Essay 31 (Lack of support for Art)

Question

Professional sports involve large sums of money and receives enormous media coverage. Meanwhile serious culture, including music, art and theatre, is badly neglected. This is making our society shallower. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Answer

Due to the enormous popularity that sport enjoys it receives great financial support and media publicity, while sponsorship to serious cultural activities is seriously on the decline.  This essay examines whether this trend reflects a superficial attitude of the society.

On the one hand, the declining financial as well as media support for music, art and theatre is often interpreted as society’s indifference towards serious cultural activities.  It seems that very few people today have the willingness or time to enjoy such arts, which would require a deeper aesthetic sense.  In contrast, the society spends a great deal of time and effort to watch sports, which provides instant entertainment and emotional satisfaction.  For instance, in many societies it is difficult to get audiences for classical music concerts or theatre, whereas football and cricket stadium are usually crowded with cheering spectators.  Consequently, organisers of such events fail to get media support and financial sponsorship.  Such attitude of modern society towards serious cultural activities forces many people consider it a ‘shallow society’.

On the other hand, there are others who believe that today’s society cannot be labelled superficial in it attitude, because of its unenthusiastic approach towards serious cultural activities.  The excess economic and press support that sports receive is due to its universal popularity as a means of entertainment.  Moreover, people today need rest from their stress-filled life and sports provide such relaxation and help them to ease their tensions.  Art or music cannot expect such back up from the government or corporate world, because people generally spend much less time to enjoy such activates.  For example, people may go for a theatre performance or similar shows only a few times a year, but and this has not reduced their appreciation of such serious cultural events.  A society’s depth of character should not be judged only on the basis of the amount of support that the cultural activities receive.

Overall, although today serious culture does not receive as much media attention or money as sport, the society cannot be considered shallow in it approach.