Oh, Boston

[walkitout]

The MFA has found some trouble for itself. Lovely children from a charter school went there on a field trip and were subjected to — no lie — being told “No food, no drinks, no watermelon”.

Watermelon jokes? In 2019?

Of courses the MFA has responded was the Classic : “This is not who we are.”

Well, but it _is_ who they are. Their staff has below population ratio (for Boston, for Massachusetts, for the country) levels of representation of POC. And the POC who work for them are sidelined into the typical areas (janitorial, kitchen, etc.). The fact they have security making a watermelon comment means they are not just dealing with implicit bias. This is a bastion of Old Skool Racism, and it is being actively defended.

I used to love museums, and I really do not anymore, but I am almost 50, and I have developed so many dislikes over the years I feel I am well on my way to my ultimate life stage: curmudgeon, crank and achiever of Lifetime Awards for Most Get Off My Lawn Equivalent Utterances. Some things I can figure out why I do not like them anymore. Other things have been more mysterious. The MFA as a bastion of Highbrow Culture was not particularly mysterious. But check this job listing for an Associate Editor out:

https://www.mfa.org/employment/associate-editor

A lot of this is pretty obvious and relatively unobjectionable: you need to be able to cope with multiple projects, communicate with people, and emitting a bunch of typos and grammar errors is going to generate extra work for the museum and a lot of Hilarity, so sure. Being able to generate art credits and thus work with IP databases, also makes sense. But what is this thing doing here?

“Excellent command of style, spelling, grammar, and punctuation and familiarity with the Chicago Manual of Style”

I get the no typos, thing. I really do. But Chicago Manual of Style is at the very, very conservative end of White Standard English. Why does a museum’s communications need to be so thoroughly entrenched behind the last redoubts of WASP culture? I mean, that was their donor culture, but is it still? And should the museum not be working to cultivate a new donor culture, which is going to expect a very different style of communication?

If every job listing — even the ones like this one that do not require a PhD in art or art history and a willingness to work a few months for a pittance, part time — is going to embed in it a requirement to be soaked in the bluest of blue-blood backgrounds (<-a little mixed metaphor for your enjoyment), no wonder they have relegated all the regular folks to the kitchen and facilities work.

And no wonder I cannot stand going to museums.

This is not a good sign for Highbrow Culture. I mean, when I was wee — the age of my youngest — high on my bucket list was to go to the Louvre for three days. When I retired and had the money and time, I went.

Now, I would rather go take walk in the woods _with blackflies_.

Hopefully, a little negative publicity will motivate at least baby steps of changes.

ETA: Lots of security positions open on that website. The MFA is very concerned about security presenting an impeccable appearance. If only their communication and behavior was as good as they are required to appear!

Comments

[ethelmay]

What style guide would you suggest they be using? In my experience, CMOS is often suggested simply because it's a standard source to consult about matters where consistency is important though the exact choice of how to be consistent isn't necessarily (e.g., which words to capitalize in a title). I don't think most institutions hew to every single recommendation concerning pronouns, prose style choices, etc. It's just so that the house style guide doesn't have to be 700 pages long, because you can say stuff like "Capitalization per Chicago, except for the following [short list]." Things like that.

Why use an academic style guide for all communications?

[walkitout]

Given how much of a museum is about connecting the ordinary public to fine art, why not use a style guide from journalism?

Museums have a lot of options for how they think about themselves and their mission, and how they communicate that to their community. Choosing an academic style guide seems like a foundational choice that should be revisited. Right up there with focusing on the physical appearance of the security guards vs. you know, not making watermelon comments.

Re: Why use an academic style guide for all communications?

[ethelmay]

CMOS is used waaaaay outside academia, in all kinds of areas where it is far from a perfect fit and has to be jury-rigged. We used it at the Bicycle Paper, even, as an adjunct to the in-house style guide. There just aren't very many non-academic choices available. (Indeed, inside academia there seem to be more choices than there are outside -- CMOS being the only one that has crossed over to general use.) AP is the only other realistic choice I happen to know of, though as I haven't been very active in the field there may be others by now, and it's not to my knowledge noticeably less conservative than CMOS, plus it is way more limited in what it handles.

I note that the job description includes "With Managing Editor, develop and maintain style guides for digital and print publications," so obviously they have in-house style guides as well, which would have enormously more influence on how up-to-date their language choices and such are.

I have no doubt that the MFA is a stuffy institution, but I don't think their use of CMOS is terrifically telling in that regard. And the watermelon business -- yeah, ugh.

Re: Why use an academic style guide for all communications?

[walkitout]

AP guide would give them better guidance on race, among other things.