Culture: Demand-side vs supply-side analysis

A recent piece in The Economist prompted me to articulate my thoughts on the dynamics of culture. You can read my letter to the newspaper below.  The Economist lamented the grade inflation in today’s book reviews, compared with a prewar golden age when critics gleefully employed sharper pens.  Today, says the newspaper, book reviews are quite vanilla.

My letter suggests a general argument about supply- vs demand-driven culture, and how changes in style and focus of reviews could help determine when demand-driven culture had given way to supply-dominated culture.

It is probably straightforward enough to put the argument to a rigorous empirical test.  This exercise will have to wait but I offer here a few additional thoughts.

A recent Economist piece covered the two recent Hollywood blockbusters “Barbie” and “Oppenheimer,” exhibiting no qualms about moving from one film to the other within the same article.  The film and television industry/culture is demand-driven, and writing on film and television reflects that nature.

The Economist and Harry Potter

As far as I can tell The Economist did not review any of the seven books in the immensely popular series.  But Harry Potter is a global phenomenon. It is an available cultural reference, and The Economist itself is obviously aware of it.  It may not have reviewed the books, but it did report on the movies.

A long Christmas Special in 2009, focusing on the sophisticated Harry Potter industry, opined in passing:

It is not great literature. The first three books make for pleasant and occasionally gripping beach reading. From the fourth instalment the series begins to sprawl. It also makes unconvincing forays into teenage psychology. Yet even at their clumsiest the books are well-plotted and full of invention. They also avoid the temptation to sneak ideology into children’s heads by wrapping it in fantasy. C.S. Lewis’s children’s books, to which Ms Rowling’s are often compared, are spoiled by creeping piety. Philip Pullman’s suffer from strident anticlericalism. Although the Harry Potter series endorses traits such as bravery and loyalty, it is intended above all to entertain. It has, hundreds of millions of times.

In 2012, The Economist reviewed J.K. Rawling’s first non-Harry Potter book.

In 2016, The Economist covered a theater production of Harry Potter.

My opinion on Harry Potter

I read up to number 4, which tells you that I found it valuable enough. I reread them recently and thought them to be well, sometimes very well, written, and quite clever.  I find the Harry Potter world to be a highly valuable contribution to our collective imagination.

One thing has consistently bothered me— the underlying concept of aristocracy in the Harry Potter world.  This is a very British book.  An American writer, to risk treading in cultural generalizations, wouldn’t imagine Harry as a prince in search of a kingdom.  Of course the concept of aristocracy here is highly modern, but it is still incredibly pervasive throughout the books to make me somewhat uncomfortable. But, I readily admit, the expectations of greatness (including, great travails and great failures) are conducive for great drama (Sophocles, Shakespeare).