The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
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