An Inexplicably Deep Dive Into Blown Away
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- Опубликовано: 5 сен 2021
- A deep look into the Netflix reality show about glass art and art criticism
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every art competition should have one judge that knows absolutely nothing about art. theyre just there like "this ones my favourite bc i like the colours :)" thats ART baby
Agree! You can't expect everyone to be academically knowledgeable so you do have to take into account the "normal" people who only appreciate art for their immediate response to it.
@@cidevant002 there's a art competition here in Aus where one of the prizes is called the "packers prize" so all the workers that shipped the art, set up the galleries, etc. I love it!!
@@Amazatastic thats dope. there are infinite ways to appreciate art, including how much of a pain in the ass it is to move haha. i love that they are given a voice
Honestly true, it would be a fun way of showing the abstract concept of "appeal" to the audience
SO TRUE!!
I remember watching the first season and getting pissed off at the judge saying the Japanese artist's representation of a yokai lantern didn't fit the assignement, rejecting her art piece while being extremely incurious about someone else's culture
What was the assignment?
That made me so mad omg
Why her latern looks good, and i have no context but its japanese yokai culture so i bet they had no interest, it had to do with the environment and why. Which i bet was the case. And its inspired anime so dah it would be a bit cartoonish, but i would love to see it in a gift shop, she i a great artist, and thats very japanese culture. Grr, they dont seem even curious about the context.
That its ooh acartoon anime isnt art is ust te bonus. And thatds from the few scenes here , a bew whole its worse. What snobs.
@@marocat4749, if I recall correctly, the reasoning was that it wasn't easily readable to the judges. Which like, duh, you're not familiar with the culture.
@@Huntracony I think it was make a lamp or lantern in which you can shine a lightbulb
chris: “i’m weird… i’m a weirdo… i don’t Fit In and i don’t Want to fit in… have you ever seen me play by the rules? that’s weird”
I'd say his son was delighted to not have to put up with him for a couple of months.
Alex Meyers is CONVULSED right now
Riverdale is VISUAL LSD
XD
I find the problem with this show is that the judges are more art critic than interested in technical skill. I remember a very talented glassblower getting booted early for having a cartoonish style, whereas blowers who put out weaker pieces with more coherent concepts lasted much longer. Trying to marriage a kind of "forged in fire" with concept critique is just a little absurd to me
It felt like the worst of art college group critiques, complete with cattiness. I gave up on the series after like 4 episodes b/c it brought up bad memories lol 😅
Forged in Fire is a much better execution of this formula
Yeah, there's history and creativity involved, but the core of it is just the technicalities and the excuses for boomers to kill dummies using cool swords
@sorrealhas not to disagree but most smiths I've talked to or encountered have beef with the show. It's kinda got a reputation as a crude and dangerous joke. The craftsmen they show are definitely skilled, but ironwork is just not a craft meant to be done at speed. And I like cool swords as much as the next guy, but limiting their scope to just bladesmithing means they miss out on a lot of the technical parts of the craft that at least I personally would enjoy seeing in a blacksmith TV show
Early elimination is such a terrible reality show tradition. I wonder if keeping people around for the whole season might make for better or worse shows.
@@justmadethistocomment9505 You misspelled my name so I didn't get notified of your reply, but hard agree
4:20 Despite the very nice timecode this bit here really ticks me off because it's clear that the judge has no idea what she's looking at. This piece is clearly a recreation of a Chochin-obake, a pretty well-known yokai (Japanese Spirit of Legend,) and a really well-done one at that. She probably says it isn't "skillfully made" because it bends instead of looking more rigidly like a lantern, but this was clearly an intentional decision to give more life and personality to the piece. And the "wings" are very clearly Will-o-Wisps, and this should be obvious because they are shaped like flames and not wings. I think this does a great job at what it's doing, I was audibly like "Oh wow so cool!" when I saw it, and I think it's bullshit this woman was essentially penalized just cause she wasn't white. Like, I am certain if a white person made this and explained it the judges would be like "oh wow so exotic!"
Thanks for explaining so well
I know too few yokai by name
XD
The judges sounds like me at 18 trying to understand the art my friends in art school produced or admired. They come across as having the same understanding of art I did as an uneducated 18 year old and it's painful.
Ummm, so the judges are supposed to know every cultural reference from all cultures always and instantly get them on the spot? I agree she didn’t handle it well as a judge but you have no right to assume that she would’ve said it was “exotic” if a white person made it. Where the actual fuck are you getting that logic from or are you making an assumption about how she would act because of the color of her skin. So her lack of knowledge frustrates you so much you’ll attack her for blatant racism past her ignorance of culture. What. The. Actual. Fuck. The “woke” shit down here that is actually toxic as fuck is insane. It’s not black and white. Don’t make assumptions about people from mistakes… especially not on race. Even if they are a majority that happens to just know less about a minority culture. If someone showed you a piece of art you were unfamiliar with and you didn’t see the references and made a mistake by not looking into the correspondence with the inspiration or simply didn’t have time because of the set up of the show, would you like to be accused of being completely racist against a culture and that you only favor your own? Fuckkk no you wouldn’t. Fucking fuck
@@geoffreyschuchardt5350 bro... get some therapy. That was an unhinged rant to leave on a 10 month old video
@@geoffreyschuchardt5350 Nobody expects her to know all cultures, but they deliberately added a Japanese artist to the cast and then failed to appreciate or even inquire about what she was bringing to the table.
Your whole comment reeks of some unexamined defensiveness around racism, which you should maybe start examining.
saw the title and was immediately like "oh yeah absolutely"
Same here
Literally same
This show is so good to talk about.
Nick uhaus is hilarious.
me: "oh no, I liked one reality show and I'm immediately getting called out 😲"
@@iterativeimprovements1713 Thanks, thought I was crazy.
"I'm a futurist, so I think about robots a lot"
Tell me you've never taken a 20th century art history class before...
I Had to laugh out loud at that and wanted to send him some futurist manifestos
As a futurist, I spend a lot of time thinking about the future, where we will all live
I also cringed at this, but to be fair, there are multiple definitions & genres to futurism such that it's helpful if folks are specific: Italian Futurism, Afrofuturism, Mundane Afrofuturism, and, I guess, Robot Futurism? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@@MCAndyT Could it be he meant as in a futurologist, like trying to make (un)educated guesses at the future development of the world and technology?
