the only way, as an audience, you can help foster genius.

Demand better.