HUSSEIN AND THE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION

Years ago I saw a public service television spot dealing with the subject of censorship, starring Sir Anthony Hopkins as the censor.

The film went something like this: it opens with a lone ballerina on stage doing her thing. Then Hopkins enters the auditorium, observes her for a while, and begins restricting her movements till she is barely able to dance.

The point is made: art can’t flourish in the straitjacket of censorship. It can yield fruit only in the greenhouse of freedom, where the imagination is nurtured to embark on flights of fancy without fear of being censured.

But this brings us to another argument: in a secular and democratic state, which guarantees a whole range of individual freedoms (including the freedom of expression), just how far should artists go – and by “artists” I mean painters, writers, film directors, et al. Where is that line, which separates great art from kitsch or worse? Should such a line exist in the first place? And, if it needs drawing, who has the right to draw it? The clergy? The Chief Justice? The artists themselves? Or should a plebiscite decide guidelines?

In a free state, as ours purports to be, anything goes as long as it is not criminal and does not offend anyone’s sensibilities or religious beliefs. But here again we tread murky waters because some viewers might take offense at their sacred icons and deities being treated in a less-than-respectful manner by artists, while others might decide to adopt a more liberal, live-and-let-live attitude. In fact, it is precisely because art, by its very nature, is so subjective that pornography continues to flourish as a legally acceptable art-form in many free states across the world (with the exception of child pornography, which involves the sexual abuse of minors).

It is the contention of this writer that artists, given their freedoms, shouldn’t insult the very societies and communities that guarantee them such freedoms. Rushdie, being the intelligent writer he is, should have known better than to venture into Islamic territory; Hussein, being the infinitely imaginative painter he is, could easily have skirted religious subjects – or at least have treated them with greater sensitivity; and film directors who wish to explore the subject of Catholic priests breaking their vows of celibacy should know they’re getting into an area that requires a good deal of empathy and an insight into the psychological turmoils such priests face in the course of their ministry.

Art is a medium of expression. A vehicle that transports an artist’s ideas to his audience. Open societies offer it the freeway of freedom, but there is one caveat every artist should heed:

Drive responsibly.

IS TECHNOLOGY TYRANNICAL?

In his landmark work “The Air-conditioned Nightmare”, Henry Miller trashes the American dream – with the title of his book alluding to the dark side of the technology moon that shines on all of us.

The question we need to address here is, When does technology cross the line from being beneficial to being a menace? Or, to broaden the scope of this discussion, When does “progress” stop making life easy and, ironically, begin exerting subtle (and not too subtle) pressures upon us?

On the face of it, the baubles and conveniences of our high-tech era do seem to make life a breeze. But are things really – I mean, really - improving? Could we for a moment get off the wild roller coaster of materialism and, with objective calm, consider whether the mobile phone and others of its ilk are not turning us into a generation of techno-slaves – wired to dance to their polyphonic tunes.

For starters, let’s talk cellphones.

In those lazy, hazy, not-so-crazy days of yesteryear, we fielded and sent calls only if we happened to be near a landline. If we were travelling and someone called, the caller would simply hang up in resignation and try again some other time; and we would travel in peace, without having to hold a telephonic conversation against the ambient din of traffic. If it was an emergency call we missed – well, mankind has handled emergencies since the dawn of history (for better or worse), and we still managed to make it to the Industrial Revolution, didn’t we?

Sure, a cellphone makes you better connected. But it’s like being a puppet with more strings attached and more people pulling them. Not to mention the fact of all those invisible microwaves inexorably turning your brain to mush – and those bills with their late-payment dates adding to our urban angst! So, let’s move on past Nokia and Co. and into Billy Wonka’s (read Gates) amazing software factory, shall we?

This self-made billionaire’s vision is that of the paperless office; the near-silent, clutter-free realm of pushbutton efficiency where there’s no sweat under anyone’s collar because computers are taking care of mundane chores leaving us humans free to take flights of fancy on the wings of imagination.

But look around you. There is as much useless paper floating around as there was before Windows 95 opened. By nature, we humans are environmentally wasteful. Today, because computers make it so easy to write – and re-write – we are careless. We continue to produce rubbish – only faster – and the bins overflow with our intellectual detritus: badly written reports, flawed spreadsheets, incomprehensible treatises, unintelligible letters, ad nauseum.

But there is more. The irony of it all is that computers, far from freeing us, have actually enslaved us. We are subject to their whims. Susceptible to paralysis (caused by their viruses). And totally dependent on the nerdy minority who understand the language of this Machiavellian machine should we find ourselves held hostage by an errant program.

