Cynicism: This Is What I'm Talking About
devore writes:
We're attached to attack, because we're a complacent, conservative society committed to our comfort zones. Your argument that art should or shouldn't be this or that way augments the truth that we're a culture of tribes. For one, I don't believe in high brow or low brow. I spent a very brief period of my career as a food critic (very, very brief). The one lesson I took from it is that I love cheeseburgers as much as I love duck confit or toro sashimi. Culturally, people want to be told what they want to hear. They're not angry, they're petulant. They don't want community, because a community accepts differences, and we're a society that wants to pretend everyone thinks the same and if they don't, if they want to truly buck the status quo, they get screamed at.I have no idea what a serious artist is. I find the notion hopelessly bourgeois.I have no responsibility to anyone but myself, as art is an affirmation of existence, a marker that announces in a thousand different ways "I exist, and this is the world filtered through my heart, my eyes, my mind, my soul."Which is why, friends, the only true modern art form is advertising. It's what museums will be full of in 400 years. It reflects, honestly and properly, our era. And with that, I'm going to go purchase some Burger King chicken fries, and maybe scribble a few notes about a play about a talking Nazi fetus.
Notice the repeated word "they" along with the even more frequently repeated word "I." A combination of disdain for others and narcissism. Combine that with a fashionable nihilism, and you have the recipe for late capitalist consumer society. And "adolescent" is the word that seems to be echoing in my mind at this moment.
We're attached to attack, because we're a complacent, conservative society committed to our comfort zones. Your argument that art should or shouldn't be this or that way augments the truth that we're a culture of tribes. For one, I don't believe in high brow or low brow. I spent a very brief period of my career as a food critic (very, very brief). The one lesson I took from it is that I love cheeseburgers as much as I love duck confit or toro sashimi. Culturally, people want to be told what they want to hear. They're not angry, they're petulant. They don't want community, because a community accepts differences, and we're a society that wants to pretend everyone thinks the same and if they don't, if they want to truly buck the status quo, they get screamed at.I have no idea what a serious artist is. I find the notion hopelessly bourgeois.I have no responsibility to anyone but myself, as art is an affirmation of existence, a marker that announces in a thousand different ways "I exist, and this is the world filtered through my heart, my eyes, my mind, my soul."Which is why, friends, the only true modern art form is advertising. It's what museums will be full of in 400 years. It reflects, honestly and properly, our era. And with that, I'm going to go purchase some Burger King chicken fries, and maybe scribble a few notes about a play about a talking Nazi fetus.
Notice the repeated word "they" along with the even more frequently repeated word "I." A combination of disdain for others and narcissism. Combine that with a fashionable nihilism, and you have the recipe for late capitalist consumer society. And "adolescent" is the word that seems to be echoing in my mind at this moment.
Comments
And if you think I'm adolescent, then so be it. While you refer to yourself as “old”, I just think your nostalgic for a time that never existed, some artistic utopia where art was a fire to warm oneself by, instead of a fire that burned things down or at the best, led one out of the darkness. I hope you have plenty of pillows for your comfort zone.
I'm a satirist, and the first rule of satire is that you eat the sacred cows, your own sacred cows being at the top of the menu. I think that applies to “serious” artists. I wouldn’t know though. Not being a “serious” artist.
That said, I will offer that irony has become an end, culturally, instead of a means. Its become a distancing tool, keeping the artist and his or her or mine or yours or their audience at a safe distance from the truth of the world.
Let's not get into what that truth is. Personally, it's ugly.
1. Believing or showing the belief that people are motivated chiefly by base or selfish concerns; skeptical of the motives of others: a cynical dismissal of the politician's promise to reform the campaign finance system.
2. Negative or pessimistic, as from world-weariness: a cynical view of the average voter's intelligence.
3. Expressing jaded or scornful skepticism or negativity: cynical laughter.
It isn't a viewpoint I respect very much, because it seems to combine with passivity, an unwillingness to believe in anything with enough fervor to make a positive difference.
However, if you feel as if I have insulted you, I will remove my post. Let me know what you would like to do.
And ok, maybe I am cynical. But it's just a hard candy shell. I'm all milk chocolate center. Except for the thorn buried deep inside.
I am currently seething/thinking/pondering all of these posts. I mean,I may be slow, but considering art and truth and history takes a toll on my noggin.
And gentlemen, if you were in a room together, would you treat each other this way ?
Just wondering...
And if yes, then please continue !
And in Scott's defense, I think he's trying to be as provocative as anyone else. He's just doing it by using posters as examples, which is only bringing hits to the site and raising the ire of those involved. Which I think is, fairly, effective. It's simply not fair to go after those who comment if they speak in a way you disagree with.
We traffic in mutual respect, and we should remember it. I think Devore is hilarious, he's a pal, and he's a downtown theater mainstay that's worked as hard (if not harder) than most people to put great stuff on the stage.
If cynicism or irony or rocket fuel or coffee fuel the work, who's to say its not respectable?
I'd say the best thing to focus on isn't whether or not cynicism in the artist is all that important: let's maybe move the discuss towards actual works (plays themselves, structure, language, images) and their relatives merits. That might keep things from getting so personal and, um, bitchy.