THE 'MEDIA' "TASTE" AND CORPORATE AMERICA [PS: AND NORBERT LEO BUTZ]

I noticed on the few public radio shows I heard today and some TV news shows that the bit that knocked me out the most on the Tonys last night, the one a friend from my Jersey community performed but I didn't recognize him and instead just kept thinking, man, this guy is a total original, that his name wasn't mentioned in the summaries and pieces on the Tonys, but those who won Tonys for their performances in the blockbuster successes, THE BOOK OF MORMON and WARHORSE, were.

It's the same old deal that the media talks about what everyone is talking about, which is whatever the media focuses on usually, which is whatever their corporate masters want focused on.

And there are so few corporations controlling most of everything we get exposed to, including the framing of our public discourse on politics, which includes the economy and culture, that the subjects are limited to those that can be profited from, which is the definition these days of "success."

I shouldn't post at the end of the day when I'm tired and heading for bed because I don't articulate what I'm thinking as well then, but I'm sure you get the idea and have already observed this yourself and maybe even understand it better. But what I mean is, I expect a lot of what I dig to have limited appeal to the majority of my fellow humans and to be little known in the wider world. A lot of what I write about on this blog falls in that category.

But even when it's major media stuff, like the Oscars or Tonys, the things I dig most often go unnoticed (like BARNEY'S VERSION at the Oscars and Norbert Leo Butz's amazing performance on the Tonys) or at least unmentioned in the media afterwards because (at least from my perspective) they aren't associated with "success" and therefore are of no use to corporate America.

[PS: Couldn't find any footage of that performance until just after I wrote this, so here it is. To get the full impact watch it all the way through. Let me know if you see what I found so original (it was like watching Jimmy Durante or on of those oldtime performers whose act was mostly just about letting you dig them, only in this case Butz is doing a character not himself, in fact so far from it I didn't, like I said, even recognize him.]
[PPS: He's not the guy at the beginning.]
[PPPS: Watch through the slight glitch toward the end, and notice how a lot of the camerawork is terrible for a full chorus dance number, which still doesn't take away from the performance, that alone says a lot.]
[AND A BELATED PPPPS: In case I didn't make it clear, Butz won a Tony for CATCH ME IF YOU CAN, but in the news coverage and summaries of the Tonys award show the next day, neither his Tony win nor his amazing performance in the show as illustrated in the video below were mentioned, though the winners from the big hit shows and/or those famous from TV and Movies were mentioned.]