@@GNeves302 Yeah, that's definitely how he meant it! I just think people need to clarify their terms so that the rest of us can better understand where they're coming from. It would help to minimize the knee-jerk negative reaction from folks in the comments section. Like, I teach in a school of art & design where I hafta talk about both Conceptual Art (the art movement/genre from the 1960's to today) and concept art (the ideation methodology/technique in the Entertainment Arts industries for films, animation, games, etc). So I hafta be really clear with the students what we're talking about because its easy for conversations to go off the rails!
I've always been vaguely disquieted by these shows that attempt to find the "best" artist in a given, often small field. I wonder how it affects interpersonal relationships, like how fucked would it be to be like working alongside people that were judged to be superior to you by a panel of weirdos, knowing that tens of thousands of people (minimum, more like hundreds for a lot of these shows) watched you get told 'you are not as good as others.'
yeah, welcome to being a professional in any field
This is exactly why I've always hated these competition shows. My shitty family bullied and crushed my dreams of being an artist and all these shows always gave off that kind of vibe.
@@AllTheArtsy I'm a writer, I fully know what it's like to be reviewed and judged in comparison to others, it's part of my job. I just wouldn't want the process of editors and magazines picking, choosing, and explaining why they accept/reject something to broadcast for all to see.
@@SJKlapecki no one forced these glassblowers to be on the show in pain of death. they did so for a chance at the price, for connections, for publicity, etc. they are not being exploited here. they are actively working. if you think they otherwise wouldn't compare themselves or have their work judged against others just because it's not a reality show, then i don't know what art circles (or what psyche really, comparison is completely normal) you run around in. there is little difference between this and joining a literary contest, or applying for a grant. except they very likely reap more rewards thanks to the exposure in a bigger platform
The dynamic isn’t the same in similar shows in the UK. No body leaves GBBO or GPTD with the impression that everyone around them was at least minimally pleasant if not outright helpful and supportive. I think these shows are very indicative of the caustic nature of contemporary North American society.
that woman saying “i wake up in the middle of the night screaming” was so jarring, is she okay? why does she blame herself?
Survivors guilt sucks :T Especially when losing someone close to you at such a young age. I lost my brother when I was 9 and there is no way that I am responsible for it yet I still hold that guilt.
she said he was better at everything and the favourite.. that poor woman i not to theorize but to think how she was treated by her family, just going off what she said :(
Trauma is a helluva thing, my friend.
This makes me appreciate The Great British Sewing Bee all the more. The contestants on that have a tendency to completely forget that they're supposed to be competing against each other, and are constantly helping each other out with their sewing.
Love sewing bee, it looks like a blast. Joe lycett also has this way of making the worst jokes hilarious
Remember when you win #1
It’s because you weren’t the only one in the contest!
There's also the Pottery Throwdown, which is in the same vein! There's also one about painting portraits that I don't remember the name of. It's not exactly the same but it also has a very warm vibe.
I find that reality competition shows made outside of NA are often alot less antagonistic in between contestants, and less shitty judges. Just look at the difference between the US and Canadian on one hand and the Australian version on the other, of Masterchef for example.
thats so cute lol where could i watch this show :)
7:58 i cant remember the last time a piece of art criticism made me as angry as this line did. the piece is LITERALLY titled Nature as Commodity
Yeah that absolutely boiled my piss too, how was the artist able to restrain himself from screaming "WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK A COMMODITY IS YOU DUMBASS!?" at that moment I'll never know.
Came here to say this. I was so confused.
uh, bit confused here, doesn't its title and idea prove their criticism of it not really implying "hope"? Putting nature into economic terms, especially one that implies ownership, seems deeply dystopian.
the montage of all the things breaking, the shattering sounds and the horrified reactions, actually set off my secondhand anxiety
"reality show about glass-blowing" seems like a horrifying concept
It's like they are working their way up to "reality show about surgery" in which contestants are racing with one another.
@@jeffengel2607 don't give Studios this idea, you may make a few million but you'll also get people killed by wildly unqualified people pretending they know how to do surgery.
@@Kobolds_in_a_trenchcoat I'm sure they come up with the idea every few weeks, and we're all just relying on the legal departments to keep saving us.
@@jeffengel2607 Find the best lawyer haha that would be a fun dramatic show. But please without the surgeon first as reason, even animals used would be horrid.
But i find the best lawyer idea oddly intruiging. It could be educating too and have to have some really obscure cases and the jury could be interesting.
@Jeff Engel reality show about surgery? You don't mean like Extreme Makeover, Botched, Bridalplasty, or The Swan? They exist. Thankfully it's just poor patients (mostly women) competing and not the surgeons themselves. I think their lawyers probably advised against that despite the juicy ratings potential
Was considering a “tell me you’re Canadian without telling me you’re Canadian” comment when Sam mentioned the kid “chirping” his father only for Sam to then go on an extended tangent about the Canadian national identity. Well played, sir.
Apparently 'chirping' means 'taunting' both in Canada and South Africa, which is interesting.
@@Huntracony I'm Canadian and have never heard Chirping be used this way.
SLaSZT nope damn him to the US he lost his Canadian card
@@swagmund_freud6669 it’s an Ontario special
Weirdly enough I had no idea that was a Canadianism. I started using it because some of my internet friends do, but they're like ten years younger than I am so I always assumed it was just modern slang that wasn't a thing when I was in high school. It wasn't until this comment that I put together that only the Canadians said it lol
There's a lot of shit about this show that blows, but the fact that they let Deborah be the superficial villain without letting her explain the context is infuriating
Ha, blows- noice
Agreed. I thought her deep self confidence in her work was really cool and unusual to see in a woman, but it definitely took me a few episodes to realize she might be a bit neurodivergent and not actually mean.
The show has a weird habit of burying shit and then when it comes up it can make the contestants seem more calculating than they likely are.
