It's no secret that journalism, as an industry, is rapidly evolving. The age of the blogosphere has given rise to a society that would rather pull up their favorite web site than shuffle through the ink stained pages of a newspaper for the one article that holds their interest. Along with the rise of online and audience specific media comes the decline of traditional mass media such as regularly scheduled broadcast news and newspapers.
Polls show that many of us would rather watch Jon Stewart’s Daily Show than Dan Rather. In fact, those who follow comedy news are more up-to-date on political information than those who follow traditional news (Kuck). But as newspapers continue to cut hundreds of jobs daily and TV news stations begin to convert to computerized production equipment, the evolution of the media has become a multidimensional battle of Man versus Machine. On the most obvious, most discussed, level “Man” stands for verifiable and unbiased, traditional journalism; news that is written and collected by trained journalists. Meanwhile, “Machine” represents computer-disseminated news such as pod casts, blogs and uploaded videos made possible by camera phones, webcams and citizen journalists.
As the argument stands, scholars and journalists in favor of old media argue that these technological advances will result in biased, unverifiable and undeveloped news which will only play into society’s desire for instant gratification and entertainment (Patterson 2-4). On the other hand, those in favor of new media believe that these changes will aid us in staying informed and up-to-date on the latest developments and allow for a greater number of voices to be heard, a democratic marketplace of ideas (Quart 30-35).
While it is easy to believe that these are the main reasons for this current and probably continuous trend towards “infotainment” and new media, I believe that there is a deeper and more important issue at hand than technology and short attention spans. The real issue is not by whom and how news is gathered and disseminated. The real issue is about being open, honest and relevant. Traditional journalism puts so much emphasis on journalists’ objective appearance, even in their personal lives that it seems like they have something to hide. Journalists can no longer be open about who and what they represent. As a result their audience is turning to people like Stephen Colbert and Perez Hilton who have no qualms about explaining where they stand. The news, as it is, is so institutionalized that the voice of the people, the watchdog of society, can barely be heard. From this viewpoint, “Man” represents the individual and “Machine,” the establishment. On one hand we have humans who deny that news should be separate from those humans and on the other hand we have news that denies that newsmakers are human.
According to the book Democracy and the News, people have lost faith in traditional journalists (Gans). Old media has become too lofty and is, therefore, seen as untrustworthy (Cline). Popular opinion puts journalists on the same level as politicians and lawyers, which we all know are on a pretty low level (Gans). Instead of championing the concerns of the public, journalism seems to deal mostly with top down information and people are tired of hearing the public relations spin.
In other words, when it comes to the big stories, people believe journalists are simply reiterating the latest press release straight from the President’s press secretary or Britney Spears‘s agent, which brings me to the next issue: Traditional journalism legitimizes every subject that it touches upon (Gans). Because “objective” journalists aren’t allowed to make judgment calls, every topic becomes equal (Cline). It is almost insulting people’s intelligence when Miley Cyrus’s wardrobe receives the same amount of coverage as the War in Iraq or the presidential campaign. Meanwhile, shows like MadTV, Saturday Night Live and the Late Show are allowed to use their common sense and differentiate between right and wrong or puff pieces versus serious news. As in the golden age of journalism’s muckraking days, people appreciate news that highlights their thoughts and concerns. Whatever happened to “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable?”
Furthermore, in an attempt to be fair and objective, journalists are forced to lie, even if by omission, about who they really are. As it reads in the New York Times’s “Company Policy on Ethics in Journalism”, journalists, even when they’re off the job, are not allowed to participate in politics, fundraisers or protests (New York Times Company). They cannot serve on boards, without special concession, own stocks that are not approved by the paper or write blogs or works of fiction, if those works mention anything they might have covered in their reporting (New York Times Company). Even family members’ jobs are a liability if they work for anyone the reporter may have, or will be, covering (New York Times Company). Since there are no set limitations to these rules, they may even extend to things like political buttons and bumper stickers and community organizations, in the extreme they could even prevent journalists from voting.
The code goes on to explain that:
Our fundamental purpose is to protect the impartiality and neutrality of the company's newsrooms and the integrity of their news reports...simply wondering whether a course of action might damage the reputation of our journalism is often enough to gauge whether the action is appropriate…
Nothing in this policy is intended to abridge their right to live private lives to educate their children, to worship and to take part in community affairs. But like other dedicated professionals, we knowingly accept disciplines – in our case, with the goal of ethical and impartial journalism (New York Times Company).
However, it is extremely difficult to think of another career that requires so many restrictions on one’s personal life and hobbies. If journalists are forced to falsely represent themselves as unopinionated, it’s no wonder that the public has a hard time trusting them. You may have heard the saying “the lady doth protest too much,” well, similarly, the more journalists go out of their way to prove that they’re unbiased, the more suspicious they begin to seem. In contrast, bloggers, comedians and citizen journalists make no attempt to hide their outside interests, in fact, these interests can even enrich their material. Ironically, by admitting their possible biases, they appear less biased.
Besides transparency, another issue is how the news is “made.” Everyday, so many newsworthy events are occurring that journalists constantly have to decide what makes the news or not. They choose what and how much the public needs to hear and when they need to hear it. Sometimes, like in the case of Fox News, those who have the money, like investors, owners and publishers, are the ones who tell journalists what to cover (Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch‘s War on Journalism).
Other times, stories are excluded just because of time or space constraints. Because of the way journalism works within the system, many feel like it has become just another cog in the machine rather than a voice for the underrepresented (Cline). On the other hand, on the Internet, new media has no limits; you can post as much as you want, whenever you want. Since there are theoretically no financial or editorial bounds to what you post on your web site, there are practically no controls on these types of new media, which is exactly what scares the opposition the most.
According to Brian Leiter, author of “Why Blogs are Bad for Legal Scholarship,” “(Blogs) make possible the repeated and systematic broadcast of non-expert opinions, opinions that can be picked up and amplified…” (Leiter). He, like many other new media resistors, worries that anyone can write a blog and disseminate a lot of very wrong material, to a very wide audience, in a relatively short amount of time (Leiter). Leiter also argues that bloggers can over-emphasize trivial issues, resulting in a dangerous snowball effect he calls the “availability cascade” (Leiter). In addition, unbalanced new media can cause the public to ignore other important issues or opinions (Leiter).
Others worry about the fact that as an anti-tradition, anti-institutional organism, new media does not hold itself up to any literary or journalistic standards (Quart). With an emphasis on personality, new media could result in a loss of in-depth, groundbreaking journalism and quality writing (Quart). Jon Stewart, who is often lumped into the infotainment category, said he does not consider himself a journalist (Kuck). Therefore, he, and others like him, don’t feel a responsibility to provide proper or full news coverage, even though many of his viewers rank him among their favorite journalists (journalism.org). As the old maxim goes, “with great power, comes great responsibility,” if those who have the power to influence don’t take the matter seriously, it could be detrimental to a society who looks to these figures for answers.
