As the world’s leading economies hobble along under the weight of capitalist excess and debt, and as families are compelled to cut back and superintend shrinking resources, their frustrations have found a familiar, perennial target of public economic anxiety: the so-called welfare queen or king. Demonized and devalued in discourses of societal economic and social anxiety, the welfare queen of popular economic lore is the unemployed citizen who takes from the pot without putting into it, the freeloading member of society who contributes nothing but shares in what others produce. Such narratives may soothe the anger of hard working citizens, especially in periods of economic drought, but how true is the foundational assumption that the welfare queen contributes nothing to society? It may be true that she produces no monetized value through disciplined, measured work. But that is just one form of value.
If one understands the economy to be an organism with many nodes needing to be animated, it is possible to perceive the welfare queen radically differently. Not as a leech but as one whose consumption, conspicuous and otherwise, helps sustain the capitalist machine that enables proud workaholics like us to remain employed and to continue to produce value. Under this scenario, we could rethink the welfare queen as an entity paid by the system to sustain the system through her consumption. For her weekly or monthly stipends are swallowed up by Wallmart, Kroger, and other behemoths of capitalist consumerism, helping to recharge the batteries of the entire economy by adding to what esoteric economists call aggregate demand.
Capitalism would be dead without the regenerative power of consumption, without the productive – yes, productive – input of laziness and mediocrity. Society stigmatizes badness but depends on it. Capitalists rail against laziness and mediocrity but thrive on them. That’s the supreme irony of our world.
As a Nigerian who is infinitely proud of the ingenuity and creative improvisation that are at the heart of Nollywood, Nigeria’s thriving home-video industry, I was an unsparing critic of the industry’s artistic integrity. I knocked its stories, plotlines, dialogues, acting, and the technical quality of its films. Then I had a conversation about Nollywood with my friend, Farooq Kperogi, a professor of Communications and Citizen Media at Kennesaw State University. He shared my basic critique of the Nollywood but cautioned me against dismissing the industry on account of its many “levels of badness.” He had talked to a film scholar who is sympathetic to Nollywood and celebrates its genius. The scholar had asked Farooq if he had given a thought to the possibility that the popularity of Nollywood was derived precisely from its indisputable badness. His theory congealed to a single poignant question: what if the badness of Nollywood is its selling point?
Farooq proceeded to tell the story of a Westerner who, motivated by haughty notions of artistic messianism, set out to save Nollywood and to help the industry realize its potential which he thought was being hampered by the technical deficiencies of its productions. His philosophy was simple if naïve: If one preserved the cultural appeal of Nollywood storylines and combined this with sophisticated, expensive production, Nollywood would explode to a different stratosphere of success.
Our Western artistic do-gooder set out to make a film along those lines. He used a Nollywood script and a typical Nollywood story line but tweaked it for suspense and complexity. He then shot the film on celluloid and subjected it to sophisticated Hollywood editing and post production. When he was done he screened the movie for free in select Nigerian theatres. Very few Nigerians showed up despite an aggressive publicity campaign. The movie was a commercial disaster. Nigerians found the movie too sophisticated for their aesthetic palates. Its story was not relatable and was riddled with twists and suspense that Nigerian viewers found confusing. His theories of Nollywood deficiencies thoroughly confounded, our Western artistic savior packed up and sauntered away.
It’s not only in Nigeria that the sophisticated and esoteric are shunned for the simple and digestible. Parallels exist everywhere, including in the United States where I live – where Hollywood is both devoured and criticized for its effete distance from the simplicity of everyday aesthetic. So ubiquitous is the counter-culture of folk aesthetic that it was immortalized in an episode of Seinfeld, that sitcom of all sitcoms. In season 9, episode 1, Jerry, a stand-up comic played by Jerry Seinfeld discovers that his good friend, George (Jason Alexander), may be a secret fan of the act of his comedic rival, Kenny Bania.
Jerry’s “sophisticated” act has been no match on the stand-up circuit for the relatable simplicity and penetrating silliness of his rival’s jokes. The popularity of Bania’s act is inexplicable to Jerry, who regards his jokes as inane, obvious copouts. When George seems to relate to one of Bania’s jokes, Jerry pounces inquisitively to confirm his suspicion, asking, “You think that’s funny?” Under pressure, George embraces his love of simple, unsophisticated humor, retorting with what has become one of the most memorable lines ever delivered in a sitcom: “I don’t know, I like stuff you don’t have to think about too much.”
Nigerian cinematic consumers are like George. They like stuff they don’t have to think too much about. They prefer to have their motion picture entertainment delivered to them in simple, accessible packages. Similar tastes abound in the centers of sophisticated art in the West, explaining the bewildering popularity of folk art, street music, and other unrefined artistic productions deemed too mediocre and too obvious in communication to be admitted into the high canons of their genres.
The Nollywood story got me thinking. Here is a home video industry that is as crude as its stories are amateurish. Here is an industry that thrives on technical mediocrity. Yet thrive it has. Mediocrity apparently has an audience. Badness must have its appeal. Crudity can be a virtue. Nollywood has shrewdly and profitably catered to the appetite of Nigerians for mediocrity. Perhaps not everything has to be sophisticated and technically sound. Just as not everyone has to be an overachieving workaholic.
If artistic mediocrity is entertaining, so is the mediocrity and laziness of bums and slobs. We hard working members of society entertain ourselves with slobs and couch potatoes. The figure of the “loser” is perhaps the most popular figure of entertainment and mockery in American popular culture. We laugh at their social awkwardness and their failures. Whole television shows are built around the “loser” and countless movie scripts are inspired by him.
Moses,
I loved your analysis and enjoyed contemplating the importance of mediocrity. It reminded me of the American Senator, Roman Hruska, who once defended a Nixon Supreme Court appointment by arguing that even if he were mediocre, that there are a lot of mediocre people, and that they were entitled to representation on the Court as well! (The nominee did not get confirmed.)
In truth, the real reason I work so hard is so my three daughters can consume. Our family has the proper capitalist balance – I work, they shop.
Thanks for brightening my day.
Tom
“Capitalism is supposedly about working and producing but it depends for its survival on a non-productive activity that requires little or no work: consumption. Consumption is not a capitalist activity.”
Thanks for the exciting essay that reminded me of Bertrand Russell’s “In Praise of Idleness,” in which he, like you, pummels the exaggerated status of work. His idleness is, however, supposed to be creative; one that helps us recover our humanity. I have always thought that consumption was as capitalist as production is. The basic law of demand and supply would support my thinking in this regard. Consumption is, however, not entirely to be equated with “little or no work.” Your students consume your lecture – and they are not exactly welfare kings and queens. I consumed your essay, and I reply, hoping that you will produce more. One needs to make qualitative differences between consumptions. On another note, you give badness a negative value (I think this is a term in physics, which I cannot explain). However I allow myself the freedom to have it mean that something is important for what it is not or what it doesn’t do, or what its absence brings to light. Following your logic, darkness is important because it allows us to perceive light; dirt is important because it allows us to perceive cleanliness. Yet, how much should we take negative value seriously? Who the heck needs darkness or lazy people for that matter? If crudity paid off in the Nigerian film industry, it might be because the crude or hurriedly made films have found an unsophisticated audience that just happily raves about mediocrity. That doesn’t raise the crudity of the films to a position of value.
I would offer a comment, but can’t seem to muster the effort.