Excerptcize

A short while back on the CBC Radio3 blog, host Tariq Hussein linked to a blog post by Carey Mercer, the lead singer of the band Frog Eyes. In this post he was lamenting the fact that artists performing at events organized by VANOC during the Olympics have been required to sign a contract with the following clause contained within:

The artist shall at all times refrain from making any negative or derogatory remarks respecting VANOC (the organizing committee), the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Olympic movement generally, Bell and/or other sponsors associated with VANOC.”

Putting on my contrarian hat, (not for arguments sake, but because I truly had a differing opinion) I commented that I did not see anything controversial with this contract, as it seems like a very standard business transaction to require that someone you are hiring in a promotional context actually does promotional work. If keeping an anti-Olympic platform is more important to any artist then they do not have to sign the contract. If you’ve read any of my other posts you might already know that I am not oblivious to problems and issues that the Olympics bring/heighten/highlight (extra emphasis on highlight…our cities problems would be extant even if we were not hosting the Olympics.) My reading of the clause in question still leaves plenty of room open for artists to advocate for whatever cause they would like. One can refrain from making “negative or derogatory” comments about the games and their organizers and still promote organizations that work on a given cause ie. homelessness. Something I have argued for previously is for concerned citizens to co-opt the platform the games provide, rather than just maligning them. This is a perfect example of this. If any one has any ideas on how to get in touch with any of the artists slated to perform during Olympic events I would be very interested in seeing if any would want to champion one cause or another that is pertinent to Vancouver/BC (Canadian Indie artists seem to be a pretty caring and compassionate group on the whole.)

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