WHORES AMOK

posted by James Reel

    Why are so many Hollywood movies predictable? Because marketing experts conduct preview-audience surveys asking whether or not the viewers like the ending, among other things; if the test audience doesn’t get the ending it wants, the movie gets reshot. Why are so many clone novels being published? Because manuscripts are vetted by publishers’ marketing departments, which now have more control over the fall and spring lists than any editor.
    And we find marketers muscling into classical music. The New York Times reports that Glimmerglass Opera has had composer Stephen Hartke rename his forthcoming opera because a word in the title might offend some people. The word? Whore. The original title was Boule de Suif, or The Good Whore; now it’s being called The Greater Good, or the Passion of Boule de Suif.
    Says the Times, “Officials of Glimmerglass, the summer festival in Cooperstown, N.Y., denied they were being prudish but said the word could have kept patrons away. The composer, Stephen Hartke, and the librettist, Philip Littell, acquiesced, and Mr. Hartke said that he was contacted in July by Theresa Grover, the new marketing director at Glimmerglass, who said ‘whore’ might be a problem.”
    So this was a marketing decision imposed on a work of art. It’s surely one of the dumber examples of marketer muscle-flexing. Gee, I’d think more people would be put off by a string of French words they can’t pronounce than by the word “whore.” And, by the way, nobody has taken the whores out of the opera itself. Marketer Grover must think patrons will happily attend an opera about a whore as long as they don’t encounter that naughty word in the title. Or maybe she has no idea what the opera is about. Content doesn’t matter; image is everything.
    The larger irony here is that Theresa Grover’s own profession bears a certain resemblance to the world’s oldest. Her cell phone ring tone, no doubt, is "Call me madam."