This weekend the NBA All-Star game was hosted in New Orleans. It was a big deal from an economic development perspective - lots of people in town spending money on New Orleans "culture." The opening ceremony for the game last night involved a constructed facade of a French Quarter balcony with staged revelers dancing and having a good time (sans the drunken people falling over), while local artists Trombone Shorty and Kermit Ruffins sang and played their instruments. Something about the whole thing made me squeamish.
According to wikipedia (please pardon my sloppy research methods), the term disneyfication is a neologism that is generally "pejorative, and implies theming, de-differentiation of consumption, merchandising, and emotional labor. It can be used more broadly to describe the processes of stripping a real place or event of its original character and repackaging it in a sanitized format. References to anything negative are removed, and the facts are watered down with the intent of making the subject more pleasant and easily grasped."
I couldn't help but think when watching this spectacle last night that New Orleans has become disneyfied in this way. Many others have noted this about New Orleans culture, observing that it has been happening for about the last 20 years as it has become a more popular tourist destination. It has been the fear of many that the post-Katrina survival of New Orleans would indeed depend on such disneyfication.
Watching Kermit last night made me very sad; his performance was a strange replica of his performances at Vaughan's in the Bywater, a grungy old bar where he is often seen outside making red beans or barbecue before the show. Now, the question I have is this - Is the Kermit on Thursday nights in the Bywater the real New Orleans culture and what was on t.v. the fake, disney version? Not exactly, I suppose. I was happy for Kermit because hopefully he was making some serious money from the NBA gig.
But, one of my issues with the New Orleans "cultcha" generally is that musicians, cooks, etc., the people who contribute so much to what everyone loves about the funky vibe is that they are basically living in poverty. The musicians, in particular, may have a lot of cultural capital and are held in high social esteem, but they can't afford health insurance or to buy a house. And of course, this is all very racialized too. And so many of us contribute to this dynamic. I've only met a couple of people since I've been here who seem to have a problem with any of this; and they're not from New Orleans.
Once when I was watching some Mardi Gras Indian music at the Maple Leaf I had this feeling of voyeurism, of peering into a culture and taking something away that was private. Now, one can argue that those musicians wanted to share their culture, and furthermore they were getting paid for it (what, a $10 cover charge?). Maybe if we paid a lot more for it, it would make more sense; or, maybe culture and the exchange of money shouldn't mix at all. I'm not sure how to resist this exploitation, in this case. For, it appears that supporting the local music scene by going to shows or buying a $15 cd really is the only thing that will save the culture.
So much of our lives is commodofied and it's impossible to fully escape this fact of our existence. But, couldn't our society opt to support these local musicians so that they can have a fair, living wage where they can afford health and comfort? It seems reasonable that there could be a world where culture was valued, supported and subsidized but not commodified.
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