I want to criticize "the arts." I can't escape this feeling that art, and in it's expression, whilst being talked about in magnificent ways and depicted in grandiose fashion, is often the crowning achievement of our ability to drop right out of reality. I think it's exploitative, even when it appears to be trying so hard not to be.
Take, So You Think You Can Dance. As with any competition or reality show, there's money to be made in showing off young talent. But what are we really doing when we watch these kids? Deaths in their family are described, surely to try and stir up tears for the judges and audience, before they perform. Are we meant to empathize, be entertained, or simply emotionally exploited and primed? One girl grew up in a trailer park, essentially said her mom prostituted herself for drugs, and had her family split up into 10-15 houses over the years. It's treated as a nominal fact of this "wonderful dancer who's overcome all odds!"
I think these depictions are dangerous. For every girl that makes it to that stage, there are thousands who turn out just like mom or worse. I understand the purpose of the show is not to speak about broken homes. I don't think you see a "soul" of the show being about the pure expression and talents of an individual, when you play up the horrible circumstances of their past for ratings or mini-celebrity-esc status within the show. "Oh, that's the trailer park girl! Bless her heart..."
Things like this are designed to exploit the naive energy and dreams of children. We dress them up and put them on stage to take our minds off of the problems we created for them to overcome. We're obsessed with these kind of hero stories. We're obsessed with the struggle. Not why it's a struggle, or how we can improve the struggle, just the idea of struggling. If we can just see it depicted in one more hapless soul like ourselves, but only if it's deep behind their shimmering smile and perfect pirouettes. They've certainly inspired us to think that it can't be all bad, yippee.
Or think of the starving artist. When someone is "so dedicated" "so bold" "so passionate" that they suffer long and hard, perhaps their entire lives, so that you can see through whatever medium they've chosen to show how full of feels they've been. It's not that I don't like a pretty picture. It's not that I don't think people need to express themselves. I've gone to an art gallery and seen a dick shooting semen in one continuous stream blown up onto a 6 foot canvas in black and white. I struggle to think that with less than an afternoon of practice, and the right filter on my phone, I couldn't reach the depth of that photographer's...that artist's...talent.
It's personal. It's the most personal thing you can do. It's loving a song so much you learn how to play that song. If your rendition of it brings tears to someone's eyes, you first wanted to prove to yourself you could do it. People feel personally affronted when they learn their favorite band was so oblivious they wrote your favorite song blacked out in 5 minutes on a bathroom stall. How could something so deep, meaningful, or have the power to pull you from the brink be essentially drunk blathering? You extracted meaning. You didn't read it like a book for factual information.
I think how we talk about art, and how we conceive of artists, or our time spent pursuing it, often hurts us. I stress, I'm not against music, pictures, or dance. I simply think they're hijacked, like most things, to trap our minds into ideas about perfection, beauty, and youth that don't do us any favors.
Or think of "talent." Sure, there are some people who "just get things" quickly. Math whizzes or just mimicking someone's sound or body movements. Doesn't the overwhelming amount of talent in the world come from practice? Time dedicated to repeating a craft over and over again? If you call most talent practice, then you start to maybe see what it is people are constantly practicing.
But talent is so light and free. It's an arms length away like "oh, I could never dance like that, I'm not naturally gifted like that person over there." In a single breath, you exalt the performer and reinforce complacent awe in most of the watchers. The one kid who's "inspired" by the show will gladly line up and take their turn to get exploited during the next round of auditions. Their struggle over the haters and doubters used to keep the cycle going.
I just think we have it backwards. Like, let's get everyone fed, stop killing children in drone strikes, and bring the planet back from making us extinct, and then I will loft all the praise you can handle about your ability to jump and point your toes.
This is why I derive no real "guilty pleasures." It's just guilt. All the time. And a paralyzing fear that I'm going to never figure out a way to fix it, especially given that I can't even really discuss it. I mean, what we do to these young dancers, we do with kids in the military. Nothing like the dumbest and dick-headed-est jock in school to knowledge slap me about the importance and meaning of the military. Or sports. Who's more enthusiastic than the guy who could have played with so and so if it weren't for his bad knee? Let the kids run around, let's regale ourselves with their struggles and hijack their practice then take the greatest pride when they represent our deepest desires. Actually doing something we wish we could. Actually believing something about what we no longer can.
We exploit by nature. That's why we're losing the planet. That's why we get into unhealthy relationships. That's why everything I hear and everything you say is sometimes absolutely stuck being layered in some level of bullshit. Like, it's not even always deliberate. But it's fluid. It's normalized. And most simply, it's one more on the list of reasons I don't ever see us getting better and don't think we'll last. It's so easy to dignify someone else's personal pursuit of self-actualization and happiness because, dammit, we're selfish kids too!
Next entry: Cement Shoes
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