'In societies dominated by modern conditions of production, life is presented as an immense accumulation of spectacles' said Guy Debord in Society of the Spectacle (1967). With scenes in Sacha Baron Cohen's new film including a realty show judge using a Mexican person as seating and one of Michael Jackson's sisters eating sushi off the naked bodies of workmen we have evidence, if it were ever needed, of how all art however 'critical' eventually gets co-opted by advanced capitalism into mainstream entertainment and sold back to the masses. By choosing Mexican workers Cohen appears to be acknowledging his appropriation of previous works by the Mexican based artist Santiago Sierra where the low paid are humiliated for money - reflecting back to the generally comfortable (Bourgeois???) middle class viewers of artworks the essence of Capitalism - where human beings become commodified objects and like all objects have their price.
No comments:
Post a Comment