Another strike against new media, especially infotainment, is that it places commercial success above journalistic integrity (Patterson 7). Thomas Patterson, a critic of new media, writes that “soft news” plays up the superficial and sensational in order to increase market attention (Patterson 7). In his opinion, it’s not about informing or relating to the public, it’s about ratings (Patterson 7). According to Patterson, when journalists don’t do their job of informing society by telling them what they need to know, not just want they want to know, it only strengthens society’s belief that journalists can’t be trusted (Patterson 3). Other critics agree with Patterson that, among other things, new media is a form of cheap entertainment produced by the “punchy intellectual” (Quartz). As for the “punchy intellectuals” themselves, they agree that they are in the entertainment business.
Frank King, a John McCain impersonator said that he’s stuck between voting for his political interests and his economical interests (King, Mason and McInnis). A Bill Clinton impersonator for 14 years, Damion Mason said his job is “pure comedy and entertainment. There is no redeeming value” (King, Mason and McInnis). While both performers said that they base their characters on the current news, they agreed that they focused on what they could exploit for entertainment value (King, Mason and McInnis). But as Hillary Clinton impersonator Jan McInnis said, “many a truth is said in jest,” (King, Mason and McInnis)
While it’s true that literary quality and journalistic integrity are at risk in an infotainment-centered industry, the fact remains that relevance, transparency and honesty are at a loss in traditional, institutionalized journalism. Not to mention, since journalists are in the news business, money does matter (Kovach and Rosensteil). Which means that traditional journalists need to realize that their audience wants more relevant facts in order to make informed decisions about the world around them. The common ground in this debate about old media versus new media is that, in different ways, both sides are trying to find the most honest and open way to represent the facts. Traditional journalists understand that the future lies with new media, even if they don’t trust it, and new media followers recognize the public’s need for trustworthy information, even if they do enjoy biting commentary.
Bill Kovach and Tom Rosensteil, who have studied the recent media trends believe that in order to “reclaim the theory of the free press” journalists need to find a way to appeal to their audiences wants and needs while still practicing ethical journalism (Kovach and Rosensteil). While most traditional journalists acknowledge the benefits and popularity of new media, the loss of standards is still their biggest concern. Some, like critic Alissa Quart, argue that for quality journalism to survive at all, the only answer is to break into the new media market before traditional journalism becomes obsolete (30-35). After all, their can’t be any watchdogs of society if there aren’t any dogs at all.
In order to shake off the cobwebs of the establishment and regain the public’s trust, journalism is going to have to climb out of the ivory tower and rejoin the masses. Being relevant and attention-grabbing doesn’t mean that the news has to be low quality puff, it means that journalists have to remember that they are supposed to be of the people, for the people. Presenting facts with a purpose does not automatically mean that they have to resort to spin. In this country’s formative years, journalists were at the forefront of social reform because they weren’t tied down by red tape. If you’ve read The Jungle, you know that fact and fiction, in the hands of a responsible journalist and writer, can be beneficial to society.
The problems with old media and new media can both be solved if journalists and scholars stop focusing on tangential arguments over technology and infotainment and realize that the real issue is the public’s need for an honest and relevant voice. The audience would not have turned to new media so quickly if it were getting what it needed from traditional journalism. It is the journalist’s job to reclaim the audience’s trust, not to transform journalism into an elite institution. By whom and how the news is delivered is not as important as what is being delivered. As history has proven, Machine usually works best under Man’s operation. Journalists, whether worshipers of old media or cult believers in new media, need to realize that they are not just filters for top down information, not just sources of intellectual entertainment, but the eyes, the ears and the voice of a society that would be blind, deaf and dumb without them.
Works Cited
Cline, Austin. “Journalism, Legitmimation, and Control (Book Notes: Democracy and the News).” Austin’s Atheism Blog. About.com. 5-16-06. 7-18-08.
King, Frank, Jan McInnis, and Damion Mason. Personal Interview. July 2008
Gans, Herbert J. Democracy and the News. New York: Oxford University Press. 2003
Kovach, Bill and Rosensteil, Tom. The Elements of Journalism: What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect . New York: Crown. 2001
Kuck, Sarah. “Jon Stewart: Journalist or Comedian?” Yes Magazine.org. 2007. 7-18-08. http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1591
Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism. Dir. Robert Greenwald. Political Action Committee Moveon.org.
Leiter, Brian. “Why Blogs are Bad for Legal Scholarship.” Pocket Part. 9-20-06. 7-28-08. http://yalelawjournal.org/2006/09/20/leiter.html
Patterson, Thomas. Doing Well and Doing Good: How Soft News and Critical Journalism Are Shrinking the News Audience and Weakening Democracy–And What News Outlets Can Do About It. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2000
Quart, Alissa. “Lost Media, Found Media.” Columbia Journalism Review. 47 (2008): 30-35
The New York Times Company. “The New York Times Company Policy on Ethics in Journalism.” Nytco.com. October 2005. 7-18-08. http://www.nytco.com/press/ethics.html#keeping
Showing posts with label essays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label essays. Show all posts
Saturday, August 8, 2009
Palmam Qui Meruit Ferat: A Rebuttal to Ars Gratia Artis (Let Whoever Earns the Palm Bear it: A Rebuttal to Art for Art’s Sake)
1971-“Are you ready?” Black jeans, white T, a rifle pointed at the man in front. Nondescript except for the shoulder length hair that covers his face, his arm is steady during the pregnant pause before he pulls the trigger. His target, a thicker version of himself with short hair, stands stiffly against the white wall. This man’s arms are held out at his sides, awkwardly, as if bracing himself for a fight he will lose. A few seconds filled with the buzz of white noise, the gun goes off. The second man, who is not the shooter, flinches as he grabs his left arm. He walks towards the gunman and the empty shell hits the floor with a clang (Blundirensu). “At 7:45 P.M. I was shot in the left arm by a friend. The bullet was a copper jacket .22 long rifle. My friend was standing about fifteen feet from me,” Chris Burden described (Schjeldahl 1). Some one takes a picture of the bandaged arm, a circle of blood has already seeped through but Burden, lips apart, eyes dazed, stares at the camera blankly (Rhode Island School of Design).
