The Snootiest Art Forms
Where various art mediums rank on the Snooty Scale
I had a debate with my co-workers about what are the snootiest art forms amongst: Television, Films, Literature, Music, Dance/Theater, Food, Visual Arts (paintings, sculpture, photography), Fashion, and Architecture. I'm of the opinion fashion and food are some of the snootiest art forms. So hear me out as I categorize art forms from the least snooty to the most snooty...
9. Television
Television is perhaps the least snooty art form. Your TV equipment can be high end, but overall, television programming is not that a snooty of an art form. I attribute this to its barrier of entry. Everyone pays very little to watch whatever show they're into. And television is meant to be viewed in your house in an inconspicuous setting. You don't watch special television events broadcasted in a theater (perhaps with the exception of some movie theaters hosting Oscar nights).
8. Literature
I would argue the second least snooty art form is literature. Whether you're reading something as snooty as Infinite Jest or reading something as basic as Twilight, a book more or less costs the same if all you're trying to do is read. Owning first edition prints can be snooty, but that usually has little to do with the writing and more to do with the object itself. The entry cost to being snobbish with literature is the same as the cost of being mainstream. And your public library contains a lot of literary resources for no charge. So it's arguably one of the most accessible art forms available to you.
7. Film
I would rank films as the third least snooty art form. Watching a French New Wave film costs the same as watching Into the Spider-Verse. The cost of a streaming platform subscription is generally around $10 a month, whether it's HBO, Netflix, Criterion, or Disney. And the cost to watch a film in the theaters is generally around $15, no matter how high brow or low brow it is.
6. Music
Next on the snootiness ranking would be music. Nowadays, most music is available on the internet and is free to listen to. So the barrier to entry to just listen to music and appreciate it is on par with literature. But the experience becomes a little different when you take concerts into consideration. Seeing a band play at a bar with a cover charge could be as low as $10 but seeing Taylor Swift could cost you north of a thousand dollars. And once you start having to shell out more than $100 to experience an art performance, then we're starting to enter elitist territory.
5. Dance and Theater
Next would be dance and theater. I've never been to a Broadway performance, but I understand that you could see a performance for about $100. Perhaps you don't have the best seat at that price, but $100 affords you a typical experience to view the show, which is similar to a sporting event. But unlike a sporting event, most dance and theater are not watched through a recorded broadcast. You pretty much have to see dance and theater in person to appreciate it. Television, literature, movies, and music can all be enjoyed at home. And leaving your home to enter a theater can become an elite experience.
4. Visual Arts (Painting, Photography, Sculpture...)
Now we come to visual arts in regard to painting, photography, sculpture, printmaking, ceramics, sketches... The entry to see these things in a museum is generally not exclusive. Public and private museums usually don't charge more than $20 for entry and sometimes they're even free. But travelling to museums can be exclusive. Going to the Vatican will definitely cost you about a thousand dollars just to fly to Rome. And if you want to personally own visual art for your personal collection, then it could potentially be one of the most elitist things ever depending on what you're buying. But on the whole, if you live near a major metropolitan area (which most of the US does), then you have access to see a lot of high end visual art for very little (you just may not get to see the specific work that you want to see).
3. Architecture
The third snootiest art form is architecture. Now there's a lot of architecture that you can see for free, but the challenge is travelling to see it. Most great architecture is probably hundreds of miles away from where you live. And if you want to own high-end architecture, then you're obviously very wealthy.
2. Fashion
The second snootiest art form is fashion. You could see some of it displayed in a museum, but that's not its intended purpose. High fashion isn't made just to be shown in a gallery, it's meant to be worn by someone with ostentatious tastes and shown off in a large spectacle. Everything about it exudes elegance and elitism.
1. Food
And the art form with the most potential to be the snootiest thing ever is food. That's right, food. The thing that we all need to live can be turned into a high-end experience. You can live without music, television, film, literature, theater, dance, and visual art...but you need shelter, clothes, and food to survive. Which makes them incredibly elitist when they're commodified into high art. And a fancy restaurant combines all the ostentatious elements of elitism. The architecture is generally high end, there’s usually a dress code requirement to even enter the restaurant, and maybe even a live band. It doesn't get any snootier than that. Now as a whole most food is not snooty. But when it’s presented as being high end, it’s the most in-you-face form of extravagance. Food has to be prepared daily. If you were to purchase high end furniture, rugs, paintings, clothes…they last for as long as you maintain them. But high-end food is (usually) consumed within the span of an hour after its prepared and then it turns into shit. Fancy architecture at least last for thousands of years. Sculptures and pottery and woodworking and jewelry are capable of existing for millennia. But food is destroyed the second its enjoyed, making it the snootiest art form.