I understood what you're saying and I respect it so far as marketing a commodity goes. But when it comes to a discussion of art, I think we're coming to the discussion from two opposing philosophical perspectives - perspectives that are probably bound to clash.
What you're getting at here, whether or not art is a commodity, is something that is discussed in one of the texts on my exam reading list.
The Gift: Imagination and the Erotic Life of Property by Lewis Hyde deals specifically with art as it fits into the gift vs. commodity scheme. The basic argument of the book:
"[T]here is an irreconcilable conflict between gift exchange and the market, and, [. . .] as a consequence, the artist in the modern world must suffer a constant tension between the gift sphere to which his work pertains and the market society which is his context."
I think focus groups are a manifestation of that tension, though Hyde is more concerned with writers like Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound, so he never specifically discusses them.
My point (do I have one?
) is that what MB and victoriawinters are arguing here is an
old and
long debate. This isn't simply a product of Hollywood.
Ever since patronage has existed, whether or not an artist is compelled to manipulate his/her product to suit the whims of an audience or a financial backer has been an issue. Go back to a "pure" time when this didn't happen on any level, and you're likely to find an artist without means of distributing his/her work at all.
Does that mean I like what focus groups do and all the decisions they make? Not by any stretch of the imagination. But I think they're probably an unavoidable and necessary evil.