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Arts
Thursday, November 14, 2019 — 5

Earlier in the year, the animators of one of Netflix’s
long-running originals, “Bojack Horseman,” ratified
a contract with The Animation Guild (TAG) to
formally unionize and benefit from the protections
that their colleagues in the writing and acting areas of
the show were already receiving. It’s worth taking a
deeper dive into just why such a move was important
and how organized labor already plays a big part in
the production of TV.

The Animation Guild in particular already serves
most of Netflix’s animated shows produced in-house
in Los Angeles. At its core, TAG, like any organized
labor union, advocates for its members by way of
establishing wage minimums, providing health
benefits and negotiating with bosses. Specifically,
TAG’s collective bargaining agreement ensures that
time worked in excess of 40 hours a week will be
paid at a higher hourly rate than the standard and
provides provisions for dismissal pay.
Despite its relative stability in the present day,
TAG’s history shows that the major studios in
Hollywood have always attempted to withold any
semblance of protection to some of its most essential
workers. For example, the website notes “In the 1970s,
the subcontracting of television animation to foreign
subcontractors, known as ‘runaway production’
began to seriously affect employment.” While TAG
won a case guaranteeing local employment, by
the 1980s, the studios gained the upper hand and

eventually most animation work was sent abroad.
While an animation “renaissance” of sorts
countered the decline of the 1980s, history always
shows that without organized labor, the studio
executives will always take decisions to undermine
the livelihoods of the people that make their shows.
Many of the animators and other types of artists are
freelancers, the type of workers that large studios
love to exploit even more so than usual, making
organizations like TAG that facilitate collective
bargaining essential.
The writers on “Bojack” are themselves part of a
union, the Writers Guild of America (WGA). Founded
as a response to studios slashing wages for its writers,
it too has actively advocated for the army of writers
spread out across the TV, film and media landscape.
As recently as April of this year, thousands of WGA
members fired their talent agents as part of a protest
against packaging fees, in which talent agencies
take a cut of profits from the shows they work with
rather than commissioning their clients. The WGA
contends that this pseudo-“backdoor” arrangement
eliminates the incentives for the agency to maximize
their clients’ pay.
The brutally competitive world of Hollywood and
the ruthlessness of the executives who rule it make
it an absolute necessity for the workers (writers,
actors, artists, sound engineers, etc.), who make the
whole thing spin to use their collective power. As
consumers, it is important for us to recognize the
precariousness of the situations so many Hollywood
workers find themselves in and therefore support the
efforts to allow them to continue making the art we
know and love.

Labor unions are actually
what make Hollywood run

SAYAN GHOSH
Daily Arts Writer

COMMUNITY CULTURE COLUMN

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to
attend Yoni Ki Baat’s “Bravado” in Munger’s
South Commons. (In the interest of full
disclosure, I should explain that I attended the
event largely to hear my amazing Daily news
colleague, Claire Hao, read a piece about the
abuse she faced earlier in her life.) I left the
event both saddened by the alleged abuse and
oppression that the speakers had faced and
inspired by their willingness to confront it in
such a public setting.
This got me thinking about art and tragedy.
In particular, I was reminded of how effective
art can be in allowing us to think about, react
to and move past tragedy. I thought of the
different ways that artists have chosen to react
to tragic historical events, the different routes
that artists have taken to reach an appropriate
place of contemplation and reflection, of sad
remembrance and meaningful thought towards
the future.
In particular, I thought of the MUSKET
“Cabaret” performance this past year. (Again,
in the interest of full
disclosure, I’ll mention
that I was the bass player
in the pit orchestra of this
show. This role afforded
me the opportunity to
see the show many, many
times and analyze it at
length.)
For those unfamiliar
with “Cabaret,” the show
opens
with
a
simple
love story: An American
writer living in Berlin,
Cliff Bradshaw, begins
to fall in love with a
cabaret
dancer,
Sally.
While many characters
allude to socio-political
upheaval throughout the
first act, it is only at the
very end of the act that
the audience understands these oft-alluded-to
changes to be rise of the Nazis and the end of the
Weimar period.
I remember witnessing this moment of
revelation for the first time and the inevitable
punch to the gut that it evoked. I’d been laughing
along with the characters, following their
budding romances with great interest. But all
of a sudden, I felt guilty — ignorant to a society
that was turning increasingly anti-Semitic,
complicitly oblivious to a political system
moving irrevocably towards fascism.
One other aspect of “Cabaret” that I will never
forget is the audience’s vocal responsiveness to
the humor of the first act and the utter silence
of the second act. At the beginning, for example,
the sexual jokes of the Emcee, the host of the
“Kit Kat Klub,” are quite funny and met with
audible, and sometimes abundant, laughter.
But in the second act, as the anti-Semitic
undertones to the Emcee’s humor become
more apparent, the audience neither laughs nor
applauds. Yet the cast and crew play on, acting as
though nothing has changed; it is not the nature
of the humor that has changed, they seem to
imply, but the audience’s understanding of its
implications.
When I think of art that responds to tragedy

