The Art of Poetry Film with Cheryl Gross: “Talk About the Money”
Talk About the Money
Poem by Wanda Coleman
Directed by Mark Pellington
From the PBS series The United States of Poetry, produced by Bob Holman and Josh Blum, 1995
I found Talk About the Money intriguing. Wanda Coleman recites her poem as a seductress, enticing and luring the viewer into believing her, just like any good sales person. As her presentation becomes more aggressive, she insists that we need to talk money to understand the currency of our time. I take this as a warning that unfortunately has more truth than this reviewer wants to handle. The gap between the haves and the used-to-haves or have-nots is rapidly growing.
The opening image is of one of Barbara Kruger’s works: We’ve exploded because they’ve got Money and God in their pockets. Kruger worked in advertising and her art is politically/feminist based. Her work is very powerful and a good opener to this video poem. The flashing on and off of advertising slogans is a nice touch. It appears pretty chintzy, which is a welcome addition to the message Coleman is very effectively getting across. The fact that it appears to be cheaply made adds to the impact. It reminds me of one of those late-night infomercials (they will even throw in another one if you act now!) for something you don’t really need but are now lured into buying. Then whatever you bought breaks or isn’t what you thought it might be and you’re out $19.95 plus shipping.
Money is a systematic theory that we all need to adhere to, like it or not. I think by collaborating on this video, Wanda Coleman had the foresight to warn us of what is happening economically today—though unfortunately this is a pattern which has been repeating throughout time.
I love the rotating piggy banks. All the imagery is perfect and matches the meaning of the poem. It’s shoddy, ugly and presented in such a way that whoever sees it will never want to watch another infomercial ever again.
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Brooklyn native Cheryl Gross is an illustrator, painter, writer and motion graphic artist living and working in the New York/New Jersey area. She is a professor at Pratt Institute.
Cheryl’s work has appeared in numerous films, TV shows, publications, and graces the walls of many corporate and museum collections including: Zebra Poetry Film Festival, Berlin, New York Times, Riverside Museum, Riverside, Ca., The Museum of The City of New York, Mississippi Museum of Art, Laforet Harajuku Museum, Tokyo, Japan, Artist-In-Residency, Kunstlerhaus, Saarbruken, Germany. Finalist Elizabeth Hulings Foundation, 2014, Artist-In-Residency Program, Dilsberg, Germany, 2015, four-time recipient Eileen Kaminsky Family Foundation Residency, Jersey City, 2018-2020, Art Fair 14c 2021-2023, Competition Winner, 2015 Ó Bhéal Poetry Film Festival, Cork, Ireland.
“The work, metaphorically travels through two different forms of representation: abstract and realism, thereby creating a narrative that embraces a socio-political point of view. My narrative follows my childhood fantasies, which focuses on lifestyles that are usually viewed as male dominated.”
