It is said that bread and circuses are all it takes to keep a people from revolt, and as Carnival is the ultimate circus, the Government of the day (desperate to appear in control of something, anything) seized on that theory and approached it from the position that if less was more, how much more could more itself be.
A cool hundred million was rumored to have been sunk into the savannah to make the Kamla UNC appear more PNM than the Manning PNM, and if they (Manning's PNM) took away the savannah stage, well they (Kamla's UNC) were going to build it back, grander than it was before.
Launched with the return of the 'Savannah Party,' the 'North Stand Posses' met the 'Greens Crews' and they all had a time; Carnival was back with a bang.
Or was it?
The level of everything delivered from music to mas was so much revisited, reheated, rehashing of better things heard and seen before, it was as if the nostalgia of the return to the past the savannah represented had the impact of dumbing the creativity down even as rewards for the mediocrity ratcheted skyward.
Take the Band of the Year competition (ostensibly the reason for building the stage in the first place); it seems as if the judges are telling the other bands year after year that as long as someone brings something, anything other than bikinis and beads that they would win.
One gets the impression that if MacFarlan's band next year was entitled Sesame Street complete with Grover, Big Bird and Cookie Monster he would still win, as long as the judges did not have to look at another scantily clad gyrating body trying some how to award points for design and originality.
Would an increased prize of two million dollars for Band of the Year up the design ante and bring art back to mas?
Possibly, but if one were to go by the impact the increased prize money had on the quality of the Soca Monarch and Chutney Monarch shows one would have to assume no, not that much.
All the jackpot sized purses seemed to do was bring out the avarice and mean spiritedness in otherwise sane and decent people, caused friction where little or no friction existed before and widened the fractures that already existed between competing performers.
This carnival will not be remembered for any improved standard or increased quality fuelled by multi million dollar incentives, but as the year of Destra and Machel and Bunji and Machel and Rikki and Ravi and accusations of rigging and of missiles thrown in anger.
It will remembered, not for elevating as a nation and rising as a people, but for demonstrating what greed does to human nature in its most base and unattractive form...
"...it will be remembered, not for elevating as a nation and rising as a people, but for demonstrating what greed does to human nature in it's most base and unattractive form..."
ReplyDeleteThe best for last? Well said.
I also question whether increasing the prize money would increase creativity, but these designs are created some time before. Perhaps the bandleaders had already finalized their costumes by the time the prize money was announced. Also I wonder how much money some of the leaders of the "feathers and beads" bandleaders make. Is 2 million dollars really an incentive for them? Suppose their profits make that amount look miniscule? Just speculating.
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