The Invasion Of Folk Beat

Serbian Culture Minister, Nada PopovicPerisic, made a quite serious announcement of an imminent largescale offensive against kitsch and trash, particularly against the socalled folk (music) that, as she asserted, takes up about 90 per cent of all broadcasting by the (state) Radio Television of Serbia. The army of those employed in this populist subculture weren't really moved by her threat. On the contrary. The same day when the Culture Minister made her confession in front of television cameras, explaining that ``the invasion of folk'' has stifled ``the authentic values'' and that the viewers of Vucelic's (Milorad Vucelic, the director of the state Radio Television of Serbia and the head of a parliamentary group of the Socialist Party of Serbia in the Serbian Parliament) television are deprived of ``the right to choose,'' the very same TV station put on during prime television time (Tuesday, May 31, 9 p.m.) the recording of an invigorating folk catharsis. It was a regular TV show called ``Folkmetar'' (translates as ``Folkgauge'') that, for the reasons inexplicable to Minister Perisic, took place on the football stadium instead of in the studio and in the presence of small sports planes, helicopters, and TV cameras that filmed the entire spectacle from the universe, so that indeed it looked, at least from afar, like a small Serbian Woodstock, whose bright spring colors (the green field, halfnaked yet striking singers, hip hop dancers and breakdancer, and excited masters of ceremonies) sent out the messages of carefree autism and absolute fun. If we generally agree that the Minister's intentions are acceptably noble, since the invasion of folk (or the music this term implies) has gained monstrous proportionsone fact remains: the populist movement is not a cause but a consequence.

What today is called local folk music is actually a hideous mixture of hiphop, techno rhythms, antiquated disco music, Arabic yowling and Bosnian love songsall of which have been let through the electronic sea of the artificial production and the sounds of heavymetal.

There are at least ten reasons why her intentions are theoretically appropriate, and yet practically inapplicable:

1. Isn't Minister Perisic aware that the folk industry (records, audio cassettes, compact discs, concerts) along with the apparatus accompanying it represent the only perfectly legal business that is thriving in Serbia amidst the blockade?

2. How can she stop Mira Skoric, Maja Marijana, Slavko Banjac, Sneska Karan and the like from appearing on television? With a decree? With an order issued by the Ministry? Who will make a decision in the Culture Ministry about what is better: Jami in a tight white dress or Gala in a mini dress?

3. How will Vucelic's TV fill its broadcasts if the socalled folk music is banned? How will the viewers be entertained, when they just like all addicts have been receiving a strictly prescribed dose of narcotics every evening for years now?

4. How can folk be abandoned when it proved to be the most reliable ally of the ruling party over all these years? Does it mean that Ivica Dacic (the spokesman of the Socialist Party of Serbia) and Milorad Vucelic will not star as guests at the promotions of folk singers?

5. Has the Ministry of Culture ever considered dangerous implications of the absence of folk on TV screens? What topics will be discussed in a family circle, if there will be no more of Ceca Velickovic and Dragana Mirkovic? What if they start discussing politics, sanctions and war?

6. Who will want to be advertised on the state television, when it's well known that the majority of the commercials are paid for the shows like ``Folkmetar'' where everybody in the studio rocks in the same rhythm, on the same territory, in the same language?

7. How will the Culture Ministry's decision on selective broadcasting of folk music affect TV Pale when its entire cultural and artistic production falls under what Minister Perisic described as kitsch and trash?

8. Does that mean that Baja mali Knindza will be barred from radio and television, left high and dry, without the tools essential for his work?

9. Does the term folk also encompass obviously patriotic songs and who will eliminate them from the TV programs like ``Hronika Krajina'' (``The Report from Krajinas'') where the songs against the Moslems and the Croats specifically on this program became a trade mark of the Serbian cause?

10. And, finally, does Minister Perisic really believe that kitsch and trash are present only in the socalled folk music where they're probably most dangerous or is this perhaps only the beginning of ``an allout campaign aimed at spreading literacy and at the cultural and political education of the masses''?

In any case, one thing is certain: either kitsch or trash cannot be banned by a state-sponsored decision.