Everybody being weirded out by her ‘lurking’ was kind of triggering for me, since I’ve been judged similarly. I don’t emote as expected, so ppl think I’m plotting something or judging, same way they saw Deborah. In reality, I’m much more like the teddy bear lady than a nosy busybody; most body language just doesn’t make sense for me to bother with. I appear blank because I’m so absorbed in whatever feeling/experience I’m in, there’s no brainpower left make other ppl superficially comfortable via arbitrary social checklists. I ‘lurk’ because i just like to absorb my surroundings and explore!
okay so, ive seen all the seasons of this show and when deborah comes back as a judge - shes like, MEAN. she just doesnt seem to engage with anyone elses art as deeply as she wants or expects people to engage with hers. i say this as a season 1 deborah defender. i thought she was unfairly maligned as a competitor, but she went on to be as bad to others. she pretty much exclusively liked the art that was closest to what she would make, and had a lot of extremely subjective and non technical critiques for art she deemed too "boring" or "basic". it came across like someone who decided art needed to meet their standard of "deep" to be good. also, there was one moment where another judge was praising the glassblowers about their collective gallery being the best they'd seen on the show, and shes like "UM are we forgetting season one?? hellooo???" which hit me as deeply rude and self centered for a judge to say. like you arent a contestant anymore - let others have their chance to shine. maybe she didnt intend it that way, but her delivery was just not good. idk man she had a real villain arc in my eyes.
I remember being so angry at the whole show when i watched it a couple years ago. I knew there was something going on with the father dude, but I assumed he was depressed - which would have been bad enough - but trying to recover from such a loss while competing under high stress conditions is not something I would wish on my worst enemy. I actually liked most of the art that came out of this show. The artists did an amazing job under incredibly unfair conditions. You can't conjure inspiration out of thin, fucking air and 4-5 hours to design AND craft an art piece worth being judged in front of thousands of people while remaining mentally and physically safe in an environment like that is total bullshit. I honestly hope they all sued for damages.
Once again it's kinda like the cooking show thing - there's a glorification of "suffering for art" like emotional turmoil is an inherent part of worthwhile creative work. Like, they're not judged on the ideas and execution of their work, but the trails and tribulations they had to go to for it. Think about all the incredibly sad stories people brought up, like Momo's brother dying.
It's an essentialisation of pain that's encourages a really, really unhealthy perception of what art is.
Its sorta art-school critiquey once in a while, but a lot of it feels like an elementary school art teacher's idea of art. Like, one that married the gym teacher... Sam you crack me up, this was great.
as an artist who has been crushed by that elementary school art teacher style critique a lot (even LONG past that period of life), this shit too real to behandled
How can you not talk about Catie? She's a proud proletarian and glassblowing is literally fucking up her vision, and she just wants to continue making affordable glass before she goes blind.
What a fucking legend.
She really flowered during the competition.
Spoilers
My heart broke when she didn't win.
Cathie was amazing! Such a sweet person (from what I've seen on the show, obviously I don't know her) and her passion for her craft was really touching.
@@haleymist09 Spoilers (season 2, and the Christmas special (season?))
Honestly I agree with you, I was so sad to see her turned down; and it's interesting how much a backstory can influence our preferred winners in a competition that's ostensibly about the quality of work produced. I was overjoyed for her getting a second chance in the Christmas season though, and definitely felt like she earned that victory!
...But then I felt bad for Nao not getting the win this time too, and for Alex, and, and -- it's an interesting aspect of competition reality shows like this, the way they give you so much empathy for so many different competitors, which can leave you both satisfied *and* disappointed at the outcome.
@@Qwanami definitely! Nao was super cool too!
YESSS bisexual icon
There's something intensely satisfying about seeing a serious analysis about reality TV that isn't about how it's terrible. Like I already know how it's terrible, I want to see what people can make of it
I will never not laugh when they say "Glory Hole" in this show.
I gotta wonder if they play it up for ratings. (I would!)
Same. What a name.
I was wondering about that 😂
That's legitimately what the forge home is referred to in glass blowing.
Kinda thought that your criticism of Deborah might include how she treats the assistants that work under her. It's really weird how the show frames that, especially given that it doesn't address her being autistic. Also, surprised the show's racism didn't come up more. Like the time they told that contestant that the color of their hand sculpture was "too dark." Like, whoa, wtf.
"Hands are only 2 colours: white and wrong."
I can't remember names - the fella in the second season, he was cut relatively early and was SUPER passionate about glassblowing - I thought his work on the show was great and he should've gone on longer.
Get over yourself lol. This show throws more minorities in than a fucking politician does at a suck up party.
@@Erin78456 ???
It’s only to save fave and we know that from the racist remark that is completely unchallenged in the show that the original commenter commented on
@@IshtarNike you killed me
As an Australian I’m also very proud of the heart-bear woman. Absolute legend
Thanks Lauren, appreciate it :)
What a ballsy move. I loved it.
@@ZijnShayatanica ❤️
I also appreciated your lack of bullshit, Tegan :)
@@skinder672 cheers!
Every time I see a show like this advertised I end up disappointed when I realise it’s a contest, I just wanna see cool art, I don’t want to see people get judged unfairly for views. It’s why How It’s Made got so popular, I wanna learn and appreciate how things are made.
yes agreed! I highly recommend ‘The Repair Shop’ on Netflix if you havent seen it already. just a buncha skilled artisans with a barn full of tools, fixing people's cherished antiques. the clients are always so emotional and delighted by the reveal at the end, if anyone goes home crying its happy tears!
That's why I love the Great British Pottery Throwdown. It's inspired by Bake Off, and while it's a competition the people in it aren't really competitive. It's a very friendly atmosphere.
As someone who just finished up their MFA in Illustration, this show really encapsulates the general ~vibe~ of art critique in a program that includes fine art. Not that it can't happen in a commercial art (i.e. illustration, animation, comics) setting too, but in all of my art education, that tendency towards elitism seems to thrive easiest among fine art academics. The critique you hear in this show reminds me of a lot of the feedback I got specifically as an illustrator from fine art professors: lots of focus on how your work didn't fit the EXACT vision they had for it, how it feels "cheap" or isn't creative in the "correct" way. As if the main purpose of art isn't self-expression. Watching or being on Blown Away seems like it would give me war flashbacks, no doubt.
