The Art-Hoeification of Canon Directors
The ascension of Marty, Spike, FFC and more into the pantheon of IG dumphood.
Amidst the content of Euro summer, I scrolled through my feed to find a photo dump of Italy from the white-haired and pint-sized director, Martin Scorsese. The caption: "A few days in Rome" offered the same mystery and apathy I could expect from any girlie of the grid.
I swiped to find candids of him at cultural sites across the city. One walking through the Colosseum and outfit pics in front of the Arch of Titus. Another of his wife. Zoomed-in shots of him holding his daughter. The last is him walking with a Church official in all cream tones and definitely Hokas.
Like all men’s Instagram dumps, there’s a potent slutiness we can’t ignore. Theories of gender essentialism only find merit in the arena of cishet posting politics.
Marty isn’t the only one. Francis Ford Coppola has an IG feed that shows his age, having posted three times in the last 24 hours. One includes a blurry candid of him and Spike Lee in which, FFC wear's a hot pink shirt, an off-brand Apple watch and, most amusingly, a lanyard with what looks like house keys. Intriguing of his recent posts was his IG Create post of text that reads “Art is not a sport”, assumedly a response to the Barbieheimer frenzy. He also loves archival footage of himself promoting his iconic cinema in dripped outfits as well as cryptic face pics and captions which he then clarifies in a comment.
These men love quotes in the sweetly Khloe Kardashian sense of the way. They love a selfie captioned with a quote from a musician or a poet about life and living. Jarmunsch, Coppola and Scorsese obsess over the past and future with a level of intrigue you could expect from any ageing man. So much so that there’s a level of personalism that makes it clear these are self-directed posts, rather than the work of a publicist. Either way, Jim Jarmusch taking this selfie, editing this selfie and posting this selfie to a caption of Tom Waits is as equally as funny as him taking the selfie and then sending it to his publicist to post for him.
Spike Lee also posts at a weirdly consistent rate as well with at least 11 uploads in the last week. He is, objectively, the coolest of them all, so his spam of content is the least concerning.
What do we learn from their shitposting?
That the greatest storytellers of a generation use social media with the fury of art hoe young women. Does this mean the effect of age on the mind of a master renders them to art hoe form or that art hoe girlies have the minds of masters? With Metropolis and Killers of the Flower Moon impending, we must accept that it is indeed the latter.
The canon directors clearly having some level of social media addiction gives an exciting legitimacy to the ever-scorned world of posting online. It’s comforting to know that even the mind of Marty isn’t strong enough to resist the urge to curate a stunning photo series of your Italy trip and then flex with an uncaring caption.
However, it’s hard to reinforce their genius status when you’ve seen them post nonsense several times a week or heavily curated dumps. Mystique dwindles as we receive unguarded access inside the mind of masters who might actually just be losers like us all.