Everyone likes talk about democratising access to high culture, even while distinguishing themselves by their own rarefied tastes. It is good and noble, on this way of thinking, to make it so that everyone is conversant about Shakespeare. But, ironically, to have oneself failed to watch Koyaanisqatsi is to take one’s place among the middlebrow, the Shakespeare-sonnet-quoting unwashed masses.
At Middlebrowse we don’t think “middlebrow” is a term of derogation, or having not seen experimental films a failure to demonstrate good taste. We believe a just and beautiful society will help people discover their aesthetic and critical sensibilities and cultivate these to their highest capacity. Acting like we already inhabit that ideal world is not an act of noblesse oblige; it is joyful participation in the common patrimony of mankind.
Middlebrowse stalks the timely and the timeless in print, film, and art. Our reviews, commentary, and recommendations identify points of general interest, landmarks, from where the insecure aesthete and the consummate connoisseur alike can begin exploring the forking paths and trapdoors in the kingdom that’s rightfully theirs.