1973-Eerie classical music floats through a stark white room. Marina Abramović, in black from head to toe, slowly, methodically, arranges ten knives, some big, some small, in a line. The first is a big knife, wood handle, smooth, no serrated edges. The others are different, smaller. The music stops but the gentle tapping as Marina gracefully arranges the knives continues. On her knees, she hugs herself before placing her left hand on the ground in front of her, fingers splayed. Starting with a small knife, she begins to stab the space between her fingers. The quick, steady staccato of her stabs interrupted only by the sharp gasps of breath when she misses… and slices her fingers. With every miss, she changes knives (Aszmedia). Ten slices, ten knives, then she stops and listens to the recorded sounds of her self-mutilation (Kaplan 9). She begins again, this time trying to make the same rhythm, the same cuts on the same fingers. A steady, obsessive stab, stab, stab, stab, like a chef slicing vegetables (Aszmedia).
These are not crime scenes, police reports or excerpts from a horror story. They are works of contemporary conceptual performance art. Each demonstrates a long and complicated thought process, which as a concept may, or may not, be valid. As protests, social and artistic commentary they work, but in the category of artistic skill, they fall short. Traditionally, art is defined as “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination,” both the Greek and Latin roots of the word “art” refer to technical skill (Webster 65). These demonstrations may be creative, but skillful, beyond a purely conceptual level, they are not, unless you count, butchery and the use of firearms.
Historically, art represents the society of the creator. The Renaissance and the Jazz eras reflect not only the beliefs, but also the struggles, the beauty and the emotion of the artist‘s world. However, today, more and more of our art resembles only the bleak monotony of artists’ obsession with modernity, which is too narrow to account for the complexities of the world around us.
Avant-garde artists and art critics, desirous of the new and different, often overlook the use of skill in their artistic endeavors. Anything accessible or resembling traditional art is considered old, done, and pandering to the masses. For example, critics now consider videotaping a friend shooting you in the arm or stabbing your fingers as high art; meanwhile, a meaningful story in a popular novel like Scarlett, the best selling sequel to Gone With the Wind, or a tattoo intricately designed in human flesh is considered low. Avant-garde artists have pushed the line so far left in search of the new that they have lost site of the skills, which make art so powerful. Three-dimensional scenes on one-dimensional paper, universal truths in mathematical rhythm and rhyme, stone softened into curves- these are what make art so powerful, because so few people can do it.
When you look at the works of Michelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci you know that you are looking at unique talent and genius which can never be replicated. They are not just concept, not just creativity, but concept and creativity fused together and fully developed. With skill and creativity artists can turn something into what it isn’t; skin can become canvas. Concepts force us to explore new thought processes, which, indeed, have their own value but art without skill is a dangerous concept. Without skill art will lose its power to inspire us to not only think but also to do, whatever it is we do, to the best of our ability. A world without concept would be shallow, without creativity, dull, and without skill, anarchistic.
Art critics need to redraw the line separating high and low art around the criteria of creativity and skill instead of just the new and conceptual. Art should be left to the artists and concept to the theorists, but if they must mix, and they must, then they should function equally within the constraints of both.
To begin with, the canon of high art was developed for and by the most skilled and educated members of society whose abilities were often scarce. As John Berger wrote, “ The art of any period tends to serve the ideological interests of the ruling class” (Berger 85). Because art is a luxury and not a necessity, only the rich could afford it. Physically and sometimes intellectually, art was not available for the lower classes. According to literary scholar Anthony Easthope, high art developed into a language of socialites (101-102). In the case of modern art many works, which disregard skill and tradition, are declared valuable because of their inaccessibility, in one way or another, to the underprivileged.
For example, Paul Gauguin’s Tahitian works were considered valuable, by those who did not have the privilege of traveling to Tahiti, not only for the skill and concepts behind the paintings themselves, but also for their depictions of Tahitian life. In actuality, they are not based on real Tahitian culture, but on Gauguin’s sexualized, exotified imagination. However, firsthand knowledge of Tahiti was scarce so his anthropological suggestions were believed and valued just as inaccessible art is valued (Lang). I cannot criticize Gauguin the artist, but as an anthropologist he and other Primitivist artists helped create negative stereotypes of the “other” which, hundreds of years later, still haunt certain ethnicities. In summary, the Primitivists were skilled artists who unskillfully dabbled in anthropology with negative results; similarly, those who unskillfully dabble in art have negative impacts on the state of art if their work is extolled by critics.
Likewise, we have let “art experts” create a canon of high modern art which is not always what it always claims to be. We often believe it is high art because we have been told that it is, not because we know it to be so. We have been told that John Cage’s 4”33’, in which he does not play music for four minutes and thirty-three seconds is high art. However, a tattoo by Miami Ink’s Ami James, which not only takes into consideration the use of line, shape, and color but is also designed to stretch with human skin is considered low art. We know instinctively that James has used skill and creativity and that we could not do the same. But with Cage, the value lies in the concept not in the execution, which can be easily repeated. Not only that, but the concept must first be explained before it can be fully appreciated, therefore, we are again relying on what we are told rather than any observable evidence of skill. Which is not to say that all high art must be one hundred percent understandable and enjoyable to Average Joe, but it is to say that art, before it can be categorized as high or low, must meet the entry level requirements of being both skillful and creative. If great skill and great creativity are present in a work, there is no reason why it should not be considered high art. Conversely, if great skill and great creativity are not apparent in a work there is no reason why it should be considered art at all. Perhaps, it should fall into some other category. Is a good idea all it takes to create high art, because, if so, then we are all artists.
Right now the divisions of both high and low art contain examples of skill, creativity, and social commentary and I would argue that some low art, like tattoos or popular fiction, is better than some high art, as it is currently defined. However, I am not trying to prove that there shouldn’t be any high and low or that conceptual art is not art at all. Although, I am saying that the levels of these qualities need to be what divides the high and the low, not just arbitrary categorizing based on the whims of “experts.” Boundaries should be pushed, stretched, redefined, but not broken. Without constraints we stand for nothing. And we must stand for something whether or not that something is good or bad, because a society that stands for nothing is not a society at all. Madness can be genius, but there must be a method behind that madness. Think Jackson Pollock with his purposeful rejection of traditional technique.
On the other hand, there are those who believe that it is not the artist’s job to provide the boundaries but the beholder’s. They believe that art should be valued purely for the aesthetic experience it gives to the viewer. Therefore, high and low art is based on the quality of the critic’s experience, which is subjective. As author and critic John Dewey Richard said in Richard Kostelanetz’s article “Contemporary American Esthetics”, “a beholder must create his own experience” (22).
