The Met Gala, a “Really Huge Signifier That You Are In.”
In a stunning display of “what the hell, we’re rich enough to do whatever we want,” the annual Metropolitan Museum of Art fundraiser has just celebrated how far we’ve come as a nation divided by money.
Entry to the Gala, only by invitation, comes with a single-entry ticket price of $100,000, pocket change to some and several years’ income to others. I guess the food was pretty good.
And I’m not against that, I rather like the Met, and think museums need public funding.
But the public, you and me, and the slightly less than eight million people who visit each year are monetarily inconsequential. As George Carlin might have put it, “It’s a huge club, and you and I ain’t in it.”
Frame that against an outfit that dwarfs the Met, an organization we call the Smithsonian. The Smithsonian Institution is the largest museum in the world, an education and research complex of 21 museums and the National Zoological Park, as well as research facilities.
Admission to all Smithsonian museums in Washington is free. You are not monetarily inconsequential as you enter any facility it operates, from the National Museum of African American History and Culture, to the American Art Museum, or the National Air and Space Museum. America gave it to you, and your taxes paid for it…no billionaires required.
So, I have to admit, the Met Gala makes me grind my teeth a bit, rubbing my nose in the fact that in recent decades I have become increasingly monetarily inconsequential.
Maybe you feel that way as well…maybe not.
Admissions at the Met account for roughly $140–$160 million annually, providing average revenue per visitor of twenty-five bucks, children and some students free. The rest comes from the Met’s endowment of $4+ billion, which generates hundreds of millions annually, donations & philanthropy, as well as wealthy individuals, foundations and corporate sponsors.
So, the Met has become a modern form of patronage.
And, correct me if I’m wrong, but I much prefer the old model, where taxpayers built and paid for the Smithsonian, a world-class institution, available for free to those who built it.
Here in Prague, where I have lived for 32 years, the National Theatre was built entirely with small public donations, burned to the ground shortly after opening, and was built again by a public that valued opera and theatre.
That’s an image that can inspire the world in need, with wars in Ukraine and Iran and genocides elsewhere.
Under today’s multiple international crises, that example from a small nation of twelve million puts to shame the over-the-top extravaganza of America’s rich showing off their wealth.
The growing number of America’s monetarily inconsequential citizens might appreciate that as well…
But maybe that’s too much of Jim just being Jim…