To Hell With the Kennedy Center

Seriously.

Donald Trump can't put his name on the Kennedy Center, so he's insinuating that it must be closed and possibly demolished because of deferred maintenance.  He doesn't mention, of course, that that, through his handpicked board of directors for the performing arts venue, he's the one who deferred it.  At this point, who the hell cares?  It's an ugly building, the interior is pretentiously gaudy, and it's done its best business when it presents some of the same lowbrow and middlebrow entertainments one might find at a suburban theater in northern New Jersey or northeastern Virginia.  

And nothing underscores this fact than actress and singer Lynda Carter's appearance at the rally at the Kennedy Center on Friday to save it from potential demolition.  Now, in no way am I suggesting that Lynda Carter is not a talented entertainer.  She played Wonder Woman so well on TV in the seventies that it's hard to imagine any other actress in the role.  And anyone who remembers her TV variety specials knows she can belt out a tune - she once performed Kool and the Gang's "Celebration" on one of those specials with enough gusto to rival the original Kool and the Gang record.  But "Wonder Woman" was not Hamlet, and it would have been a scandal of Lynda Carter, talented though she may be, had tried to convince anyone that she was Ophelia.   Similarly, being able to sing Kool and the Gang's excellent signature hit song does not qualify one to sing arias.

And yet, the middlebrow shows that the Kennedy Center is known for are precisely what has drawn people to this venue in the first place.  Speaking on one podcast, commentator Alex Wagner spoke fondly of some of the touring Broadway musicals she'd seen there as a Washington, D.C.-area resident.  Alex Wagner doesn't get it.  Such events are not what the Kennedy Center was meant for.  It was supposed to be a repository of high performing arts, not a stop on an itinerary of a touring musical company.  There are plenty of theaters in Washington for that sort of thing.  But then maybe the Kennedy Center's programming toward the more pedestrian entertainments underscores just how culturally insignificant Washington really is.  New York, a city that emerged organically and over time, has numerous cultural opportunities, and though it has its own flaws as architecture, Lincoln Center (no definite article necessary) offers just the sort of highbrow performing art that the Kennedy Center barely offers and would not offer at all if not for the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera, both of which predate the Kennedy Center.  The center itself is merely an outlet for the sort of entertainments offered in any other provincial burg, which ultimately what "the nation's capital" is. 

So yes, let the Kennedy Center get demolished.  Good riddance.  Even though Trump would violate a court order by having it razed, it would be one more crime to charge him with to send him to jail.  The National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera got along all right before the center was built; they'll get along fine without it.  And to respond to the argument that the capital of a great nation deserves a venue for great performing arts . . . well, maybe we're not so great anymore, what with the center of gravity in the West shifting toward Ottawa and Brussels. That's just one more reason to break up the United States into separate countries and prepare for a possible future where Washington isn't the capital of anything but stands as a monument to the American federation that once was.