Another example of this school of thought is critic, editor and poet Ron Silliman who, in his blog, writes about the value of Language Poetry (Lang Po). Lang poems are poems of random words, which don‘t make sense but create a certain sound when read aloud. For example, Silliman uses an excerpt from The Maintains by Clark Coolidge.
such like such as
of a whist
a bound
dull
the mid eft
lulu
the mode
own of own off… (1)
Silliman argues that a lack of intellectualism is to blame for American society’s negative reaction towards extremely avant-garde works. He believes that the average American is too uneducated and lazy to appreciate the skill and the concept behind this kind of art. It is not a lack of skill on the artist’s part but a lack of the ability to read what the signifiers are signifying, as Silliman writes:
Why aren’t our student’s being taught to read? How can we produce a literature for the illiterate? In a society where crackpots can argue “intelligent design” and have an opportunity to set K-12 curriculum, the level of anti-intellectualism, which is really a hostility to critical thought itself, runs very deep.(4)
It is true that ever since dial-up our high-speed Internet culture is becoming more and more obsessed with instant gratification. We often consider the patience, necessary for critical thought, not worth our time. However, in the case of modern art, the fault lies with the artists and not with society. Before we can take the time to analyze a work of art, the art must inspire us to do so.
Silliman’s attitude that “If there is a there there, then that’s where it is” so the beholder should be able to find it, suggests that artists don’t care enough to put in the skill that, in turn, makes us, the beholders, care (5). The works of Picasso, Salvador Dali and Jackson Pollock do not offer up their secrets at a single glance, but our visceral recognition of their skill and creativity intrigues us enough to want to breach the surface.
If we can look at a work of art, say “I don’t get it” and walk away, then the artist hasn’t done enough. We knew that the old masters labored over their work because we could see the fruits of their labor. That is why we always speak highly of Mozart, Keats and Shakespeare, to name a few. In contrast, Silliman provides a quote from “How to be a Poetic Genius” a section from Bart Simpson’s Guide to Life to illustrate how we speak of some of the modern works, “Here is one of the coolest poetic secrets of all: You don’t even need real words. That’s right. Just make’em up. 11.You can write anything you want and call it a poem if you add a lot of space” (5).
Our nonchalant attitude reflects that of the artists. Calling concepts that are executed without skill high art condones artists who don’t put in the effort to create a truly skillful and inspiring masterpiece with which to illustrate their concepts. It is much easier to be shot in the arm than to sculpt the Pietá, even if the concept behind both is equal.
Of course there are some who are not quite so extreme as Silliman and Kostelanetz. Take for instance artist and critic Michael Kirby who defines an avant-garde artist as one who pushes the limits regardless of society’s disapproval; unlike Silliman, he makes the avant-garde style a personal preference rather than a supreme form of art. In fact, he says that the point of the avant-garde is not to be either “good or bad” and that the term itself does not “denote value” (39). To Kirby, art is neutral, he agrees that art, even avant-garde art, can be bad. In his collection of essays, The Aesthetics of the Avant-Garde, Kirby writes:
This impulse to redefine, to contradict, to continue the sensed directionality of art as far as they are able, is independent of success. The fact that an artist does not actually succeed in adding anything of importance to the historical development of art does not, in the sense, make the term avant-garde inapplicable. (37)
He describes art as “a man-made thing of no objective, practical, or functional purpose intended to have aesthetic importance or significance” (40). If we agree with this interpretation, then purely conceptual “art” is not automatically high art.
As I mentioned earlier, I am not necessarily trying to determine what is art. I am arguing that what is new, complicated and different is not always better than what is old, simple and familiar. We should not assume that the avant-garde is high or that popular, commercial, body art or any other type of art is low simply because it falls into a certain genre or school of thought. As discerning individuals critics should judge each work by the degree of skill and creativity present. A work of art should not be considered complete without these aspects, even if it contains other valuable qualities. No matter how high the concept, there is no substitute for skill. If concept replaces skill, we will soon be living in a society of mediocrity.
Works Cited
Aszmedia. Marina Abramović - Rhythm 10 ("The Star", 1999).” YouTube. October 29, 2007. July 8, 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9-HVwEbdCo&feature=related
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. BBC and Penguin Books, 1972.
Blundirensu. “Chris Burden ‘Shoot’.” YoutTube. February 4, 2008. July 8, 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26R9KFdt5aY.
Easthope, Anthony. Literary into Cultural Studies. London: Routledge, 1991.
Kaplan, Janet. “Deeper and Deeper: Interview with Marina Abramović,” Art Journal 58:2 (1999): 6-19.
Kirby, Michael. “The Aesthetics of the Avant-Garde.” The Art of Time:Essays on the Avant-Garde. ED. Dutton. New York, 1969.
Kostelanetz, Richard. “Contemporary American Esthetics.” Esthetics Contemporary. New York, 1977.
Lang, Karen. “Primitivism: The Construction of the Other in Modern Art.” University of Southern California, Los Angeles. September 25- October 11, 2006.
Rhode Island School of Design. Santa Ana, California. 1971.
Schjeldahl, Peter. “Performance.” The New Yorker. May 14, 2007. July 8, 2008. http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2007/05/14/070514craw_artworld_schjeldahl.
Silliman, Ron. Blog Entry. Blogspot, 2002-2005; Online. Internet. June 6, 2005. July 8, 2008. ronsilliman.blogspot.com.
Webster, Merriam. “Definition of Art”. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Merriam-Webster, 1993.
1973-Eerie classical music floats through a stark white room. Marina Abramović, in black from head to toe, slowly, methodically, arranges ten knives, some big, some small, in a line. The first is a big knife, wood handle, smooth, no serrated edges. The others are different, smaller. The music stops but the gentle tapping as Marina gracefully arranges the knives continues. On her knees, she hugs herself before placing her left hand on the ground in front of her, fingers splayed. Starting with a small knife, she begins to stab the space between her fingers. The quick, steady staccato of her stabs interrupted only by the sharp gasps of breath when she misses… and slices her fingers. With every miss, she changes knives (Aszmedia). Ten slices, ten knives, then she stops and listens to the recorded sounds of her self-mutilation (Kaplan 9). She begins again, this time trying to make the same rhythm, the same cuts on the same fingers. A steady, obsessive stab, stab, stab, stab, like a chef slicing vegetables (Aszmedia).
These are not crime scenes, police reports or excerpts from a horror story. They are works of contemporary conceptual performance art. Each demonstrates a long and complicated thought process, which as a concept may, or may not, be valid. As protests, social and artistic commentary they work, but in the category of artistic skill, they fall short. Traditionally, art is defined as “the conscious use of skill and creative imagination,” both the Greek and Latin roots of the word “art” refer to technical skill (Webster 65). These demonstrations may be creative, but skillful, beyond a purely conceptual level, they are not, unless you count, butchery and the use of firearms.
Historically, art represents the society of the creator. The Renaissance and the Jazz eras reflect not only the beliefs, but also the struggles, the beauty and the emotion of the artist‘s world. However, today, more and more of our art resembles only the bleak monotony of artists’ obsession with modernity, which is too narrow to account for the complexities of the world around us.
