Tag Archives: Pop Culture

Motivation for Muck

I’ve been thinking lately about something that Karen enjoys pointing out to me about writing. She’s very passionate about quoting (loosely) Jeffery Overstreet in saying that there are two reasons to jump into the muck in the story that you’re writing. One is to roll around in it and get dirty. The other is to clean it up. You have to decide which is your reason as you’re writing your story.

I was forced to re-visit this idea in a discussion after I wasted two hours of my life suffering through the cinematic chaos-fighting-chaos tragedy that was this year’s movie, The Green Hornet, in which a classic radio superhero is reduced to stereotypical American idiocy who gets his kicks from driving around and blowing everything up for narcissistic purposes (even in the end, whatever good he does is to better himself). While I could talk about the obvious snapshot of our culture that can be seen in this conglomeration of images that someone mistakenly called a film, I won’t give it the time it doesn’t deserve, because the commentary is unintentional.

In short, there was nothing redemptive about the movie. The entire two hours was one long jump into the muck in which everyone rolled around and got dirty. Destruction for destruction’s sake, disregard for good or evil in search of only the self,  indiscriminate violence, 3rd grade humor. The darkness is glorified in this film, not portrayed for a reason.

I mention this movie not to review it, but to point out the opposite of what I hope to accomplish when I write…to sort of define by counter-example. Karen frequently points out that my writing is dark, and that she has a difficult time reading my fiction for partly that reason. She has difficulty finding a redemptive element, which is bothersome to me because that’s exactly what I want to make central in the writing. The darkness is there to show how amazing the light is when it takes over. We jump into the muck in order to show how much better it is to be clean than dirty, so to speak. That’s my goal in my fiction.

I also firmly believe Madeleine L’Engle when she said that the characters will tell the writer where they need to go, and that the writer’s job is to record the adventure. The protagonist in my current work-in-progress (the one for which I’m pushing so hard to make a self-imposed deadline of finishing Part I by mid-week) has experienced horrific trauma in her childhood. When I began imagining the story, and when this character appeared in my mind’s eye, it wasn’t like I had much choice to exercise in the matter. She is who she is at the time the novel takes place because of what happened to her in the past. Assuming that I can accurately record her journey, then there will be redemption of her situation as she explores relationships with others and her own sense of identity. Sometimes, though, its so difficult to write her flashbacks…because of the nature of the trauma…that I’m left struggling with exactly the problem I talked about above: I have to be so careful to not just get dirty when I jump into the muck, and so intentional to clean it out.

Because simply adding to the chaos, contributing to the noise, does no one any good, not even if all you’re aiming for is entertainment. As is so often the case, this choice is reflected in “real” life, as well. I’m in a professional situation currently that is really frustrating. In my mind, its too messy. My instinct is to withdraw from it, to pass it off as someone else’s problem, to compartmentalize my brain around it. I think, though, that if I were to choose to do that, that I would be rolling in the muck and just getting dirty. I’m not redeeming anything if that’s the choice I make. I’m not making anything better.

And, with a daughter preparing to join us any day now, I don’t want to leave any more of the world mired in muck than I absolutely have to. The more I try to take a hand in redeeming, the better a world she will inherit.

Photo Attribution: Sean MacEntee

Overexposure

I like Emily Deschanel. She’s a gifted actor. Even though Bones just isn’t as good a series as it once was, I admire Ms. Deschanel’s talent. I also admire her sister, Zooey Deschanel. Granted, she sounds a little flighty in some interviews, but have you watched her facial expressions when she performs? Her performance was part of what saved The Happening from a lousy script.

I like both of these actors for another reason, as well, though. Because I respect them. The reason I respect them is because they haven’t taken their clothes off or otherwise posed in needlessly provocative photoshoots. Good for them.

I’m not placing them on some sort of pedestal…that’s not my intention. And they’re certainly not alone. Although, they are a member of a minority in not doing so. I’m not certain which of the actors (of both sexes) who refuse to objectify themselves in this way are doing so out of respect for themselves, out of moral stances, out of faith, or may intend to and just haven’t gotten around to it yet. But I admire those who haven’t, nonetheless.

Celebrity is an interesting phenomenon in our culture. Barry Taylor discusses it in Entertainment Theology, stating essentially that culture is something produced, and that the producers make celebrities, the whole thing functioning in a religious sense. With pop culture, celebrities are simultaneously one of us and one of the pantheon of “saints” in the theology of pop culture, and we take possession of them in that way. The audience takes possession of what has been produced, essentially, and determines its value and meaning.

Go ahead, try to wrap your brain around that one and get back to me. The implications are huge.

I think that this leads to us objectifying celebrities. We think we have the right to see a celebrity however we want. We decide if their crises are worth laughing at or ridiculing in order to make us feel better. We’re Romans tossing people to lions for sport, and somehow thinking we have that right because of this twisted celebrity culture we’ve created.