One can have a respite from the tyrannies of technology, of course. You could keep the cellphone switched off for a day and re-experience that “wonderful lightness of being”. You could keep the computer off, too. You could stop interacting with pseudonyms in cyberspace and spend quality time with real flesh-and-bone friends in a real coffee shop.

But Hell awaits, and you have to come back!

GOSPEL NOTES

“To me gospel means good news and it don’t matter if you preach it or sing it, as long as it’s for God.” – Thomas Dorsey

Like most art forms, music is evolutionary. In order to understand what it is now, we must try to understand what it was then. And to view gospel music from a proper perspective we have to fetch back to the past and work our way up, through music’s permutations and combinations, tracing its history and development. Only then will we be in a position to fully appreciate gospel as it stands in the variegated musical milieu.

Gospel is a kind of black music, which combines the elements of Protestant hymn harmony with the rhythm and soulful nuances of Negro blues. Soon after it had got through its teething troubles it delivered its own secular progeny, rhythm ‘n blues, the offspring of which was soul, an ebullient, earthy idiom which gained ascendancy thanks to the efforts of such talents as Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Little Richard, Otis Redding and Tom Jones.

But let us begin at the very beginning. Let us go back in time to the period when jazz was an infantile medium, a development of the music the black slaves brought with them from Africa. The earliest form of jazz was known as ragtime and its chief exponent was Scott Joplin (1868-1917). Then emerged another jazz style, the classic blues, performed by such entertainers as ‘Ma’ Rainey on the music hall and tent show circuit. During this period, prior to the outbreak of World War I, New Orleans was not the only city in the United States of America where jazz could be heard, but it certainly stood in the forefront with 30 bands and a population of over 89,000 blacks.

In the 1930s, jazz sank into the Great Depression, but it returned with a vengeance in 1935 – louder, brassier, more buoyant than ever before. Remember Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington? The new form was called swing. It was ‘composed’ and ‘arranged’ and left little room for improvisation, the hallmark of true-blue black music. As if to counter this development, black musicians produced bop and the new art form evolved with traditional blues. Together, they expressed the ‘black voice’ and differed from jazz in that they allowed for greater extemporizing in both instrumentation and vocalizing. Traditional blues split into folk blues and country blues, the music blacks took with them when they ventured into metropolises in search of jobs. It soon developed muscle and punch, evolving into rhythm ‘n blues. With the advent of Aretha Franklin and Co., R&B shifted into high gear. It had the relentless force of a pile driver. It was characterized by chunky percussion and vocal gymnastics. It was billed as soul.

About sixty-two years ago, an itinerant blues pianist by the name of Thomas Dorsey got an idea, which would ultimately transform church music. Disenchanted with the spirituals being performed in churches he visited, he began composing his own music, which blended traditional Baptist lyrics with the inimitable accent of blues. The hybrid was christened gospel.

Gospel stressed personalized treatment. And with greats like Sam Cooke, Clara Ward, James Cleveland, Roberta Martin and Mahalia Jackson, it proved to be a sensation as much among church congregations as amongst night clubbers. Many of the finest gospel singers took to soul as the latter became representative of ‘50s black power. But gospel nevertheless permeates soul classics such as Ray Charles’ “Georgia on My Mind”.

Barely a decade after Dorsey’s invention, gospel replaced spirituals as the main liturgical music of black churches in America. Today, amidst the bombast and chaos of acid rock and the cloying, seductive decadence of disco, it holds it own. In fact, gospel is a major industry and discipline and albums by Andrae Crouch and James Cleveland are ranked with best-selling pop, rock and classical recordings by Billboard magazine.

But let’s return to Thomas Dorsey, the man who got the ball rolling. At age 17, he headed for Chicago and employment. The city in 1916 was humming with talent. It was just the place for a man like Dorsey whose creative energy was badly in need of an outlet. Being adept at reading and writing music (something few blues musicians could do at the time) he was able to build a reputation for himself as a prolific composer. He wrote lead sheets for up-front recording artistes and between 1922 and 1927 he traveled the blues circuit with Ma Rainey, writing music, arranging songs, and even performing on the piano. With Tampa Red, another singer, he really went places.