Avant-garde artists and art critics, desirous of the new and different, often overlook the use of skill in their artistic endeavors. Anything accessible or resembling traditional art is considered old, done, and pandering to the masses. For example, critics now consider videotaping a friend shooting you in the arm or stabbing your fingers as high art; meanwhile, a meaningful story in a popular novel like Scarlett, the best selling sequel to Gone With the Wind, or a tattoo intricately designed in human flesh is considered low. Avant-garde artists have pushed the line so far left in search of the new that they have lost site of the skills, which make art so powerful. Three-dimensional scenes on one-dimensional paper, universal truths in mathematical rhythm and rhyme, stone softened into curves- these are what make art so powerful, because so few people can do it.
When you look at the works of Michelangelo or Leonardo Da Vinci you know that you are looking at unique talent and genius which can never be replicated. They are not just concept, not just creativity, but concept and creativity fused together and fully developed. With skill and creativity artists can turn something into what it isn’t; skin can become canvas. Concepts force us to explore new thought processes, which, indeed, have their own value but art without skill is a dangerous concept. Without skill art will lose its power to inspire us to not only think but also to do, whatever it is we do, to the best of our ability. A world without concept would be shallow, without creativity, dull, and without skill, anarchistic.
Art critics need to redraw the line separating high and low art around the criteria of creativity and skill instead of just the new and conceptual. Art should be left to the artists and concept to the theorists, but if they must mix, and they must, then they should function equally within the constraints of both.
To begin with, the canon of high art was developed for and by the most skilled and educated members of society whose abilities were often scarce. As John Berger wrote, “ The art of any period tends to serve the ideological interests of the ruling class” (Berger 85). Because art is a luxury and not a necessity, only the rich could afford it. Physically and sometimes intellectually, art was not available for the lower classes. According to literary scholar Anthony Easthope, high art developed into a language of socialites (101-102). In the case of modern art many works, which disregard skill and tradition, are declared valuable because of their inaccessibility, in one way or another, to the underprivileged.
For example, Paul Gauguin’s Tahitian works were considered valuable, by those who did not have the privilege of traveling to Tahiti, not only for the skill and concepts behind the paintings themselves, but also for their depictions of Tahitian life. In actuality, they are not based on real Tahitian culture, but on Gauguin’s sexualized, exotified imagination. However, firsthand knowledge of Tahiti was scarce so his anthropological suggestions were believed and valued just as inaccessible art is valued (Lang). I cannot criticize Gauguin the artist, but as an anthropologist he and other Primitivist artists helped create negative stereotypes of the “other” which, hundreds of years later, still haunt certain ethnicities. In summary, the Primitivists were skilled artists who unskillfully dabbled in anthropology with negative results; similarly, those who unskillfully dabble in art have negative impacts on the state of art if their work is extolled by critics.
Likewise, we have let “art experts” create a canon of high modern art which is not always what it always claims to be. We often believe it is high art because we have been told that it is, not because we know it to be so. We have been told that John Cage’s 4”33’, in which he does not play music for four minutes and thirty-three seconds is high art. However, a tattoo by Miami Ink’s Ami James, which not only takes into consideration the use of line, shape, and color but is also designed to stretch with human skin is considered low art. We know instinctively that James has used skill and creativity and that we could not do the same. But with Cage, the value lies in the concept not in the execution, which can be easily repeated. Not only that, but the concept must first be explained before it can be fully appreciated, therefore, we are again relying on what we are told rather than any observable evidence of skill. Which is not to say that all high art must be one hundred percent understandable and enjoyable to Average Joe, but it is to say that art, before it can be categorized as high or low, must meet the entry level requirements of being both skillful and creative. If great skill and great creativity are present in a work, there is no reason why it should not be considered high art. Conversely, if great skill and great creativity are not apparent in a work there is no reason why it should be considered art at all. Perhaps, it should fall into some other category. Is a good idea all it takes to create high art, because, if so, then we are all artists.
Right now the divisions of both high and low art contain examples of skill, creativity, and social commentary and I would argue that some low art, like tattoos or popular fiction, is better than some high art, as it is currently defined. However, I am not trying to prove that there shouldn’t be any high and low or that conceptual art is not art at all. Although, I am saying that the levels of these qualities need to be what divides the high and the low, not just arbitrary categorizing based on the whims of “experts.” Boundaries should be pushed, stretched, redefined, but not broken. Without constraints we stand for nothing. And we must stand for something whether or not that something is good or bad, because a society that stands for nothing is not a society at all. Madness can be genius, but there must be a method behind that madness. Think Jackson Pollock with his purposeful rejection of traditional technique.
On the other hand, there are those who believe that it is not the artist’s job to provide the boundaries but the beholder’s. They believe that art should be valued purely for the aesthetic experience it gives to the viewer. Therefore, high and low art is based on the quality of the critic’s experience, which is subjective. As author and critic John Dewey Richard said in Richard Kostelanetz’s article “Contemporary American Esthetics”, “a beholder must create his own experience” (22).
Another example of this school of thought is critic, editor and poet Ron Silliman who, in his blog, writes about the value of Language Poetry (Lang Po). Lang poems are poems of random words, which don‘t make sense but create a certain sound when read aloud. For example, Silliman uses an excerpt from The Maintains by Clark Coolidge.
such like such as
of a whist
a bound
dull
the mid eft
lulu
the mode
own of own off… (1)
Silliman argues that a lack of intellectualism is to blame for American society’s negative reaction towards extremely avant-garde works. He believes that the average American is too uneducated and lazy to appreciate the skill and the concept behind this kind of art. It is not a lack of skill on the artist’s part but a lack of the ability to read what the signifiers are signifying, as Silliman writes:
Why aren’t our student’s being taught to read? How can we produce a literature for the illiterate? In a society where crackpots can argue “intelligent design” and have an opportunity to set K-12 curriculum, the level of anti-intellectualism, which is really a hostility to critical thought itself, runs very deep.(4)
It is true that ever since dial-up our high-speed Internet culture is becoming more and more obsessed with instant gratification. We often consider the patience, necessary for critical thought, not worth our time. However, in the case of modern art, the fault lies with the artists and not with society. Before we can take the time to analyze a work of art, the art must inspire us to do so.
Silliman’s attitude that “If there is a there there, then that’s where it is” so the beholder should be able to find it, suggests that artists don’t care enough to put in the skill that, in turn, makes us, the beholders, care (5). The works of Picasso, Salvador Dali and Jackson Pollock do not offer up their secrets at a single glance, but our visceral recognition of their skill and creativity intrigues us enough to want to breach the surface.
