THE next time you’re driving (or stuck in traffic) on our gorgeous highways, take a good look at the number of “international artiste product ambassadors” plying their trade on the billboards (legal and illegal).

It’s not easy being creative and an artiste in Malaysia. “Creativity” is often misconstrued as something exclusively related to the arts and art-making in this materialistic, consumerist, neoliberal world (as these billboards attest to). Creativity takes on many undesirable forms outside the arts (well, not all art is desirable) that are linked to negative activities often involving conning, scamming, scheming, even backstabbing.

These are actions that no artiste with their idealism intact would want to partake in. Unfortunately, the world is not an ideal place.

But let’s get back to being an artiste.

Policy-wise, the creative arts are (or were, since we have a new captain and crew) not in tandem with matters of greater national “importance” (health, finance and national security, to name a few). The arts are probably the lowest priority, given the events that have transpired locally and globally. To give some perspective, even policies that are foolproof on paper, and borne of long nights and intense discussions among experts and stakeholders, mean nothing if implementation, monitoring and continuity are not carried through.

This duty of carrying through tends to be a political one, executed by professionals in the “industry” of politics, namely politicians. Politicians get awesome media coverage, and they have money (unlike artistes). On paper, politicians serve “the people”, their constituents. When the time comes, they canvass, they plead, they proselytise by any means possible, coercively (through a barrage of propaganda, campaigning, and analogue and digital media overload) and consensually (through personal charm, character profile, proximity of beliefs and party allegiances) battling for the largest slice of the constituent pie. It’s essentially a theatre, a spectacle, to preach to the converted and make a case to those who haven’t.

Artistes who are part of the status quo and enjoy the spoils of their work get in line and stay obedient and mute, like most “international artistes”. Wait, doesn’t that sound like a politician?

Now, policy is not something most artistes take much interest in (an issue I will address in the future), but politicians are creative when it comes to putting on a show as if they care. They are creative in their actions, but artistically, they are dilettantes. I’m generalising (there are politicians who indeed genuinely care), but my assumptions are based on what we see and hear in the popular mass media – it’s always the crooks, the criminals, the masterminds, the gruesome, the angry. In the creative arts, we get the opposite – it’s always the beautiful, the glamorous, the wealthy, the pleasing, the pleased. The media has been called the “opiate of the masses” for this exact reason. It lulls us, makes us complacent when we should be driven, leaves us pleasured.

The creative arts have been reduced to being merely a source of entertainment. To entertain means to please, to sell, seeking approval, appealing to the lowest common denominator… very much like politics. Important introductory skills that equip you for a life in politics, or as a product ambassador.

To fellow artistes still going strong with some semblance of idealism, it’s not going to be easy, but we know that already. We’re in the business of turning grit into gold.

Speak up. Entertain later. – March 6, 2020.

* Azmyl Yunor is a touring underground recording artiste, and an academic in media and cultural studies. He has published articles on pop culture, subcultures and Malaysian cultural politics. He adheres to the three-chords-and-the-truth school of songwriting, and Woody Guthrie’s maxim “All you can write is what you see”. He is @azmyl on Twitter.

* This is the opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insight. Article may be edited for brevity and clarity.