BFA in Graphic design and a minor in fine art, and I completely agree. My fine art profs were terrible about it. I had one professor who would vaguely describe the prompt and then yell at us for doing the assignment wrong rinse and repeat for the whole semester.
@@purple-flowers 100 percent!! Negging was also a huge thing with a lot of my fine art profs lmao. Being an illustrator who focuses mainly on characters, I was given an assignment once where I couldn't include any figures. During crit, my prof told me, "I almost like this more than any of your other work." :^) What a fun experience.
Oh I agree! BFA in fine art and the flashbacks were unpleasant.
@@purple-flowers i also went to school for graphic design and it was ALWAYS the fine arts teachers that were the elitists. However, the flip side were the students who were completely delusional artists, like just because YOU think your art looks great doesn't mean the rest of the world does, but that is the whole point of art. But i digress.
@@raphdoods I HAD THAT AT MY VISUAL ARTS DEGREE OH MY GOD. The negging from this one certain teacher genuinely threw out my mental health for a bit to such an extent that my hair started falling out.
Chris was so funny to me because the whole time he's like "I'm critical of everyone and that means some people hate me and see me as evil and the villain" etc etc all the while having big, sincere anime eyes
I thought he was just gonna break down crying half the time cuz his eyes were always watering, then he told the story about his dad and I was like that makes sense now
"she's giving us dirty looks" her: smiles at him
I was a potter and did a little glassblowing - I found this show offensive, capitalist and fundamentally ignorant of what craft is and is for. 100 for your review, -17 for the show.
Oooo i want to hear more
lmao the dun g beetle one "also it strongly implies that glass is shit " made me crack up
O
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XD
The number of times the more skilled guy does something that DEFINITELY doesn’t follow the brief… but gets away with it? Infuriating
The moment at 4:20 had me infuriated when I watched because the object is so clearly recalling Japanese myths of Yokai and Spirits (specifically the ones about objects that gain life after becoming 100 years old). The judges said they couldn't tell what "it was supposed to be" and it was messy/nonsensical. They completely invalidated not only its artistic merit as an object but also any cultural/personal significance it might have carried.
Just truly awful stuff
Any time you get a bunch of competing artists and art critics together, it gets ugly. It's like that, to some degree, in art schools. However adding an audience of non-artists and armchair critics its even more toxic.
Part of me hopes that they make some changes to the format to make the show more positive towards the creative process but that seems antithetical to reality shows.
i lost it when Nick asked "what exactly is glass?"
Its funny how you brought up the role of the audience because, as an artist who went through very similar shit in school...i related yo the artists and understood them way more than the judges. And i wonder if that was a universal experience for all the artists who watched this. Like so many times i had to take a second bc the critiques are SO much like how ot felt when i had to put a painting up for critique in my class. Just. Oof
it something i brought up a lot while watching with my partner. we loved the show for the artists, but yeah, i definitely noticed a lot of similarities from when i was in art school.
I'm not an artist, but in watching this video, I kept yelling "Art is subjective!" about the judges and wondering how the hell do you truly judge a show like this? Everyone will look at artwork differently, what one person loves, another might hate, but there isn't some kind of perfect algorithm you can do to ensure everyone enjoys a particular piece. So people are being judged on subjective tastes, not concrete metrics.
I suppose one could look at music and say the same thing with the singing shows but singing isn't niche and most can at least make a generally agreed-upon call as to if someone can sing. Glass-blowing isn't really like that.
That's my problem with critisism in general, are you actually telling me that this would work in my favor this way or using a bs excuse to insult me? It's always the second one since I feel people don't want you to suceed.
Wait, wait, wait, wait...they call the oven where the glass is heated the "glory hole"? Oh my, that Adam and Eve sponsorship was more than warranted 😏. Also, the irony of Adam and Eve sponsoring a channel called We're In Hell is just too perfect.
Glad I'm not the only one who stumbled over that word. XD
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Being glass BLOWERS wasn’t enough?
XD
"this won't be too heavy."
I 100% do not believe that
Blown away is very reminicent of British art contest shows like 'the great sewing bee' and 'the great pottery throw down' but somehow tries to be more competitive and has canadian awkardness rather than the calming british charm
It also doesn’t have a judge who cries at how good the things they make are so it’s obviously inferior
While I haven’t watched those specific shows, but I know that the British bake off works because they judge technique rather than artistic merit. Maybe it’s a similar thing with the one you mentioned?
@@arosenthal3318 They judge both
I would LOVE to see you reviewing Ink Master (tattoo reality show). For real, that show is a hell of a rollercoaster. There's also reddit AMAs of people who were tattoed (they call them "human canvases" but I refuse to call real life people that 💀) . All seasons are on youtube too!
Literally did not know she was autistic, but was literally thinking “if autism was a haircut”. Not like “haha autistic”, just kinda has that vibe
Have you seen The Next Great Artist?
Many of these competition challenge shows (cake wars, ink master, face off, project runway, etc) are all focused on one medium with its own rules and traditions and such which make evaluating it in a competition somewhat reasonable or understandable.
But the Next Great Artist is like a competition involving literally ALL ART.. So judges compare photography to clay forms to wood structures to oil paintings from vastly different schools of art and then pick a winner and loser out of those and it's ridiculous.
That was the first show I thought of!
Oh dear…
I cannot get over the episode where someone explains that glass will become more scarce in the future and will be more expensive, and one of the judges goes 'I like the sound of that'
Yeah, especially, as someone else in the comments pointed out, that limits the production of solar panels but she’s just like “sounds good to me! 🤑”
You missed the chance to say "you think i bought that ball gag just for that gag?"
Let's not forget when Katherine compared being a minority as a women to being black, and the producers just... left that in
The Great Pottery Throw Down is the most sincere and heartwarming reality art show I can remember watching (from a judging and creation perspective)
Face off was pretty excellent too, if you skip the first couple seasons
Where can I see the pottery show? That sounds awesome 😎
@@WildHeart7777 I remember watching it on youtube but I bet it's gone now
@@WildHeart7777 it's on HBOMax
If I recall correctly, GPTD has one judge who cries repeatedly because he’s just so happy about the beauty of their work. That show was super enjoyable.