If we can look at a work of art, say “I don’t get it” and walk away, then the artist hasn’t done enough. We knew that the old masters labored over their work because we could see the fruits of their labor. That is why we always speak highly of Mozart, Keats and Shakespeare, to name a few. In contrast, Silliman provides a quote from “How to be a Poetic Genius” a section from Bart Simpson’s Guide to Life to illustrate how we speak of some of the modern works, “Here is one of the coolest poetic secrets of all: You don’t even need real words. That’s right. Just make’em up. 11.You can write anything you want and call it a poem if you add a lot of space” (5).
Our nonchalant attitude reflects that of the artists. Calling concepts that are executed without skill high art condones artists who don’t put in the effort to create a truly skillful and inspiring masterpiece with which to illustrate their concepts. It is much easier to be shot in the arm than to sculpt the Pietá, even if the concept behind both is equal.
Of course there are some who are not quite so extreme as Silliman and Kostelanetz. Take for instance artist and critic Michael Kirby who defines an avant-garde artist as one who pushes the limits regardless of society’s disapproval; unlike Silliman, he makes the avant-garde style a personal preference rather than a supreme form of art. In fact, he says that the point of the avant-garde is not to be either “good or bad” and that the term itself does not “denote value” (39). To Kirby, art is neutral, he agrees that art, even avant-garde art, can be bad. In his collection of essays, The Aesthetics of the Avant-Garde, Kirby writes:
This impulse to redefine, to contradict, to continue the sensed directionality of art as far as they are able, is independent of success. The fact that an artist does not actually succeed in adding anything of importance to the historical development of art does not, in the sense, make the term avant-garde inapplicable. (37)
He describes art as “a man-made thing of no objective, practical, or functional purpose intended to have aesthetic importance or significance” (40). If we agree with this interpretation, then purely conceptual “art” is not automatically high art.
As I mentioned earlier, I am not necessarily trying to determine what is art. I am arguing that what is new, complicated and different is not always better than what is old, simple and familiar. We should not assume that the avant-garde is high or that popular, commercial, body art or any other type of art is low simply because it falls into a certain genre or school of thought. As discerning individuals critics should judge each work by the degree of skill and creativity present. A work of art should not be considered complete without these aspects, even if it contains other valuable qualities. No matter how high the concept, there is no substitute for skill. If concept replaces skill, we will soon be living in a society of mediocrity.
Works Cited
Aszmedia. Marina Abramović - Rhythm 10 ("The Star", 1999).” YouTube. October 29, 2007. July 8, 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9-HVwEbdCo&feature=related
Berger, John. Ways of Seeing. BBC and Penguin Books, 1972.
Blundirensu. “Chris Burden ‘Shoot’.” YoutTube. February 4, 2008. July 8, 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26R9KFdt5aY.
Easthope, Anthony. Literary into Cultural Studies. London: Routledge, 1991.
Kaplan, Janet. “Deeper and Deeper: Interview with Marina Abramović,” Art Journal 58:2 (1999): 6-19.
Kirby, Michael. “The Aesthetics of the Avant-Garde.” The Art of Time:Essays on the Avant-Garde. ED. Dutton. New York, 1969.
Kostelanetz, Richard. “Contemporary American Esthetics.” Esthetics Contemporary. New York, 1977.
Lang, Karen. “Primitivism: The Construction of the Other in Modern Art.” University of Southern California, Los Angeles. September 25- October 11, 2006.
Rhode Island School of Design. Santa Ana, California. 1971.
Schjeldahl, Peter. “Performance.” The New Yorker. May 14, 2007. July 8, 2008. http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/artworld/2007/05/14/070514craw_artworld_schjeldahl.
Silliman, Ron. Blog Entry. Blogspot, 2002-2005; Online. Internet. June 6, 2005. July 8, 2008. ronsilliman.blogspot.com.
Webster, Merriam. “Definition of Art”. Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary. Merriam-Webster, 1993.
Equality: It's the American Way
My first memory of Princess Diana of Wales is in a blur reminiscent of old television. Countless times I have watched her walk down the aisle in her glamorous dress, which is now a relic of the 80s. I can still hear the announcers giving their play-by-play of “the wedding of the century,” as you probably can (CNN.
Fast-forward about 10 years and my mind is playing a slideshow of Lady Di with her boys, Princes William and Henry. I see them waving at the media and posing for a family photo on a skiing trip. In every memory, Princess Diana is smiling. I see it so clearly that I was shocked when I realized it had all happened years before I was born. Like so many other fascinating objects, Diana is timeless, as relevant now as she was over 20 years ago. Like Marilyn Monroe, like Jackie Onassis, like President Kennedy, Diana is engrained into our American culture. It doesn’t matter that she wasn’t our princess, she’s in our books, our movies, our papers, she’s in our homes smiling on our TVs. Like President Kennedy it would all be over too soon and we couldn‘t get enough
Fast forward again, it’s the 90s now; I was actually alive for this part. Princess Diana is getting a divorce, the fairytale marriage is over and we American’s are buying more tabloids than toilet paper. We’re watching her, reading her, discussing her over dinner, “It’s over, it’s over, did you hear?” There she was on the news again putting on a smile for her boys. She didn’t belong to England anymore, she became the People’s Princess. She was ours.
She walked through third world countries feeding poor children, dating men with last names we couldn’t pronounce. She had a new life and the media had a field day. Lady Diana was no longer represented as a fairytale princess, but as a single mother, a rejected daughter-in-law, a forgotten ex-wife and a champion of the downtrodden. A few more years and we see her in a tunnel in Paris; we don’t see her come out again.
To this day, Men are still claiming to have slept with the “airy fairy” as Sir Elton John called the princess (The Times of India, Edinburgh Evening News).
Eleven years later, it’s 2008 and she’s still in the papers, biographies are still being written, what’s more they’re still being read. Some tell us the usual story of her wedding, her struggle with the royal family and her humanitarian efforts, others, like Sally Smith’s Diana in Search of Herself: Portrait of a Troubled Princess, give us a darker representation of her as an “ignorant slut;” an emotionally unstable, superstitious, social climber (Shulevitz . They call her a media whore who spent more money than she was worth and flaunted her post-divorce relationships for the press (Shulevitz.
While most of us still think of Diana as a princess and a philanthropist, the fallout from her divorce and death removed her image from the realm of the magical. The more the media transformed her from a virginal princess to a woman of the world the more interested we became. When it comes to Princess Diana we were, and continue to be, stuck between the roles of voyeurs and worshippers.
But why are we as Americans, with our distrust of dynasties and our love of elected officials, still so fascinated with a woman who was a princess, wife of the heir to the English throne? Maybe it’s that “was” that tantalizes us. It’s the “look what you could have had” the “almost there, but not quite” aspect that gets to us. Like a certain fateful apple, Princess Diana’s life, tragic as it may have been, still represents the ever-tempting fruit of the unattainable. The fact that this Eve, like the former, fell after the first bite both confirms what is “unattainable” and increases our desire for it.
