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Crash, aesthetics, morality
6/3/06 10:03"Crash" is the only one of the Best Picture nominees that I've seen--I like my gay cowboy movies to be happy gay cowboy movies!--but I'm not thrilled about it winning; so it's time for another overlong theoretical post.
One of the presenters, or winners, last night, said that some people thought art should be a mirror, to reflect society, and some people thought art should be a hammer, to build society. But it can't be that simple, can it? If anything, I think that mirrors make the best hammers...
To me, art has two reasons for existing: aesthetics and insight. Aesthetics is basically amoral; insight is, or can be, moral. If you truly honestly believe that you're on the right side, insofar as there is a right side, then you probably believe that you understand something that the people who are on the other side don't understand. For example, I might think that I'm right and everyone else is wrong about immigration issues because I've been an immigrant and I've lived in a country where my grasp of the common language was weak, and if everyone else had been put in that position, they would see things differently too. I don't remember which Greek philosopher said that if people knew the right thing to do then they would do it. It's naive, of course. But some wrongs in this world do come from a failure of empathy--and one of the things that art can do is redress that failure of empathy by putting you inside someone else's reality.
In fact, I think that's as far as art ought to go in moralizing. Otherwise you edge into propaganda, and--if you're on the right side, won't that come out naturally when you bring out your experience simply and honestly?
Thing is, though, you have to build that empathy from the ground up. First you have to make me believe in these people, then understand them, then care about them. Otherwise it's all too easy to remember that this is only fiction and the people are doing the things they are doing only because the writer said so. For example, there was this one Nigerian(?) novel where the man had been terribly wronged by some slut who had accused him of getting her pregnant but was just after his money! And she had tried to have an abortion! And the judge proceeded to berate and insult the woman for being so loose and so greedy. The man, of course, was completely innocent in everything he had done. With something like that, you get an immediate reaction of "This didn't happen. The author made it up."
Crash isn't so far from where I am politically, but I don't believe in the people, because they're not people; they're viewpoints. Do they have pets? Hobbies? Do they eat? Do they have any dimension at all beyond race and class? It tries to get inside other people's realities, because it's a well-enough-made movie to refrain from too much outright moralizing, but succeeding in that would mean showing more than racism. It would mean the smell of coffee, the small joy and sorrow in a day; "Do the Right Thing" is a movie that's a lot like Crash in some ways, but it's also a lot better, because you get the sense that the characters exist to do more than just discuss racial tension.
One of the presenters, or winners, last night, said that some people thought art should be a mirror, to reflect society, and some people thought art should be a hammer, to build society. But it can't be that simple, can it? If anything, I think that mirrors make the best hammers...
To me, art has two reasons for existing: aesthetics and insight. Aesthetics is basically amoral; insight is, or can be, moral. If you truly honestly believe that you're on the right side, insofar as there is a right side, then you probably believe that you understand something that the people who are on the other side don't understand. For example, I might think that I'm right and everyone else is wrong about immigration issues because I've been an immigrant and I've lived in a country where my grasp of the common language was weak, and if everyone else had been put in that position, they would see things differently too. I don't remember which Greek philosopher said that if people knew the right thing to do then they would do it. It's naive, of course. But some wrongs in this world do come from a failure of empathy--and one of the things that art can do is redress that failure of empathy by putting you inside someone else's reality.
In fact, I think that's as far as art ought to go in moralizing. Otherwise you edge into propaganda, and--if you're on the right side, won't that come out naturally when you bring out your experience simply and honestly?
Thing is, though, you have to build that empathy from the ground up. First you have to make me believe in these people, then understand them, then care about them. Otherwise it's all too easy to remember that this is only fiction and the people are doing the things they are doing only because the writer said so. For example, there was this one Nigerian(?) novel where the man had been terribly wronged by some slut who had accused him of getting her pregnant but was just after his money! And she had tried to have an abortion! And the judge proceeded to berate and insult the woman for being so loose and so greedy. The man, of course, was completely innocent in everything he had done. With something like that, you get an immediate reaction of "This didn't happen. The author made it up."
Crash isn't so far from where I am politically, but I don't believe in the people, because they're not people; they're viewpoints. Do they have pets? Hobbies? Do they eat? Do they have any dimension at all beyond race and class? It tries to get inside other people's realities, because it's a well-enough-made movie to refrain from too much outright moralizing, but succeeding in that would mean showing more than racism. It would mean the smell of coffee, the small joy and sorrow in a day; "Do the Right Thing" is a movie that's a lot like Crash in some ways, but it's also a lot better, because you get the sense that the characters exist to do more than just discuss racial tension.