This reminds me of how art is critiqued in school.
I hate it.
Can’t help but notice this video failed to mention the biggest difference between blown away and other Netflix-acquired art-competition-reality-shows (skin wars, glow up, the big flower fight, next in fashion, etc), which is that its episodes are only 20 minutes long. This is very significant to me.
Tv that respects your time! I noticed it immediately when the show gave everyone a one-liner in the first episode. No sob-stories, just get to the glory hole
Oddly on Forged in Fire the contestants are largely very respectful and treat each other like they are members of a family ( maybe it because the judges are pretend? Sociopaths) but nice to know I’m not the only person who watches it
And we got the Nyanner's reaction video, which was glorious
It is nice to see a reality competition where all the contestants are pretty respectful and the judges are only even remotely mean to themselves (and then only in a joking friendly way). I may have problems with the online sword community (mostly fine but they lean a bit conservative, especially on weapon ownership. Nothing surprising and the community overall is NOT bad or anything, just not personally my taste) but forged in fire is not a terrible show.
Also, just want to be clear the online sword community/hema community is absolutely not terrible. They have very mild issues and I am not calling them fascist or alt-right, mildly conservative at most but that's it.
@@Kobolds_in_a_trenchcoat FYI being pro-weapon ownership (or rather, against this State's monopoly on armed force) is not strictly speaking, or even traditionally, a "conservative" position. "If you go far enough left, you get your guns back."
or to put it another way ... "Under no pretext..."
Glass studios are very chill, supportive, non-judgemental places in my experience. They have to be, for many pieces you need people to help you. It's a collaborative art.
In terms of weed, bongs and pipes are lampwork, which you make using a table mounted torch. You start off with a tube of borosilicate glass, which is much harder than the soft silica glass in the giant furnace.
I learned something today!
About BONGS
XD
I was so upset when the challenge was to make a cartoon character and one guy made a cup of pencils cause he did not give a shit and he got to stay because of his rep over a Black artist that actually tried.
Lol you also hit it on the head at 7:51, like why are you forcing them to make climate change hopeful? Makes no sense and actually takes away from the impact.
yeah, i think the problem is that they do not just judge you on the motive they judge you on techquiee and skill, and that poor guy didnt have time to finish his picece really, i remember watching and hearing about how he was gonna add lots of things to the rat but ran out of time as he has little experiance sculpting before and didnt realise how long it took for him to make one thing. so unfortunatly it went to that chris guy all because his was finished and looked like actual pencils. but yeah if they were given more time chris would of gotten out. which so far ( im on ep 4) i kinda wish he did but hey maybe he'll grow on me...
"This video is sponsored by adult toys, now let's get into how capitalism ruins art."
I feel like I need a nice suit and porcelain mask for this video.
“Forged in Fire” is honestly one of the only reality shows I like, because it’s all about the craft, and the contestants and judges nearly always have respect for the work that goes in, regardless of who wins.
When a blade fails, it’s treated as a tragedy by everyone. The competitor, their opponents, and the judges.
Conversely, when someone’s blade is doing well, everybody is celebrating and getting hype.
you can tell the exclusion of smokable glass is purposeful too, like lots of the interviews with the bong glass blower had him saying things like “i’m at a disadvantage” but cuts him short before he can fully articulate why
As someone who did 3 years of furnace glassblowing in college, I was only able to stomach 3 episodes. It was so pretentious. At school, we called people who thought they were all that and then some more "glassholes." This video really nailed it.
I work in a glass pipe shop, my manager was talking about this show today. I don't think I'll seek it out, my tolerance for bullshit in reality shows is near non-existent nowadays. I've sampled the positivity of The Great British Bake-Off and now I can't ignore the how nasty produced interpersonal conflict and unsympathetic judging tastes.
Honestly, watch it, just mute it when the judges speak.
Gotta watch the great pottery throw down. Can’t say I know of another show that has a “toilet” episode every season.
I didn't like the early seasons, it felt a bit uncomfortable with the guy who cries every episode, but I've heard good things about the later ones, might have to check it out on all4
you've got a Singular Dead Pixel on your camera and it's driving me bonkers but this is a good video. i binged blown away a couple weeks ago and i was like "yo .. why everyone so MEAN"
Lmao I went to the comments looking for this I thought I was tripping
sadly, that's just the art world.
@@thechannelend release the we’re in hell cut!
My girlfriend and I binged this series and now whenever we try to decide what to eat we say "nah that would be too pedestrian"
I wish you would've mentioned how it felt like in season 2 they were just pushing along Chris when on multiple occasions he should've been booted.
I go to art school in Toronto and briefly attended the school that partners with the show so the entire show just feels like attending a critique except solely as a voyeur. Delicious and awful at the same time
I honestly thought I was the only person who knew Blown Away even existed. It's such a weird textbook single-elimination reality competition stapled to an indie documentary that it seems like something popped out by a random idea combination generator web page.
Now I just need a video bashing the Netflix game show "Awake." God I hate Awake with such passion. I just want to bask in other people hating it. I really feel like it just doesn't get hated anywhere near enough.
I hated this show so much, especially the main judge. But i think it's my art school PTSD doing that to me 😂
I always feel like judging and even teaching art in an institutional sense (besides technical skills and such) is like one giant oxymoron. Art is something that's so deeply personal, how can you stand there and tell somebody their art is bad based on your own opinions and preferences when you KNOW as a teacher and a supposed artist yourself that that's so beyond what art is supposed to be. I hate it.
WHY DOES SHE HAVE TO TOUCH EVERY GOD DAMN THING
yep… givin me second hand anxiety even 10yrs past art school. The culture of pretentious faux-deep snobbery turned me off so much that when i graduated i got a job on a livestock ranch for a few years 🐮 . Sounds nuts ik lol, everyone else went to work for disney, but i just needed to get FAR away from all that shit before i could even start to enjoy making art again.
As a former art student myself, I feel this so very much. There are few people more catty and competitive than artists, particularly art students.
@@EphemeralTao Ya listening to the endless praising & trashing & “deconstructing” eachother was a little exhausting, but the gross part was the way they looked down on creative “trades” & skilled craftsmen… like if what they made was actually somehow useful (i dunno like a beautiful chair say) it couldn’t be “art”… and the creators creativity & hard-earned skills didnt deserve to be respected on *their* level.