According to Roland Barthes, a French social theorist, people are fascinated by objects that simultaneously threaten and comfort them (70). It’s a little sadomasochism for the mind. In his essay, “The Brain of Einstein,” Barthes argues that the duality of objects that have multiple and contrasting representations is what holds our interest. Especially when those representations can both appease and challenge our cultural norms (70). Now, I suggest that this concoction of comfort and fear is what keeps us fixated on the late Princess Diana. It’s the representations of Diana before and after that aforementioned “was” that hold the interest of the American people. We’re playing a cat and mouse game with ourselves, we’re building her up and breaking her down, constantly shifting definitions, in order to comfort our own fears.
Diana’s Cinderella story was what first grabbed our attention. The media represented her as the commoner who married the prince and we loved that. Truthfully, Diana was not a member of the royal family or the common public, she was the daughter of a viscount, a distant member of the nobility (IMDB). But we’re Americans, the “Yes, we can” people, we want an underdog to root for so we pick Diana (Obama). At first we proudly watch our fledgling fly with the royalty, but then the jealously sets in. We are a nation of women who dreamed of being princesses and men who want to be the king’s of their castles. The majority of our country is stuck between the monotony of suburbia and the humdrum of the office and we’re content. What’s more American than Average Joe parking his minivan in his suburban garage? Princess Diana’s rise from peasant to princess makes us realize how static our social status really is. We are no longer content when we realize that we will never have a chance at becoming royalty like she did. We are not content, but we want to be.
American’s like to argue that we can do anything we set our minds to, but when we watch one of our own rise above us, it threatens our social structure and awakens our fear of social mobility. When one member of our class tries to achieve something more than the rest of us, we feel like they are saying we are not good enough. We are also afraid that if too many rise, then we, the left behind will be alone. And if we’re alone, we might have to challenge ourselves in order to keep up with the group and we’d rather not. We’ve all seen it in movies like the recent How She Move or Ratatouille when someone, let’s call him Johnny, tries to do something different and leaves his old gang behind for awhile. After Johnny’s achieves his goals, when he tries to come back home the old gang won’t except him. The old gang says things like, “I though you were too good for us, Johnny” or “Johnny, why don’t you go with your new better friends.” The old gang feels like they’ve lost one of their own, they no longer feel a sense of ownership for Johnny. In the movies, Johnny soon runs into a problem which only his old gang can rescue him from, but only after he admits that he is not like the rest of the overachievers, but still one of the old gang at heart.
In the end Johnny is just like Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion, who can neither be equal with Professor Higgins, who is privileged by birth, nor comfortable on the streets, which she has risen above (Shaw). In fact, Johnny finds that he is not any happier than he used to be, thus proving that his new situation is not better than his old situation or old gang. You see, we are not afraid of social climbing as an individual. In fact if we happen to raise our own status we are quiet proud of it. We like being the Joneses, what we don’t like is having to keep up with them. We are only afraid of rising social statuses on the group level, when we are the status quo and Johnny is leaving us for something better.
Princess Diana is Johnny, she represents one of us, the middle class Americans. But she had a chance at something better and that threatens our middle class pride. When she failed to properly assimilate into the royal family, when she became the tabloid princess whose every move and mistake was watched by the world, we got to say “see, it’s safer, it’s better, to be one of us regular people” and that comforts us. It’s not that we wanted her to fail, we are not cruel for cruelty’s sake. But we need proof that it’s good to be who we are so that we can stay comfortable in our comfort zone. So when she was no longer England’s Princess but the People’s Princess, we, the people, were and continue to be her biggest fans.
Her story continues to challenge us with its elements of what could have been, but the lack of a happily-ever-after ending comforts those fears. We are unable to decide on a single concrete representation of Princess Diana. The result is an “almost there” frustration that continues to fascinate us. The cat never gets the mouse, but he enjoys the chase anyway. Lady Diana recognized that she was one of us even though she still had more assets, more prestige and better connections so we, in turn, welcomed her back. We, as Americans love equality even though so very few of us are equal. Therefore, as long as those who are better off continue to say that we are their equals we will accept them as one of our own. As George Orwell said “all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others” (vi).
Works Cited
CNN. “Princess Diana: A Beautiful, Tragic Life Cut Short.” CNN World News 8-31-97.
6-15-08 http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9708/31/diana.life/
Barthes, Roland. “The Brain of Einstein.” Mythologies. New York: Hill and Wang, 1972.
Edinburgh Evening News. “Elton Says Diana was ‘Airy Fairy.’ The Scotsman 6-14-08. http://news.scotsman.com/entertainment/Elton-says-Diana-was-39airy.4186249.jp.
IMDB. “Biography for Princess Diana.” The Internet Movie Database 1990-2008. 6-15-08. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0697740/bio.
Obama, Barack. “Yes We Can.” Nashua, New Hampshire. 6-15-07.
Orwell, George. Animal Farm: A Fairy Story. New York: Penguin Group, 1956.
Shaw, Bernard. Pygmalion. New York: Brentano, 1916.
Shulevitz, Judith. “Diana, You Ignorant Slut.” Slate. 9-2-99. 6-15-08. http://www.slate.com/id/1003525/.
The Times of India. “I slept with Diana: Butler.” The Times of India 6-15-08. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/I_slept_with_Diana_Butler/articleshow/3130746.cms.
Fast-forward about 10 years and my mind is playing a slideshow of Lady Di with her boys, Princes William and Henry. I see them waving at the media and posing for a family photo on a skiing trip. In every memory, Princess Diana is smiling. I see it so clearly that I was shocked when I realized it had all happened years before I was born. Like so many other fascinating objects, Diana is timeless, as relevant now as she was over 20 years ago. Like Marilyn Monroe, like Jackie Onassis, like President Kennedy, Diana is engrained into our American culture. It doesn’t matter that she wasn’t our princess, she’s in our books, our movies, our papers, she’s in our homes smiling on our TVs. Like President Kennedy it would all be over too soon and we couldn‘t get enough
Fast forward again, it’s the 90s now; I was actually alive for this part. Princess Diana is getting a divorce, the fairytale marriage is over and we American’s are buying more tabloids than toilet paper. We’re watching her, reading her, discussing her over dinner, “It’s over, it’s over, did you hear?” There she was on the news again putting on a smile for her boys. She didn’t belong to England anymore, she became the People’s Princess. She was ours.
She walked through third world countries feeding poor children, dating men with last names we couldn’t pronounce. She had a new life and the media had a field day. Lady Diana was no longer represented as a fairytale princess, but as a single mother, a rejected daughter-in-law, a forgotten ex-wife and a champion of the downtrodden. A few more years and we see her in a tunnel in Paris; we don’t see her come out again.