In 1926 Dorsey wrote ‘If you see my savior’, his first gospel hit. Then, in 1931, he heard someone sing ‘I do, don’t you?’ at a Baptist convention and he was bowled over. He already had quite a pile of gospel music with him and he determined to use it. But in the beginning he had little luck. Black ministers rejected his music on the ground that it was unsuitable for the church. That didn’t faze Dorsey and he got Sally Martin to perform his songs for anyone who was willing to give him a listen. The music was infectious and became the rage of the town – so much so that preachers began worrying about losing their audiences. They tried to fob Dorsey off with ‘You can’t sing no gospel here. You can only preach the gospel.’ But Dorsey forged ahead and by the mid ‘30s his music was sweeping over the country. When he signed up Mahalia Jackson in 1939 to sing his songs, his song sheets were as common a sight in black homes as the Bible.

On an August night in 1932 Dorsey lost his wife in childbirth and his newborn, too. Grief played a major role in helping to produce what was to become one of the most famous gospel classics of all time: ‘Precious Lord’. Feeling like a wreck a couple of weeks after the tragedy, Dorsey went to a musician’s place with his singer friend Theodore Frye. As he was aimlessly toying with the piano keys, he felt a sudden flash of inspiration and began playing ‘Precious Lord’, the music simply flowing from his fingers, the words spilling magically from his lips. That Sunday, the song was performed at the morning service and it ‘tore up the church’ – to put it in Dorsey’s own words. ‘Precious Lord’ has been translated into more than 35 languages. Leontyne Price sang it at Lyndon Johnson’s funeral and Martin Luther King requested to hear it before he succumbed to his assassin’s bullet.

We’ve heard Precious Lord often enough. We’ve sung it, too. And although we may not be able to render it Dorsey’s way, the least we can do is reflect…

First appeared in: The Examiner, July 21, 1984

WORDS WITH AN EDGE

In these less civil days, matters are settled on the floor of the House in a manner that is as expedient as it is primitive.

Someone hurls an invective at someone else - or, more often that not, a paperweight, a brick, or even a chair. The projectile, launched with extreme malice and not necessarily very keen aim, hurtles across space before it impacts on the nation’s collective consciousness. Anarchy ensues, as the business of government degenerates into low-brow street theatre.

Gone are the days, when the verbal jousting of parliamentary opponents and men of letters was distinguished enough to become the focus of coffee-table discussions - and even take residence in folklore. The silver-tongued, articulately fencing with one another, had once invested public debate with a certain intellectual gravitas. With their endearing eloquence - their quick-wittidness - they had created an art form all their own, and made mythic heroes of themselves in the bargain.

Without recourse to a book of quotations, one might find it difficult to remember who said what to whom. As anecdotes have been passed down through the years from person to person, the `victor’ in each encounter has been changed by the narrator of the tale - depending on the latter’s political leanings or personal loyalties. However, there was never any doubt who the antagonists were. It was always Disraeli versus Gladstone, Churchill versus Shaw, Liberal versus Conservative, Democrat versus Republican.

One might suspect facile charm (especially when demonstrated by a politician), but one cannot help admiring anybody with a genius for repartee. A quick retort, a canny observation - seemingly made off-the-cuff - can magically transform even a confirmed scoundrel into Everyman’s Hero. It can lighten the air, rescue somebody from the embarrassment of a faux pas, or simply break the ice.

Someone said that wit is the first refuge of a scoundrel. Since politics has more charlatans per square foot than any other field, it is not surprising that it also boasts some of the greatest wits the world has ever seen - although, to be fair, not all of them are indurate rascals.

Here’s a real gem: new in politics, Disraeli was campaigning for the Conservatives in a certain Middlesex borough - personally soliciting the vote from an affluent, but policitally ambivalent farmer.

`Vote for you!’ the man of the soil shouted when the future prime minister made clear the reason for his visit. `Why, I’d vote for the Devil sooner!’

‘Oh, quite so!’ said Mr Disraeli, `but in the event of your friend not standing, may I hope for your interest?’

Naturally, the farmer was left speechless, as perhaps was a certain young lady who tried to score a point with Winston Churchill at a time when he had left the Conservatives for the Liberal side (thus offending some of his contemporaries).

Couching her criticism in coquettish charm, she said: `There are two things I don’t like about you, Mr Churchill. Your new politics and your moustache.’

To which the redoubtable man coldly replied: `My dear Madam, you are not likely to come into much contact with either!’

On another occasion - in another hemisphere - a press reporter asked former Australian Prime Minister Menzies during his swearing-in whether he would be controlled by `powerful interests’, when choosing his cabinet.

The prime minister was quick with a reply: `Young man,’ he snapped, `keep my wife’s name out of this!’