I may have shown up at RISD for a “fine arts” program, but i came from a family of carpenters & craftsmen… so the whole scene & vibe to me was just… gross. Even a frikkin sandwich can be appreciated as “art” lol, if its beautifully crafted it deserves appreciation… but the fine art world is just another industry, it relies on creating mysterious standards of superiority & artificial scarcity to fetch higher prices.
Using expensive oil paint & arcane ‘theory’ instead of wood & practical skills doesnt make you superior… and making something that someone can both appreciate *and* actually use doesnt make you less of an artist. Creating those divisions has nothing to do with actual art appreciation, its all about money 🤮
@@RUFFDRAFTCA Definitely agree. I'm very much on the "fine art" side myself, and "art for art's sake". However, I don't like seeing the differentiation between "the arts" and "crafts" used to denigrate craftspeople and artisans as someone inferior to artists.
The line between artists and craftspeople isn't even as distinct as so many artists would like it to be, particularly when you enter the realm of "functional art". Becoming a skilled craftsperson or artisan is just as challenging and valuable as becoming a skilled artist.
That teddy bear woman was absolutely incredible.
She knew exactly who she was.
omg i have had literally no one to talk about this show with.. its insane. they ARE mean to each other.. i am australian, our masterchef is the friendliest in the world. these guys just snipe at each other.. and the art is so literal in conception.. you nailed it completely. i didn't particularly like any piece of art and i wanted to, i have always been fascinated with it
Debra was one of those people who’s like the snooty art teacher that only likes high art and everything else students do is childish or for mass markets and not individualistic enough.
I don't think the 4 hour time frame is real since blown glass can take hours to fully cool and usually needs to incrementally cool in a kiln in order to not be extremely brittle and fall apart.
I saw an instagram post from Cat Burns (season 2) where she said there is a lot of cold working after the cameras are off and that's actually where a lot of the progress takes place.
This was my thought, too. The artists are always rushing to put their works into the annealer before "time is up," but there's also a ton of work that can only be done after the glass has cooled down in the final product. It feels very misleading if you know even a little bit about glass making.
Loved your analysis of profit motives in the competition genre! Also, I never thought about Canadian identity lacking a "birth" in the way you mentioned. That might be an anglo-canadian thing, because I feel like the franco-canadian story is full of very tense, substantial and identity-affirming moments. I'd love to hear your analysis of Québec reality shows, I'm sure it would be insightful.
That's a great point. I also thought about the Acadien and Indigenous experiences in Canada when I was listening.
@@marie-eve9304 how true!
loved this show. Loved this video. Articulated the strange feelings I had about multiple people, and the whole "anti-gift-shop" glassbowing comments alongside the competetive structure of the show, great points.
Also I am fascinated by the idea that a country doesn't feel confident about it's story and canada continues to be a mystery.
As a Canadian, rambling about wtf Canadian national identity is/should be is incredibly fascinating to me. Like, seriously, wtf, this country is unlike any on earth. There is nothing distinct enough about it warrant it being anything more than just a state government ruling over a rather culturally disjointed continent sized land area. Like, there's a straight line, drawn 200 years ago, that separates Canada from a people who are culturally indistinguishable to outsiders, and also to Americans, from Canada.
“Just inexplicably creates this cruel and nasty atmosphere that permeates every part of it” 💀💀💀 what a line lmfao
A glass blowing reality show reminds me of my school. I was a studio art major, did not take glass blowing specifically because at my school whenever people did their glassblowing homework everyone would come and watch, like it was some event. You have some drunk people yelling at you while you're just trying to figure out what you're doing. It was also annoying because I often did my homework in the other room and so many people were just yelling all night long.
And I think like other commenters, studio art majors get this critique time just like in the reality shows but its often more technical (at least in my experience).
Its nothing like a reality show though because there's no editing, but its still dramatic and stressful. (so many tears in ceramics that I refuse to go near a pottery wheel ever again)
I've been waiting for so long for someone to talk about the terrible art critique of Blown Away! Thanks so much for this
"Your art looks like it would be in a gift shop"
Thank you so much 🥺 I would KILL to see my art sold in a gift shop.
This is honestly one of the most underrated shows on RUclips. I always love to hear your insight on issues and keep spreading the word through friends on Discord. I hope you can make us a full-time job because I would love to hear from you more often and I know other people would too. Thanks for all your work sir! ❤️
Flushing toilets
@@ryanshields2195 The muscular class is everywhere!
#RmBrown 💪🚽
I can understand them expecting the artists to do immensely different styles of work, like utilitarian vs conceptual, bc it shows that they have a wide range of work they can do. But that Chris guy, OMFG I could not stand watching him. He’s so arrogant. I wonder how much was manufactured by production or if this is how glass artists really are. I went to college for ceramics in a small town college, and always heard stories about how tough and intense critiques are at other universities with larger programs and “more serious” artists teaching/attending. Crit does not have to be a battleground. There are ways to give criticism gracefully. The judges on this show are insane lol good on that woman who stood up for herself and talked about how inappropriate the judges comments were, she’s 100% right
As a youthful trans myself, Deborah's final piece really spoke to me. I felt she was charming and well meaning!
My roomie and i had a lot of fun watching it together. And as rabid drag race fans(i know), we blamed much weirdness on the edit.
yh tbh deborah just talks like any second wave feminist i know, they’re all super into the cultural symbolism of genitalia. and some small percentage of second wave feminists r terfs but not nearly a majority
Really? I got intense TERF vibes from her. Something about her presence on the show was already making me uncomfortable but that last piece... As a man who can very much be pregnant I found it extremely ignorant
@@Epizephyrian i hadnt thought she made too many essentialist opinions in her final honestly. Used a lot of qualifiers like 'usually' and 'expected to be'. The sausage through the cast oron was beautiful to me. The whole thing just a medley of bits, felt very trans to me.
@@Epizephyrian no TERF would think "artificial wombs for men" are something cool and important. Not when they thing trans women getting surgery is a literal attack on unrelated cis women's bodies. She's just not educated on trans people. Probably never even crossed her mind.