To this day, Men are still claiming to have slept with the “airy fairy” as Sir Elton John called the princess (The Times of India, Edinburgh Evening News).
Eleven years later, it’s 2008 and she’s still in the papers, biographies are still being written, what’s more they’re still being read. Some tell us the usual story of her wedding, her struggle with the royal family and her humanitarian efforts, others, like Sally Smith’s Diana in Search of Herself: Portrait of a Troubled Princess, give us a darker representation of her as an “ignorant slut;” an emotionally unstable, superstitious, social climber (Shulevitz . They call her a media whore who spent more money than she was worth and flaunted her post-divorce relationships for the press (Shulevitz.
While most of us still think of Diana as a princess and a philanthropist, the fallout from her divorce and death removed her image from the realm of the magical. The more the media transformed her from a virginal princess to a woman of the world the more interested we became. When it comes to Princess Diana we were, and continue to be, stuck between the roles of voyeurs and worshippers.
But why are we as Americans, with our distrust of dynasties and our love of elected officials, still so fascinated with a woman who was a princess, wife of the heir to the English throne? Maybe it’s that “was” that tantalizes us. It’s the “look what you could have had” the “almost there, but not quite” aspect that gets to us. Like a certain fateful apple, Princess Diana’s life, tragic as it may have been, still represents the ever-tempting fruit of the unattainable. The fact that this Eve, like the former, fell after the first bite both confirms what is “unattainable” and increases our desire for it.
According to Roland Barthes, a French social theorist, people are fascinated by objects that simultaneously threaten and comfort them (70). It’s a little sadomasochism for the mind. In his essay, “The Brain of Einstein,” Barthes argues that the duality of objects that have multiple and contrasting representations is what holds our interest. Especially when those representations can both appease and challenge our cultural norms (70). Now, I suggest that this concoction of comfort and fear is what keeps us fixated on the late Princess Diana. It’s the representations of Diana before and after that aforementioned “was” that hold the interest of the American people. We’re playing a cat and mouse game with ourselves, we’re building her up and breaking her down, constantly shifting definitions, in order to comfort our own fears.
Diana’s Cinderella story was what first grabbed our attention. The media represented her as the commoner who married the prince and we loved that. Truthfully, Diana was not a member of the royal family or the common public, she was the daughter of a viscount, a distant member of the nobility (IMDB). But we’re Americans, the “Yes, we can” people, we want an underdog to root for so we pick Diana (Obama). At first we proudly watch our fledgling fly with the royalty, but then the jealously sets in. We are a nation of women who dreamed of being princesses and men who want to be the king’s of their castles. The majority of our country is stuck between the monotony of suburbia and the humdrum of the office and we’re content. What’s more American than Average Joe parking his minivan in his suburban garage? Princess Diana’s rise from peasant to princess makes us realize how static our social status really is. We are no longer content when we realize that we will never have a chance at becoming royalty like she did. We are not content, but we want to be.
American’s like to argue that we can do anything we set our minds to, but when we watch one of our own rise above us, it threatens our social structure and awakens our fear of social mobility. When one member of our class tries to achieve something more than the rest of us, we feel like they are saying we are not good enough. We are also afraid that if too many rise, then we, the left behind will be alone. And if we’re alone, we might have to challenge ourselves in order to keep up with the group and we’d rather not. We’ve all seen it in movies like the recent How She Move or Ratatouille when someone, let’s call him Johnny, tries to do something different and leaves his old gang behind for awhile. After Johnny’s achieves his goals, when he tries to come back home the old gang won’t except him. The old gang says things like, “I though you were too good for us, Johnny” or “Johnny, why don’t you go with your new better friends.” The old gang feels like they’ve lost one of their own, they no longer feel a sense of ownership for Johnny. In the movies, Johnny soon runs into a problem which only his old gang can rescue him from, but only after he admits that he is not like the rest of the overachievers, but still one of the old gang at heart.
In the end Johnny is just like Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion, who can neither be equal with Professor Higgins, who is privileged by birth, nor comfortable on the streets, which she has risen above (Shaw). In fact, Johnny finds that he is not any happier than he used to be, thus proving that his new situation is not better than his old situation or old gang. You see, we are not afraid of social climbing as an individual. In fact if we happen to raise our own status we are quiet proud of it. We like being the Joneses, what we don’t like is having to keep up with them. We are only afraid of rising social statuses on the group level, when we are the status quo and Johnny is leaving us for something better.
Princess Diana is Johnny, she represents one of us, the middle class Americans. But she had a chance at something better and that threatens our middle class pride. When she failed to properly assimilate into the royal family, when she became the tabloid princess whose every move and mistake was watched by the world, we got to say “see, it’s safer, it’s better, to be one of us regular people” and that comforts us. It’s not that we wanted her to fail, we are not cruel for cruelty’s sake. But we need proof that it’s good to be who we are so that we can stay comfortable in our comfort zone. So when she was no longer England’s Princess but the People’s Princess, we, the people, were and continue to be her biggest fans.
Her story continues to challenge us with its elements of what could have been, but the lack of a happily-ever-after ending comforts those fears. We are unable to decide on a single concrete representation of Princess Diana. The result is an “almost there” frustration that continues to fascinate us. The cat never gets the mouse, but he enjoys the chase anyway. Lady Diana recognized that she was one of us even though she still had more assets, more prestige and better connections so we, in turn, welcomed her back. We, as Americans love equality even though so very few of us are equal. Therefore, as long as those who are better off continue to say that we are their equals we will accept them as one of our own. As George Orwell said “all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others” (vi).
Works Cited
CNN. “Princess Diana: A Beautiful, Tragic Life Cut Short.” CNN World News 8-31-97.
6-15-08 http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9708/31/diana.life/
Barthes, Roland. “The Brain of Einstein.” Mythologies. New York: Hill and Wang, 1972.
Edinburgh Evening News. “Elton Says Diana was ‘Airy Fairy.’ The Scotsman 6-14-08. http://news.scotsman.com/entertainment/Elton-says-Diana-was-39airy.4186249.jp.
IMDB. “Biography for Princess Diana.” The Internet Movie Database 1990-2008. 6-15-08. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0697740/bio.
Obama, Barack. “Yes We Can.” Nashua, New Hampshire. 6-15-07.
Orwell, George. Animal Farm: A Fairy Story. New York: Penguin Group, 1956.
Shaw, Bernard. Pygmalion. New York: Brentano, 1916.
Shulevitz, Judith. “Diana, You Ignorant Slut.” Slate. 9-2-99. 6-15-08. http://www.slate.com/id/1003525/.
The Times of India. “I slept with Diana: Butler.” The Times of India 6-15-08. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/I_slept_with_Diana_Butler/articleshow/3130746.cms.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)