— particularly art that responds to genocide, or
the millions of pieces that seek to respond to the
Holocaust — my initial assumption is that the
pieces will be sad, frightening and powerful.
I assume that they will appeal to pathos,
reminding me of the emotional horrors of the
Holocaust, for example, and the many reasons
why we must never allow something like that to
happen again.
But when it came to “Cabaret,” I was
confronted with a totally different sensation.
This was not “Schindler’s List.” I was not sad
about humanity’s moral failings, but inspired
by the actions of one brave individual. I was
disgusted and guilty, angry at myself for not
understanding the true implications of my
thoughts. I was incredibly, irreversibly moved.
I was unable to dismiss what I had witnessed
because of the heroic actions of a few to save the
many.
On the other hand, Penderecki’s “Threnody
to the Victims of Hiroshima,” is a stunning, gut-
wrenching 10-minute work for string orchestra
about the first use of atomic weapons in warfare,
the bombing of the Japanese city of Hiroshima
in World War II. The piece is the opposite of
“Cabaret.” It evokes the horrors of its subject
matter from its opening
moment. It deals not in
subtly or in unexpected
plot devices but in abject
terror, in abject sadness.
Both works, I realized,

compel
audience

members
to
think
critically
about
their
subject
matter.
But
“Threnody”
does
this
through
raw,
emotive
force. It is one of the most
frightening things that
I have ever heard, one
of the most frightening
works
of
art
that
I
have ever experienced.
What
“Cabaret”

accomplishes
through
subtly,
“Threnody”
accomplishes
through
utter lack thereof.
Somehow, despite their disparate means,
both works manage to achieve the same end.
And in some way, strange as this may sound, I
began to see the magic of the arts reflected in the
diversity of these works.
As Leonard Bernstein famously stated at
a concert shortly after the death of John F.
Kennedy, “this will be our reply to violence: to
make music more intensely, more beautifully,
more desperately than ever before.” It is through
the arts that we respond to tragedy both
personal and societal. It is through the arts that
we address these events in all their emotional
complexities.
As a composer, I’ve often been obsessed
with the idea that music expresses what words
cannot. But in the context of tragedy, I’ve begun
to realize that the arts do more than that. In this
context, the arts begin in a place past words.
The best pieces of art, however, take us a step
further: They connect places within ourselves
that we hadn’t known existed to events and
subject matters that we did not experience. They
force us to think critically about ourselves and
about society; they provide us with new areas
of thought and demand from us new degrees of
emotional complexity.

Sammy Sussman: When
art responds to tragedy

SAMMY SUSSMAN
Daily Community Culture Columnist

NETFLIX

TV NOTEBOOK

SINGLE REVIEW: ‘YO LOVE’

“Yo Love” is a collaboration between Vince
Staples, 6LACK and Mereba, released for
Melina Matsoukas’s upcoming drama/thriller
film, “Queen & Slim.” The combination of the
three R&B artists is slightly unexpected, as
Vince Staples has never collaborated with
either before. The
song itself is even
more of a surprise,
considering
that
Staples’s
most
recent
releases
have
boasted
the
consistent
uptempo,
bassy
sound that made
him famous. “Yo
Love” is not one of
those songs, and is certainly more in line with
the other two artists’ typical softer sound.
Although the single is not the first mellow
track that Staples has been a part of, it is one
of the few times we see a pure vulnerability

in his subject matter. 6LACK and Mereba
take on the chorus of the song, combining
their smooth vocals to continue the love story
Staples begins to tell at the start. It’s refreshing
and exciting to see such a shift in sound from
a rapper like Staples, and this single further
proves the breadth
of his talent. The
classic,
hard-rap
sound of his full-
length
albums
and most of his
EPs and mixtapes
cannot and should
not be replaced,
but that doesn’t
mean it isn’t nice
to
switch
up
the tempo every once in a while. “Yo Love”
is the perfect, sappy break that Staples’s
discography needed.

— Gigi Ciulla, For The Daily

UMG RECORDINGS

MUSIC VIDEO REVIEW: ‘FOLLOW GOD’

In
2019,
Kanye
West
found
himself
reacquainted with two of the most important
men in his life: the Lord, his Father (spiritually),
and Ray, his father (biologically). With the
release of the music video for “Follow God,”
Kanye enjoys the presence of both of them.
The video opens with a monologue from Ray,
during which he poses the question, “What does
it really mean to follow God?” and answers by
recalling the first time he guided his fearful
children through their
first snowfall. He states
that
they
ought
to
“Walk in the footprints
that
(he’s)
already
made.” Ray and Kanye
are decked out in a
set of Walls-branded
insulated coveralls and
overalls,
respectively.
They proceed to take a couple of Kanye’s all-
terrain vehicles (a blacked-out, yet family-
focused Polaris RZR and a blacked-out, yet
completely impractical SHERP) around Kanye’s
4,000-acre ranch in Cody, Wyo. and collectively
enjoy the gifts their God gave them. The video
closes with a blue-and-gold text slide inspired by
the cover of Jesus is King. It details a sentimental
and affecting exchange between Kanye and Ray,
during which Kanye confesses, “It took me 42
years to realize that my dad was my best friend.”

This video has a few similarities with the
boisterous video for “Otis” from Jay-Z and
Kanye’s earth-shattering 2011 release Watch
the Throne, specifically the shots of the two men
in each video whipping automobiles around an
endless landscape, doing donuts and generally
just vibing, but the two differ starkly. While
both videos are triumphant, “Otis” gives off
the vibe that, at the time, Kanye felt the need to
prove himself to the world. The “Follow God”
video, on the other hand,
presents
an
entirely
different man, one that
is not only celebratory
of his accomplishments
but also content with
where he is in life. He’s
got nothing to prove to
anyone anymore.
“Follow
God”
may
seem like a relatively uneventful video for Kanye,
whose last release was the utterly bizarre video
for “Fade,” but that’s the point. He doesn’t need
to generate publicity anymore. He can be the
exact person he knows he is, and this sentiment
is accurately reflected in the video’s focus on
the relationship between Kanye and his dad. All
Kanye needs are his family, his father and his
God.

— Jim Wilson, Daily Arts Writer

PARK PICTURES

COURTESY OF SADHANA RAMASESHADRI
NETFLIX

NETFLIX

Follow God

Kanye West

Getting Out Our Dream II

Yo Love

Vince Staples, 6LACK, Mereba

UMG Recordings