@@tylerd8289 you may be willing to extend her the benefit of the doubt, personally i don't
Have you watched Work of Art: The Next Great Artist. It’s a lot. They have artists who work with all sorts of mediums so they will judge installation pieces next to paintings. It’s been ages since I watched it but I remember yelling at the tv a lot. Jerry Saltz is a judge and Sarah Jessica Parker a producer? It clearly had a massive budget idk if it’s worth making another video about it but if you haven’t seen it you definitely should
i still think about that show. all. the. time.
Yes! When I saw the title that's what I thought this was about. It was a weird show but I enjoyed watching it. I feel the critiques on that show fill in what is missing in the critiques in Blown Away, plus it will make you roll your eyes ten times more.
IT WAS THIS!!! This was the show I was thinking of the whole time!!!
just commented the same thing before reading your comment. that show is wild. gonna rewatch it now just to get mad
I was going to comment about this if someone else didn't. It was my favorite reality competition show, but it was also so difficult to watch. It was frustrating to see certain people getting all this unfair praise, like Miles. He was so tiring. I loved Abdi Farah a lot, though.
I literally had just watched all of season 2 last night so this was a pleasant surprise. Every time any of the artists had big pieces ready to go into the glory hole or the annealer I just turned away because you KNOW something's about to go down lol
Thank you for the analysis on this show. While I enjoyed watching it, I'm glad that everything that left me scratching my head was brought up here. So glad I'm not alone lol
Like others already said: Really gives you flashbacks to artschool.
I once failed a class cause I changed my concept on too short a notice. Even though that's the feedback I got from the prof, to throw everything out and start new.
Now I'm one of maybe 5% of students to actually work in the field of said class.
Cause it's actually more focused on technical skill than concept.
I actually love the format of having guest pannelists that don't blow glass! Having a futurist or a sommelier on the panel asking Katherine Gray technical questions about what the artists are doing really just serves to answer the audience's questions, I feel like I learn way more about glass blowing when the guest judge is asking all the questions I also have, and it feels a lot more organic then having a narrator just explaining everything. The pannelist doesn't really have the power to pick a winner without knowing about glass, but I always learn more when they're there with Katherine :)
My take was mostly that glassblowing as an art form is looked down on by artists in other mediums, or at least, that's how the glassblowers see themselves. The "gift shop" taboo is really about saying "I don't want this to be commodity, I want this to be in a museum next to 'real' art". This is something the contestants express as well.
Debora’s last art piece made me so uncomfortable lol. She seems very stuck in second wave feminism and I totally thought she was a terf the first time I saw the show. Her thing about putting a hole in pan to queer it felt more like it was making fun of the potential of men being feminine than embracing liberation from gender roles (paired with the sausage though the pan especially felt a bit ‘haha isn’t it shameful for men to be gay?’). I doubt that was her intention but man I hated the piece.
yeah i felt bad because i knew i was uhhh letting her appearance as a white middle aged brunette with terf bangs and chunky glasses get the better of me but she's also very open about her identity as a feminist…. and it's not clear what kinda feminist that is.
upset that i didnt know she was autistic - they really try super hard to portray her as a weird woman and i fell for it. very embarrassing ngl
I got the same energy as well, but yeah as the video says she's probably just older you know. And it's quite a thing to place upon somebody we have seen very little of all things considered.
Hi Sam sorry this isn't related to the video but I saw the stream where you and some other folks looked at Caleb maupin's antisemitic book and I really liked it! I'd appreciate it if you made some more Jew centric content because as a Jew I feel like a lot of breadtube talks about us but there's not any actual Jewish representation other than you and Jacob Geller as far as I know. I'd like to see some of your takes!
There's Jacob Geller but I'm not sure he counts as left tube/bread tube, video essayist but not really political in the same way breadtube is.
Don't forget Big Joel!
Hi! Your 42 year old Buffalonian neighbor here! This was my favorite video of all time, ever. I even sat through the commercial which was funny. My good, young man, your takes are brilliant and your jabs and quips have me in stitches. I would trade USA for the GTA ANYDAY!!!! All the best, and the background musice was great. Thank you!
When talking about her Frying Pan in the last episode of the 1st season, Deborah basically says something endorsing the idea that "it represents the masculine, feminine, and everything in between"
Imo categorically not terf
Judge:"Where is the hope?"
Me: not in my body or mind
When i there wasn't the quarantine, at least once every couple of years me and my family went to see the expert glass artists in Murano Venice and it's always insane to see how fast they are at making absolute masterpieces. A reality show about it is an interesting idea, cool.
Great video
Murano is, its amazing ther, and i only saw the shops, mut have been a blast (and hopefully not the glass) to be there.
I'm happy you mentioned how mean everything about the show seems to be, it really put me off of it even though I found competitive glassworks to be dramatic and fascinating content.
Speaking of art coming out of Canada being distinctly Canadian, I went to a ceramics conference in 2019 and the Canadian show there was all about winter sports in Canada lol. Your comments really rang true when I thought about that, haha. It’s the largest art conference in the world and people come from all over, so I think it says a lot that the show that was specifically Canadian was very ~Canadian~ actually.
But the thing is, to me as a Canadian, and to most people I have talked to this about, I know about Canada's funding of Canadian artists because we are literally taught about it in school and the Canadian government likes to boast about how it funds the arts (which is helpful to contrast us with the image of the more fiscally conservative Americans who we need to feel as different form as possible). This leads to me seeing distinctly Canadian art, by means of being distinctly Canadian, as just announcing sellout status, in that they changed their artistic vision to get the grants, and you can usually tell. There are exceptions, works I consider distinctly Canadian but not at their detriment, such as the show Letterkenney, but I find it tends to be that the artists want the grant so they make it "more Canadian" by including non-offensive Canadianisms. There's nothing about defining Canadianness for oneself, or critiquing Canadian identity or anything like that, so it really just ends up being American art but it's set in Toronto with a few Canada specific references.
This is of course excluding Quebec and Indigenous Canadians, who are the only parts of Canada who can claim to be distinct from America by more than just a straight line drawn on a map in most ways.
