2020 in retrospect: columnists review their first predictions on the impact of COVID on the arts

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Column by classical music critic Joshua Kosman (left) and film critic Mick LaSalle take stock of the effects of the pandemic on the arts. Photo: Elizabeth Hafalia and Russell Yip / The Chronicle

A year ago, as the extent of the damage created by the COVID-19 pandemic became clear, Chronicles classical music critic Joshua Kosman and film critic Mick LaSalle discussed the artistic implications: what potential the virus has did he have to leave an imprint on the cultural landscape? Could this be a game changer, or just a fleeting wrinkle?

In 2021, now that the arts have started to resurface, the time seems right to revisit these questions in hindsight.

LaSalle: So it’s been a year. It hardly feels like a year, more like a long day. We made predictions about what we thought would happen with the pandemic and the impact it would have on the arts. Not all the feedback is there at this point, but what do you think is right and wrong?

Kosman: I can’t say that I was absolutely right, which only shows that one should never accept the epidemiological predictions of an art critic with an apocalyptic temper and without scientific training.

You, on the other hand, wrote: In about a year, you will have a vaccine, and it will be just a memory, and I laughed in private. Now I want your stock tips.

LaSalle: I was right about that part, but I’m not sure I’m right about the fact that there is no lasting impact in the arts. Here’s the thing, my model was the 1918 pandemic, the thing happens, wiped out 675,000 Americans (that would be like 2 million today, adjusted for population), but not a single movie was made about it.

On the other hand, World War I had a huge impact on all the arts. But over the past year I’ve been thinking, “Wait. Perhaps what we see as the impact of WWI was largely the impact of the pandemic. “

Dear 2021, please usher in a sequel to the Roaring Twenties

A festive party scene from a debut Hollywood silent film from the early to mid-1920s Photo: Underwood Archives / Getty Images

We think of the Roaring Twenties, for example, after people let off steam after the First World War. But maybe people were really letting off steam after being terrified by the pandemic because, after all, the Spanish Flu had a lot more of an impact on peoples’ daily lives than war. If people were going to react to something, maybe that was it.

Kosman: It’s an interesting thought, and it relates to something that I observed. In my opinion, the most obvious change in the cultural landscape over the past year, especially in areas such as classical music, dance and theater, where I spend most of my time, has to do with racial and gender diversity, and a feeling that its past time to rectify our thinking and practice on these issues.

Now, it’s not immediately clear what the connection is between this momentum that has gained traction with the #MeToo movement and the anti-racism protests leading up to the George Floyd murder and a global pandemic. The causal arrow is a bit blurry.

Rather, I believe it was simply the break in activity that sparked a desire to rethink things. It created the freedom for people to look at the previous status quo and ask, OK, as we go back to normal, is this really the normal we want to go back to? Or can we use this conjuncture to create the change?

LaSalle: Maybe. But all of this was happening before the pandemic. On the contrary, I think you are talking about half of the larger truth that isolation creates radicalization. I think there are a lot of people who are on the other side of the political equation who would like to go back to another normal and create change as well. Most of them are not artists, but they will express themselves, albeit in different ways.

In any case, for me, politics is the first refuge of the talentless artist. So I’m interested in something else, which may not be completely separate from politics, but which is bigger: what is the spiritual effect of that? How do we see our lives and how does that translate into art?

Actor Aaron Wilton films on a green screen with the Zoom app as he rehearses for the play “Disbelief,” which was part of PlayGround’s Zoom Fest in 2020. Photo: Michael Short / Special to The Chronicle 2020

One thing we learned, for example, that we can’t unlearn, is how quickly a disaster can descend, that things that seemed fixed and immovable could be undone in a matter of days. It’s something that we live with now that could have an effect on the art that people do.

Kosman: One thing that at least I didn’t see coming was a shift in thinking about the artistic medium, not just about the content. In particular, the use of virtual technology, which originally seemed to be a necessary stopgap, has turned out to be a kind of artistic resource. Instead of using it as an alternative to nothing at all, creators and broadcast organizations have realized that streaming and all that goes with it is a creative medium in its own right.

There is no more concise or brilliant demonstration of this than Inside, the comedy special made for Netflix by comedian, songwriter, actor, and creative polymath Bo Burnham. It’s an hour of content songs, comics, meta-narratives about the creation of the work itself that he composed without leaving a room in his house. And this isolation is not just the vehicle, but the subject of the play; it’s an exploration of what it means to be physically stuck inside, but with the Internet as a peephole into the larger world. It’s a perfect example of what I used to call corona culture.

These Bay Area artists have spent the last year creating. Now their pandemic babies are ready to be born

LaSalle: You might be right, but I think it’s just temporary. It will take a year or more to bring all of this COVID-limited art to market, but do you think people will still be doing things like this two years from now, assuming the dreaded thing doesn’t come back?

Kosman: Maybe not systematically, but I suspect that this period in our history will be there as a historical point of reference for a long time to come. It will be like depression, or the Civil War, or the Watergate era where although it is not the overt subject, it is present in the background as a complex set of emotional reference points.

Someday in about five years, you’re going to see a movie again that is about something else, all about romance, the death of a parent, someone’s career issues, but it’s set in a world where the characters are. all quarantined and wearing masks, and everyone in the audience will have a bunch of feelings raised in one instant.

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