In a world where the lowbrow seems to have triumphed while highbrow art has garrisoned itself behind walls of critical jargon and pointless shock tactics, the middlebrow has fled the scene. In the years before and especially after World War II, it held an important if sometimes derided place in popular culture, precisely because it was once presumed that classical symphonies, operatic arias, great paintings, and serious novels and poetry spoke to some part of the average person that encouraged their humanity, and taught them to aspire to virtues that required effort to embrace.
That idea can’t be wholly defunct if a film like Monuments Men can get made in the second decade of the 21st century. But the general critical drubbing it’s received, not to mention the decision to release it in the depth of winter, well out of consideration for any Oscar nomination, suggests that the middlebrow idea has few subscribers these days, and scant support from an entertainment industry that once considered the middlebrow to be a benchmark of artistic quality.
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