While speechifying, political smart alecs have had to contend with hecklers firing verbal salvos under camouflage of an audience, with the intention of sabotaging the party. Veteran public speakers, primed for such disruptions, have managed to demonstrate the art of the riposte and thus save face. But not all of them have been successful.

Theotore Roosevelt, a particularly dangerous man to engage in a contest of wits, was once interrupted by an inebrited heckler who shouted `I am a Democrat’ while Roosevelt was holding forth on the merits of the Republican ideal.

Pausing in his speech and smiling indulgently, he leaned towards the drunk and coolly asked why the latter was a Democrat.

`My grandfather was a Democrat, my father was a Democrat, and I am a Democrat,’ the man answered.

Roosevelt said: `My friend, suppose your grandfather had been a jackass, and your father had been a jackass, what would you be?’

Instantly came the triumphant reply: `A Republican!’

It might have been one of the few occasions when Roosevelt’s apple cart was overturned, but hard-core public speakers have, more often than not, proved to be heckler-proof.

Henry Ward Beecher, whilst speechifying, was interrupted by a drunk who crowed like a rooster. Unlike Roosevelt, Beecher sailed through the turbulence with absolute elan. Unflappable as ever, he consulted his watch and exclaimed: `What! Morning already? I would never have believed it, but the instincts of the lower animals are infallible!’

Former British Prime Minister Harold Wilson would, on occasion, handle heckling with such endearing amiability that the exchange between himself and his detractor would take on the homeliness of a parish get-together. A man would shout `Rubbish!’ during one of his stump speeches and he’d answer: `Sir, we will get to your area of special interest in just a moment.’

At Hyde Park, heckling seems to be the order of the day - a subcultural demonstration of the political process at work. Speakers from all walks of life hold forth on anything under the sun - literally, under the sun. And passersby gradually congregate to form an audience (many of whose members may be only vaguely interested in what the speaker of the moment has to say).

Lord Soper, the Methodist minister and Labour Party peer has been letting off steam at Hyde Park since 1926 and was felicitated with a `Happy Birthday’ chorus when he made his appearance on his 90th birthday. The auspicious occasion, however, made no difference to at least one heckler who shouted: `You old windbag, I see you’re being your pompous, arrogant self again!’

Soper was unfazed. `Oh dear,’ he said. `You are an unhappy man!’

Writing in TIME magazine, Lance Morrow defined heckling as a “kind of guerrilla warfare, a non-violent intellectual terrorism.” However, one cannot but admire heckling at its best for it is proof that the unputdownable wit need not always be a member of the cognoscenti. The art of verbal criticism requires no formal education, just a flash of spontaneity for, as a Chinese proverb has it, `in reviling, it is not necessary to prepare a preliminary draft.’

In these cynical times, when the sound of wisecracks is heard less often in the hallowed corridors of power, when wit seems to be on the wane, one can only reminisce about a time when public debate and criticism had the unapologetic razz m’tazz of a travelling show - and everyone was a player.

THE NEED OF THE HOUR

Sometime in the not-too-distant future, the Pooh-Bahs of the Indian ad community might congregate at Stonehenge (or some other hoary venue), lift their eyes and arms heavenward like supplicant priests, and demand an infusion of fresh creative talent – especially, copywriters – from the powers that be.

Before a storm of outrage erupts, a little clarification is in order: one doesn’t wish to cast aspersions on the industry’s extant writers. But burnout is a dark, haunting inevitability, and we need to do something to ensure that there’s always talent available when senior thinkers decide to log out from their word processors once and for all and pursue the comparatively undemanding task of mushroom farming.

As things stand, new writers are as difficult to find as Coke in a Pepsi dispenser – the reason being that awareness levels outside the profession, as far as copywriting is concerned, are below zero. Most non-ad people don’t know diddly-squat about the discipline. To some, copywriting is a sort of commercialized calligraphy. Others think it’s a quasi-legal activity. And there are those (the actual writer-applicants) who have it only half right when they imagine that it’s an easy way to make a bundle. Not surprisingly, the field attracts youngsters who often don’t have even the rudimentary skills required for copywriting.

This writer has interviewed all types, from jaded PhDs in philosophy to IIT dropouts, most of whom think copywriting is a cute way to make a fast buck and acquire celebrity status in the bargain. Most of the interviewees couldn’t produce even 200 words of narrative prose without making grammatical errors that would give an Oxford don an apoplectic fit. This writer is not suggesting that one must be fastidious at the risk of sounding pedantic to the average prospect. But if your solecism is big enough to be noticed by your reader, then you lose his respect – and the business of selling becomes a Herculean task (depending on how charitably inclined your reader is).

