Books are superior to CDs. Paintings are better than sculpture. Slam poetry is better than shadow puppetry. Flash photography is better than mandalas. Novels are better than tango. Video games are better than graphic novels. Theatre is better than choir. Musicals are better than weird YouTube videos you only find at 4 AM.

[–] ConcreteHalloween@hexbear.net 1 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Arguing that one form of art is inherently superior to another seems silly to me.

This is what a lot of AI Art Bros say to justify their hentai slop machines

[–] BanMeFromPosting@hexbear.net 2 points 8 hours ago

"Hitler was a vegetarian"-tier argument

[–] jackmaoist@hexbear.net 3 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

Yeah but Ballets are a very niche rich people thing that requires far more abuse towards minors than movies. Not like movies are good either.

[–] Muinteoir_Saoirse@hexbear.net 7 points 9 hours ago

Ballets are a very niche rich people thing

This isn't inherently true for all of ballet, that's just the cultural imprint ballet currently has in the mainstream.

I love going to the ballet, only discovered that about myself a few years ago after coming out. My friend is a ballet teacher at a local dance school, where the kids are having fun, not being treated like trash, and it costs a fraction as much for them to go to ballet school than for a kid to join hockey.

The theatre we have is a historic building, beautiful theatre, amazing ballets come here. And the tickets are dirt cheap. They usually give out free tickets to all the local nonprofits that work with critical neighbourhoods and underserved communities to hand out to people. Newcomers/migrants make up a large amount of the audience whenever my wife and I go.

When a new show comes there are also often a lot of kids--dance is super popular here.

The rich people here couldn't give a fuck about ballet for the most part. It doesn't actually have that type of cachet anymore. Only dedicated dancers and fans of dance go to these performances.

[–] BanMeFromPosting@hexbear.net 5 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

Ballet has influence in a lot of places when you start looking for it. The steps and theory and all that form the basis for a wide variety of dance and choreography. That's not what you were talking about though, so it's kind of a dirty trick of me to bring it up. It felt relevant to the conversation, but I'm honestly just being scatterbrained.

It's only niche in its "purest" form, but if one starts to look for it ballet can be observed in a lot of places, where a great deal of people enjoy it. I know that's a bit of a copout, but I think it's necessary to point out. I generally mean the principles and teachings having wide-ranging influence - Basically most physical theatre and acting has its foundation in ballet, but there's also just stuff like actual ballet occurring and people enjoying it - For example Mads Mikkelsens dance in Another Round^[This became wayy too ADHD punctuated. Forgive me.]

That it's niche is no reason to look down on it, half the users on hexbear are members of some musical scene that has an audience of 7 people and a deaf dog.
It's a rich people thing because tickets are expensive. Storytelling through dance is pretty popular, when it's presented in the right framework. Theatre is generally a rich people / old people thing, but that doesn't make it inherently bad. It's just a result of the world we live in sadly. Shakesspeare was for the proles originally.

The only thing I agree that sucks about ballet is the insane culture the dancers are subjected to. But if I let that have any significance I couldn't enjoy any weinstein movie, like you alluded to. That shit really sucks though. Fucking hate it. Wish it stopped. There really needs to be a fundamental reshaping of the cultural institutions in the west - if not the world.