Foresight is prison in perpetuity. In January 2022, the year was still shaping up to be undoubtedly marked by the pandemic. In February, Russia invaded Ukraine and the world tipped into a new crisis with chain catastrophic effects felt deeply until today. In December, again, China was hit by the largest wave of contamination in the world, amplified by the appearance of new variants. Farewell prescience, nothing is going right.
We take note: nothing is sure in the forecasts, even when they concern what seems the most certain. In this soft framework and with humility, here are some major trends that could influence the production and consumption of cultural productions in 2023.
Commemoration. If the trend continues, the year that begins will be nostalgic as one pleases around the celebrations until more thirsty of the centenary of Jean-Paul Riopelle. The new aesthetic-political perspectives forcing one to wonder why do so much for another male and white artist should throw some sand in the commemorative gears. There would also be other centenarians not to be overlooked, and we’ll see if the automatist giant eclipses them all. Visual artist Betty Goodwin was also born in 1923, as were local theater giants Jean-Louis Roux, Denise Pelletier and Jean Duceppe.
Inflation. It’s the pachyderm in the glass house. If the estimates of an inflation rate of more than 6.5% come true, the wallets will taste it with inevitable repercussions on cultural spending. Some entertainment sectors are expected to be more affected than others, including the restaurant and live performance sectors, which have already been badly affected by the pandemic crisis. Theater attendance fell 84% in 2020 compared to the previous non-COVID year. In 2022, the shortfall was around 15 to 20% compared to the best years of the last decade.
Legislation. Bill C-11 now before the Senate will authorize the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to impose “conditions of service” on any website that broadcasts commercial programming to ensure the discoverability of Canadian content. Bill C-18, also in the process of being amended, would oblige the major digital platforms to share certain revenues with Canadian press publishers to finance part of the cost of producing information. These two laws will have major effects on production and consumption in culture.
Decolonization. A great revolution in perspectives on history and art history in particular has been in the making for several years in museums, and it is expected to extend into 2023 and beyond. The clearly visible effects will appear in the process of researching the provenance of the works and possibly their restitution, as well as in the consultation and involvement of the reference communities for the preparation of the exhibitions. The developing crisis at the National Gallery of Canada around this paradigm shift will be particularly one to watch. A new management should be appointed there in the coming months.
Diversification. As museums, schools, universities, theatres, publishing houses and the media become sounding boards for new identity and egalitarian struggles. The mutation is exposed to the simplest, to the clichés, in the transformation of the old series Sex and the City starring privileged New York white women reappeared in And Just Like That, a concentrate of forced wokism. Transformations in favor of the inclusion of traditionally discriminated groups should continue, but the reactions to certain supposed excesses of wokism (cancel culturevictimization, newspeak, sentimental politics, etc.) could also be amplified, if only in the commentary industry.
Censorship. Quebec passed a law on academic freedom in universities in June. The Attorney General of Canada ruled in December that the CRTC exceeded its powers by blaming Radio-Canada for the use of the n-word on its airwaves. Has the game calmed down yet?
#MeToo. Will the social movement against violence against women continue to flush out the harassers and aggressors in cultural circles who in fact launched and then brought the great denunciation? Quebec will soon become the first state in the world to deploy specialized courts for sexual and domestic violence. On the other hand, the ardor of media denunciations is giving signs of running out of steam, and the anti-#MeToo backlash is beginning to manifest itself without embarrassment.
Box office. The carnage in theaters is claiming more and more victims in almost all cinematographic genres. The Fabelmans by Steven Spielberg, a very powerful candidate for the Oscar for best film, brought in less than eight million at North American box offices, but cost six times as much; Triangle of Sadnessequally acclaimed and awarded from all sides, brought in even less. December 23 became the box office champion of Quebec films in 2022, with $1.4 million in revenue. New Avatar has passed the billion mark in revenue, but it still needs as much to cover its costs. In short, nothing goes with the traditional model of diffusion of the great art of the XX.e century. If the crash continues, 2023 could well be the year of tipping towards a point of no return.
Streaming. More and more distribution platforms allow more and more films to find their audiences, as the quantity and quality of TV series continue to amaze, including with sequels, pre-episode and spin-offs. The excellent franchise Yellowstone just spawned 1883 and 1923. But that doesn’t mean the age of plenty will continue. The TV supply chain could also enter into a deep crisis next year. The big names in the US, now too many for subscribers to keep up with, have already cut their orders for new series by a quarter in the second half of 2022 compared to the same period in 2021. The drop is 40% when you consider the second half of 2019.
Digitization. Creative artificial intelligence is already making its mark in various disciplines, especially in digital art, of course. The massification of text and image production computer programs should logically influence the production of media content, including information platforms. The fourth version of the ChatGPT language model could soon, if not provide the means to combine multimedia productions linking texts and images, at least introduce an increased capacity for text synthesis. Is it going too far to predict that at the end of next year, the article on the 2024 cultural forecast will be written by the ChatGPT4 algorithm