Of course, one also comes across very promising writers, but rather than leaving things to chance, it would make sound business sense to invest in developing this writing skill.

For starters, ad agencies could make the training and development of creative writers a matter of corporate policy. As for art, one needn’t fear bankruptcy of talent since there are a few hallowed institutions that together disgorge about 300 students annually. Artists might be good, bad or indifferent. But at least they’ve done a workout in an established institute, and have a degree to show for it.

Fresh-out-of-college writers, by comparison, don’t wield relevant qualifications. These greenhorns may rely on wits and words, enrol for a copywriting course, or gain entry to an agency that has a creative development programme in place.

The Advertising Agencies Association of India (3 A’s of I) has been conducting entry-level training for executives, visualizers and copywriters since the early 1980s, and has been the only one of its kind for the last 15 years. The emphasis, not limited to theoretics, has been on grooming a few good men and women rather than produce hordes of prosaic professionals. Once selected, the students are given a “3 A’s of I copywriting manual” (a compilation of guidelines culled from the works of Ogilvy, Hopkins and the like).

Watching these youngsters sift through market research data, arrive at positioning statements, work out brand images, set forth creative strategy blueprints, construct media plans and design campaigns, one is reminded of the kinetically-charged atmosphere of a creative hothouse. After an agency-style presentation to a marketing head, questions fielded and ideas exchanged, the students are graded and awarded. Finally, they are advised on suitable jobs.

Although many believe that the 3As Workshop is the place for would-be professionals, others insist that the best way to learn is on the job. And while many agencies are willing to sign on copy cubs and train them, such “training” mostly remains nothing but a platitude on the corporate manifesto.

Contract is one of the few agencies that has a training programme for freshers, which Larry Grant oversees in the capacity of director for training and projects. Called “windows” and “windows-creative” (nothing to do with computer software), it got rolling five years back. Once the freshers whet their appetites by reading celebrated tomes on the business, the training programme moves into overdrive, with every aspect of advertising and its myriad sub-disciplines discussed threadbare. Some sessions are devoted exclusively to product branding, where the tried-and-proven JWT’s “Thompson total branding” approach is applied. Perspectives on specialized areas such as production of radio spots and commercials are offered. Windows serves as a “mini MBA in advertising” (to use Grant’s description), and ensures that the agency always has the requisite talent on hand. Of the thousands of applications that come in, some 20 are selected, and those who survive the regimen are placed within the agency. There are no contractual obligations whatsoever. While a few professionals leave immediately, the majority feel they owe allegiance to the agency and stay on for a considerable period of time.

Univbrands is another enterprise focused on grooming ad professionals. Billed as a “teach-by-doing university of brand building communications”, the Univbrands workshop-style approach to training was conceived in 1991 by Sumit Roy, when he served as resource planning manager, Lintas. The three types of programmes it offers: learning-by-doing workshops, teach-by-doing and customized training.

The first one is tailor-made for creatives, with lessons on how to ride the “brand building mobike”, write for TV and direct marketing, use idea generation techniques, and develop presentation skills. On-the-job training has an obvious pay-off: the job gets done and the participants learn hands-on. The Univbrands’ teach-by-doing workshop has handled with success the launch of Wall’s and Hexit, the relaunch of Breeze, annual conferences for Yardley and Coca-Cola India, and commercials for Beanstalk Computers and India Today, among others. Univbrands conducts customized training programmes for such blue-chip clients and agencies as Marico, Philips, Ammirati Puris Lintas, daCunha Associates, and Advertising Avenues. Aside from the training provided by these institutes, advertising-preparatory courses are conducted by other organizations – Mudra’s MICA is one such example. But these are focused largely on post-graduate management trainees who wish to join the dream makers.

Finally, one comes to this question: does the training for creative people balance the demand-supply equation? Considering that there are over 500 accredited agencies in the country (not counting scores of unknown nickel-and-dime ‘creative boutiques’ and hole-in-the-wall ones), one might think not. While it’s reassuring that some people are keeping the fires burning to ensure there’ll always be some hot creative people around, one cannot deny that a lot more needs to be done.

Would it be too much to hope for a kind of ‘institute of creative development’ with agency-trained professionals, an extensive curriculum and a course that culminates in an industry-recognised degree in creativity? Until that happens, the meeting at Stonehenge is still on the cards.

First appeared in: A&M, Advertising and Marketing, 16-30 Sept. 1997

Copyright © Pierre Francis
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