When canadian i think more of the canadian scifi wave that pretty great actually, and other series that is actually overall pretty good as queer representation and diversity, but also, very canadian. I mean not the best but depends.
I ean th feel, vancover is better , and apearently cheaper, an more supportive of actors than hollywood.
Have you watched The Great Pottery Thowdown? As a ceramic artist it hurts to watch
But I do enjoy watching the judge cry over pots
That Canadian mandate to make a performance "about Canada" is how we got The Great White North. The character of Bob and Doug McKinsey were created to be a joke about the most Canadian thing possible
"Where's the hope???"
You asked *artists* to make pieces about *climate change,* lady!
We as a demographic are the second most cynical lot in regards to that topic, the first most cynical being Increasing Numbers of Climate Scientists for the last 40 years.
There's a reality competition show about art that existed before Blown Away - Work of Art, which was literally about artists of different mediums - paint, photography, graphic design, sculpture, etc - competing together. It aired in 2010 and 2011 for two seasons. I vaguely remember one of the challenges being "shock art".
I would love to see some analysis like this on the show Skin Wars. It's got some similarities and differences in terms of how it navigates the values of technical skill and original concepts, plus I feel like it's got really interesting tension around whether or not the contestants see them selves as participating in a 'high' or 'low brow' art form.
This is giving me flashbacks to artschool and the weirdness of a drawing program that tried to make us all concept artists. I wanted to actually like, draw. I remember being told, only half as a joke, that you can't be taken seriously as an artist in Canada until you make it big somewhere else.
I find there is some truth to how the judges operate, as far as how critiques come from both angles “technical “ ability and “conceptual” concepts- I think that as artists we have to hold both in regard (and also disregard depending on the point of our work). It’s as weird and contradictory as art school itself is. You have to be creative and un-afraid, yet within bounds so that you can sell the work (be it to fine art galleries, to magazines, or as a person doing fan art on ig). It’s the tension that you live with as a working artist. Kind of exposes they hypocrisy a bit- if this makes sense.
For whatever it’s worth, I found some of Deborah’s statements about sex and gender odd too, but she does have a trans flag in her Instagram bio. I assume this means she’s trans herself and/or is supportive.
I think she’s just awkward and passionate and that her feminism is maybe quite second wave informed and a little dated?
It seems to me that Deborah is less a terf and just reminds me of an older gen x femminist, means well but hasn't keep up with what's happening now if that makes sense
Could just be that her reactions to the questions and topics brought up were on the spot and she was not given much time to consider her words carefully. If she is autistic like Sam says, she may have issues with on the spot word choice. I absolutely do not mean that as an insult, I'm autistic myself. I just mean that sometimes autistic people can make unintentionally poor word choices that don't fully encapsulate what they mean.
It's possible that she thinks of feminism primarily around things like reproductive health, genitalia, and chromosomes, not because she's transphobic but just because that's primarily how she conceptualizes it. It's possible it's poor word choice because she just didn't have time to properly formulate her thoughts and, put on the spot, she wasn't considering transgender people (not maliciously, just lack of consideration). It's possible she is just a terf but I'm going to assume otherwise without more significant evidence.
@@Kobolds_in_a_trenchcoat I don't think she's a TERF because if she was she wouldn't have made an "artifical womb" for anyone to use. TERFs tend to think that anything that involves dudes trespassing into a woman's domain is awful.
I love this show! I only really have one main problem with the analysis
"the glassblowers are really mean to each other", is something I disagree with. Most are in interviews, where leading questions are probably asked. The ones on the shop floor could literally be seen as either out-of-context or little jokey comments. A comment on how it broke or what went wrong does tend to happen, and it's not meant to be snarky, it's a lighthearted dig because it happens so often, even when not under a high pressure scenario. Definitely a victim of editing over anything else
I genuinely see them all as professionals, I think that's why it worked for me. People hold themselves and others to a very high standard, because to be good at glass, you have to put in the time. I light dig will not ever faze someone of the level all of these people are. i haven't rewatched in a while, but there was someone who left early in season one, very little experience relatively (I think 2 years) and he mostly does sculptural. Editing made him out to be an arrogant asshole in interviews, but I distinctly remember a point where someone else won that challenge, and he gave such a genuine smile and slap on the back to them as congratulations, and that's when I got invested in the show. Reality shows LOVE to make villains, but I think they had a genuinely hard time doing that to any one person.
Also yeah mentioning Mike Shelbo (the bong guy). It's super impressive he was even there honestly. He's incredibly accomplished as an artist, done for decades, but not in the same style as what's on the show. He does lampworking, which is having basically a big torch firing out a flame in front of you, rather than a massive furnace and fully molten glass. It's a completely different glass in his lampworking (borosilicate as opposed to soda-lime glass), it would move different depending on heat, the colours would react differently, and lampworking is a much smaller scale compared to traditional. The fact that he got as far as he did shows his talent honestly, because those two mediums are really different, and it's hard to describe without firsthand experience as to why.
The clips of the glass shattering reminded me of watching Food Network cooking challenge specials as a kid. Teams/contestants had to make like 7 foot tall sugar (or chocolate, or cake) sculptures in a few hours, and then carry them from their work station to the judging table. It wasn't rare for one to partially or completely fall, and while the judges were very competent and critical they were also kind. They were lots of fun to watch. Man I miss that shit lol.
Those were my favorite! I miss them too lol
Binged all the vids on your channel over the last few days, this is perfect timing!
my dad used to blow glass in the 1980s at a shopping mall when he was a teenager. they used to do big displays in public to show off their skills. he knew someone who grabbed onto a glob of molten glass without thinking when they were being trained and she ended up losing her finger. glass blowing is no joke- and then adding a competition element onto it? wild.
Got really excited for a video about 1994’s Blown Away, starring Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones. I liked the video I got, though.
Hell, I'm just glad I'm not the only one! 😅
congrats on 100k :)
As a part of the glassblowing community (though I work with borosilicate or hard glass, not furnace with soda lime glass) I thought this show was really cool at first. But I started to hear mumblings in the inner circles about how shit being on the show was.
Nice takedown of the show, I appreciate the insightfulness.
Also worth noting, most people who agree to this show have a knack in the community for being disliked.