Wednesday, September 15, 2004
. . . But I Know What I Like
One of the things I think I know about art is that art is supposed to tell us things about ourselves that we might not be able to realize without it. The simplest example of this phenomenon is when we hear a song that makes us think, "Yes--that's exactly how I feel." But there are more sophisticated examples, too. It's what makes Michelangelo or Picasso Michelangelo or Picasso--you know when you look at their work that there's more to it than what your eyes take in.
Sometimes art tells us things we'd rather not know, or rather not look at. Alternet had an interesting piece today on the rise of monstrous, even Satanic images used to depict conservatives in art. For a while this summer, there was a website (now taken down, as the proprietor unconvincingly claims, because the joke had run its course) that promoted a presidential ticket of Bush and Zombie Reagan ("Still less evil than Cheney."). Other forms of popular art, from comic books to the theater, have used similarly monstrous images to comment on the right wingers among us.
Along the same lines--attempting to tell us things we'd rather not know, or rather not look at--Salon's inestimable Michelle Goldberg reported today on the first film festival featuring conservative filmmakers. The right, which already has its own below-the-radar film industry (the Tribulation Force movies based on the wildly popular Left Behind novels), is branching out into documentary, trying to out-Moore Michael Moore. Goldberg found they've got a long way to go before much of their output is even watchable, let alone capable of becoming influential outside the right's own echo chamber.
I'm not sure this is a left-right issue, though. Maybe it's in-out. After all, the Soviets were as left-wing as it got, but their government-sanctioned art was as drab and dull as any art ever could be. Those underground who opposed Soviet rule created works of art that were often more truthful about what was really going on, more cutting and incisive. Here, it's the culturally in who are producing the art worth experiencing, while the culturally out seem clueless.
Why do right-wingers have so much trouble being cool? As there will be no more new posts here until sometime late Friday, talk amongst yourselves about that, or anything else you like, by clicking "Comments."
Quote of the Day: Goldberg, describing one of the groups making a film shown at the right-wing film festival: "In many ways, they're the distillate of the Bush-era right--paragons of smugness who confuse martial iconography with physical courage. They're hot to do battle with America's foes--not by actually fighting them abroad, but by patrolling the borders of acceptable rhetoric here at home."
One of the things I think I know about art is that art is supposed to tell us things about ourselves that we might not be able to realize without it. The simplest example of this phenomenon is when we hear a song that makes us think, "Yes--that's exactly how I feel." But there are more sophisticated examples, too. It's what makes Michelangelo or Picasso Michelangelo or Picasso--you know when you look at their work that there's more to it than what your eyes take in.
Sometimes art tells us things we'd rather not know, or rather not look at. Alternet had an interesting piece today on the rise of monstrous, even Satanic images used to depict conservatives in art. For a while this summer, there was a website (now taken down, as the proprietor unconvincingly claims, because the joke had run its course) that promoted a presidential ticket of Bush and Zombie Reagan ("Still less evil than Cheney."). Other forms of popular art, from comic books to the theater, have used similarly monstrous images to comment on the right wingers among us.
Along the same lines--attempting to tell us things we'd rather not know, or rather not look at--Salon's inestimable Michelle Goldberg reported today on the first film festival featuring conservative filmmakers. The right, which already has its own below-the-radar film industry (the Tribulation Force movies based on the wildly popular Left Behind novels), is branching out into documentary, trying to out-Moore Michael Moore. Goldberg found they've got a long way to go before much of their output is even watchable, let alone capable of becoming influential outside the right's own echo chamber.
I'm not sure this is a left-right issue, though. Maybe it's in-out. After all, the Soviets were as left-wing as it got, but their government-sanctioned art was as drab and dull as any art ever could be. Those underground who opposed Soviet rule created works of art that were often more truthful about what was really going on, more cutting and incisive. Here, it's the culturally in who are producing the art worth experiencing, while the culturally out seem clueless.
Why do right-wingers have so much trouble being cool? As there will be no more new posts here until sometime late Friday, talk amongst yourselves about that, or anything else you like, by clicking "Comments."
Quote of the Day: Goldberg, describing one of the groups making a film shown at the right-wing film festival: "In many ways, they're the distillate of the Bush-era right--paragons of smugness who confuse martial iconography with physical courage. They're hot to do battle with America's foes--not by actually fighting them abroad, but by patrolling the borders of acceptable rhetoric here at home."