I wonder if the natural result of this isn’t celebrities thinking of themselves as our property. Thus, the only way to maintain celebrity status today (or to regain it when one “isn’t cool” any more), is to pose for a photoshoot that is racy, or (let’s call it what it is) completely pornographic.

Now, pause for a moment, before I really arouse your ire (I may by the end of the post, but not for this, please). I’m not calling all art involving nudity pornographic or objectifying. It is necessary for the story or presentation of theme at times, in many artistic mediums. When done, it can be done either tastefully, or gratuitously…just  like violence in storytelling and visual art. Every time a photographer captures their model in various states of undress, the result is not always objectifying.

It’s just a great deal of the time. Now…let the ire arise.

And, it happens across the board. Recently, an Internet celebrity I follow posed for a men’s magazine. I rolled my eyes. A few years ago, I discovered that a  favorite musician that I had loved since childhood posed nude for playboy. My heart broke. I lost respect for them both. But I also feel really sorry for them both, because one day, they may wake up and wish they hadn’t. And there’s no taking that back.

I admire artists who are focused on their art, placing their effort into their craft, into the stories they are telling and the beauty they are portraying. I respect artists that are not caught up in the celebrity culture and thus don’t feel the need to expose themselves in order to hold popularity. I don’t have the right to see any celebrity I want nude. I don’t own them. I only get to participate (as the audience) in their art…and that is enough.

I heard a co-worker say (about something unrelated) a few weeks ago that, if he can’t be part of the solution, he certainly doesn’t want to be part of the problem. I think we can do both. Visiting the website makes us part of the problem, even if we’re avoiding the “red light” district of the Internet and only browsing paparazzi shots and fan pages. Changing our perspective, and eschewing the multitude of media that capitalizes and commodifies celebrity worship moves toward being part of the solution. Because, let’s be honest: a lot of you are news junkies like myself, but do we really care who’s married to who and who cheated and who got drunk last weekend? I really don’t need to be a drama voyeur…I have enough of my own.

Incidentally, I’m not making this about erotica and the porn industry. That’s a completely separate…and equally abhorrent…problem.

Let’s leave the drama behind, shall we? And let’s respect everyone as we do. Regardless of your faith, there’s something to the Golden Rule. I hope for a culture in which more artists care about their craft and not their celebrity status. To all of them, let me say, I don’t own you, and neither do any of the rest of us.

Please don’t act as though we do.

Photo Attribution: david_shankbone 

Video Killed…Well….Everything?

Not the first time I’ve talked about this subject….and, I’m sure, it won’t be the last. However, I hit a bit of writer’s block tonight, and went flipping back through that virtual Rolodex of blog posts and articles that I’ve wanted to write a response to, but haven’t quite made the time to do so. And, I rather quickly found this one. Quite a provocative title, don’t you think?

The sentiment of not only the post, but also the comment chain, concerns me. Several commented that perhaps this is the natural time for literary fiction to die, because nobody reads it any more. That stings…and I think that the reason it stings is because I see in it a good deal of truth. Frequently encountering middle-school aged students and seeing the public education system at work on a regular basis, I see a complete void of interest in reading altogether. I think of statistics of how few adults read books for pleasure, and I think of a remark I heard today on a podcast that we are the first culture in the world that has managed to nearly destroy its own poetry. I think about the evolution of media, and how new media is widely viewed (although most would not directly state this) as a substitute for literature, instead of other avenues to explore in addition to literature.

Am I a snob? Am I part of the “literati” who look down their noses at everyone who doesn’t peruse the summer fiction issue of the New Yorker? I hope not. Its just that I see the loss when I think of the great works I read in high school and college, and how many friends and colleagues I encounter who have never read…or in some cases never heard of…novels that have had a profound impact on the way our culture thinks. I don’t even want to say that I’m “well read.” Its just that I’m “somewhat read.”

Obviously, as the huge increase in sales of e-books and e-readers would indicate, novels are not dead, including classic and new literary novels. The blog post I referenced earlier states that genre fiction survives well, and I’m not against genre fiction…I’m particularly a mystery and sci-fi fan. The blogger questions, however, whether or not modern literary writers (who find it easier than ever to get their works in front of the public eye) are of the same calibre as, say, the Tolkiens or Dostoyevskies or Wilsons or O’Connors of previous generations. That is something that I think merits conversation, because the claim that recent decades have yielded no such great writers is not completely without merit, I think (some current and extremely talented writers notwithstanding).

Is it possible for a culture’s tastes and preferences to change so drastically that literature could die, replaced by pulp fiction and genre novels exclusively? Or, as some of the commenters on the original post indicated, does it simply evolve? Do some think that there are not great writers producing work today because others simply think differently as to what is a great work? In other words, does the definition of a great work change over time? If so, is this a loss or a gain? Is it to be expected? Will video kill the author, as well?

What do you think?

Photo Attribution: stuartpilbrow