The real power of art

I gotta give Duke credit.… The school knows how to deal with the unfortunate half of their “liberal arts” moniker: Fake it till you make it. Since there’s no legitimate interest in the arts on campus, the school will keep pretending like there is until it exists. Case in point: Froshlife. Duke drops a scholarship’s-worth of cash on this red carpet contest for freshmen, but only like five out of 13 dorks ... er dorms, even submit videos. You can tell Duke really cares about this struggling event by how much they bribe students to come. Jazz at the Mary Lou does alright on their own, so they can bribe attendees with just sliced vegetables; the Nasher’s got it a little harder, so they gotta give out free desserts. But how desperate does Froshlife gotta be that they’re handing out freaking iPod touches?!

More people come by my room every week to watch “Pretty Little Liars” than go see the Froshlife films, but Duke doesn’t give up on those wannabe-Spielbergs, and that sets an important example for us students.

The school understands the importance of feigning artistic sophistication, and they’re just waiting for us to catch up. That’s why my intro to film class isn’t categorized under film, it’s part of a department Duke calls “Arts of the Moving Image.” My heart filled with joy when I typed that on my resume, because I knew I could finally delete the header that says, “I AM NOT A PHILISTINE!” (Employers eat up caps lock, BTW.)

The school requires you take those two ALP credits because they want to give you a break from all those classes that have useful information; but they also want you taking two ALPs so you’re equipped to prove you’re better than all the other blood-sucking-vampire squids at i-banker parties, “Picasso was just a touch self-indulgent with ‘Guernica,’ don’t you think?” Lines like that only come from men dripping in sophistication.

Sure, I hate going to plays as much as the next guy. Why go to the theater when I can watch way hotter people do their thing way better on TV (or TV’s filthy felinophile little brother: the Internet)? For the same reason, I can’t stand shows by the Pitchforks (I’d rather choke myself); DefMo dance-offs (if I wanna drop a stupid amount of FLEX on gettin’ served, I’ll go to the WaDuke); or Sabrosura showcases (I’d rather watch the Pitchforks while choking myself). Hoof ‘n Horn puts out a good effort, but they suffer from a logistical oversight (namely that musicals suck); and DUI shows are like watching an episode of “Whose Line is it Anyway?” where Drew Carey gets to play in every game.

But I still go to all these group’s shows, and you know why? I attend for the exact same reason as every other member of the audience: it makes me seem cultured. Some Duke students put a lot of value in seeming interesting; they’ll skip a Friday night pregame to go to a Robert Glasper concert (so they can tell everyone at Devine’s how interesting they are when they show up at 1:30 a.m.). And a few truly hardcore souls even have enough commitment to pretend they enjoy listening to Youth Lagoon or reading novels. (For anyone interested in feeding the animals, these diehards are currently on display at the Duke Coffeehouse.)

Despite these outliers, most Duke students still don’t know that the secret to seeming interesting is attending arts performances (so that you can criticize the performers). All it takes is a walk down the Plaza to see how desperate performance groups are to find audiences. On a sunny day, the tablers are lined up plugging their boring shows with every pathetic weapon in their arsenal: baiting you with bowls of candy, playing irrelevant music through MacBook speakers and yelling the same trying-to-be-funny pitch every 12 seconds whether there are new listeners present or not. “Speakonomics is the only a capella show that’s good for the speakonomy?!” Great! But how bout you give me a minute to enjoy my Loop burger in silence.

So go out and support your favorite local artists. Do it so we can all enjoy some peace on the Plaza again. (Maybe then it’ll deserve that self-referencing ad campaign that’s strewn across all its lamp posts.) There will always be someone more interesting than you (unless you sponsor a Mexican beer), but you can still improve your interesting ranking if you put on your non-prescription glasses and go to a couple end of the year showcases this Spring.