Roll up singers, musicians, comedians, dancers, crazy voice people, dance groups, ventriloquists, puppeteers and entertainers! Backstage needs you to make their series more interesting! And you’ll be paid in the great currency of, not euros, not rands, not even Zimbabwean dollars, but … drum roll … publicity!
Last week, the casting director for Backstage distributed an advertisement for “talented performers”, who, “schedule permitting”, will strut their “stuff” on Backstage in two-and-a-half-minute performances. This will be followed by an interview on the Ziggy Show, no doubt keenly watched by the world’s top talent scouts.
The ad goes on to say that “there is no performance fee paid as this is, in essence, free publicity for the performers”. Actually, this is, in essence, gross exploitation of artists. And artists, ever hopeful for the big payday that awaits them somewhere at the end of the nation’s rainbow, will probably be lining up for their two and a half minutes of fame that could, perhaps, win them the employment lotto.
Heaven help the talented performers who are spotted on the Backstage show and are then invited on to another show where they are also paid in free publicity, and then get spotted and invited to do yet more and more shows in exchange for free publicity. They’ll soon be standing at their local set of traffic lights with a piece of cardboard saying “Famous artist. Need to support TV series. Please help. God bless”.
To support their pursuit of free publicity on television, they’ll do better by performing on the streets with a hat inviting donations from the public. The television series will continue to attract advertising revenue. The TV bosses, film production companies and the casting director will get paid in hard currency, but the “talented performers” will receive an envelope with a payslip saying “R15 000 worth of free publicity”. And they will be expected to be additionally grateful as they wouldn’t have to render any tax to Trevor Manuel.
Then the artists will go off to their local supermarkets and buy their week’s groceries with free publicity. At the end of the month, they will pay their rent with free publicity. Their medical aid and provident fund contributions — for those who have these — will be made up of free publicity. They’ll fill up their cars or pay taxi fares with free publicity.
I wonder if there are any other industries where workers are paid in free publicity. And if those workers would accept it. Take politicians, for example. What if there was no payment for them, except free publicity for themselves or their causes, which they could then use as equity to generate income. Sort of like Jacob Zuma at the moment.
Sadly, this kind of exploitation is happening within the arts industry. Backstage — or make that Backstab — is coming soon to a small screen in your home. It is not uncommon for artists to travel the globe in various, high-income generating shows and not to be properly remunerated. They are told that they should be grateful as they are getting to places that they would not otherwise have seen.
Imagine telling that to sports-people. Or to government officials. Or businesspeople. “We are reducing your salaries, or we are not paying you competitive salaries, because of the privilege you have of travelling to other countries.” Never mind that this is integral to their work.
There’s the real world, and then there seems to be the world of the arts. There’s the first economy, the second economy and, now, the artists’ economy. Watch out then for the launch of the PSE — the Publicity Stock Exchange — where every artist will be given a million shares. And 10 lotto tickets.