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benlehman at 02:24pm on 18/11/2009
benlehman at 02:24pm on 18/11/2009This is in response to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
cucumberseed's recent post on the topic of problematic material, edgy stuff, and art. Which I thought about trying to summarize but I think I'll just link you. To my friends: Please respond here, not there.
I responded and said "Yes and no. Little yes. Big no."
So I think he deserves an unpacking of that, and I thought it might be interesting for other people as well.
So. Yes and no. Little yes. Big no.
The little yes is, well, yes. As in: if you produce a work of art that's crappy and racist and sexist or whatever it is, yes. You have produced a crappy work of art. Going: "but it was the MUUUUSE" is a stupid excuse and you should own up to it and deal. Furthermore, including explicitly problematic material in your work just because you think it makes you edgy and modern is shitty. Don't do it. It just waters down your work and alienates people.
The big no is, well, no. You are not going to produce a piece of wholly non-problematic art, no matter how squishy and liberal and consciousness-raised you are. News flash: you live in a racist and sexist society. More importantly, you produce art in the context of a racist and sexist society. Your art is going to have elements of racism and sexism, as well as a host of other socially problematic bullshit. Attempting to purge these elements from your work will make your work unpleasantly tepid and no less offensive (indeed, it will often make it more problematic, not less.)
So what's to do? Seems kinda like you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. Here's my suggestion: Make art that's honest to your own vision, honest to the world you live in, and honest to your audience. And, yes, people are going to be offended. How could they not, if your art is an honest reflection of the offensive society that you both live in? But the important thing is that honest, well-researched, wrestled-with art creates an opportunity to confront and process the problematic material, rather than just dismissing it (as with those who simply brush past issues of, say, racism in their work with 'that's what the muse told me') or sweeping it under the rug (as those who edit all potentially problematic material out of their art do)
To take a game I played recently as an example: Poison'd, which is a game about pirates, includes rape on the list of sins your character may have committed (or might commit in play to particular mechanical effect) and includes rape also in brutalities your character might have suffered. This is really offensive to a fair number of people, it's potentially horribly problematic in play. But it's also honest to the subject matter, to the society and the world that the author and audience live in, and to the themes of the game, which include a lot of cycle-of-abuse and dysfunctional abuse relationships and such.
Check this: To do otherwise (not include rape) would be far worse: it would mean that the game didn't consider rape a sin or a suffering, that a character who blasphemed damaged their Soul in a way that a character who raped did not, that a character who was beaten suffered in a way that a character who was raped did not. That would be way, way worse.
Anyway, that's a few thoughts.
cucumberseed's recent post on the topic of problematic material, edgy stuff, and art. Which I thought about trying to summarize but I think I'll just link you. To my friends: Please respond here, not there.I responded and said "Yes and no. Little yes. Big no."
So I think he deserves an unpacking of that, and I thought it might be interesting for other people as well.
So. Yes and no. Little yes. Big no.
The little yes is, well, yes. As in: if you produce a work of art that's crappy and racist and sexist or whatever it is, yes. You have produced a crappy work of art. Going: "but it was the MUUUUSE" is a stupid excuse and you should own up to it and deal. Furthermore, including explicitly problematic material in your work just because you think it makes you edgy and modern is shitty. Don't do it. It just waters down your work and alienates people.
The big no is, well, no. You are not going to produce a piece of wholly non-problematic art, no matter how squishy and liberal and consciousness-raised you are. News flash: you live in a racist and sexist society. More importantly, you produce art in the context of a racist and sexist society. Your art is going to have elements of racism and sexism, as well as a host of other socially problematic bullshit. Attempting to purge these elements from your work will make your work unpleasantly tepid and no less offensive (indeed, it will often make it more problematic, not less.)
So what's to do? Seems kinda like you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. Here's my suggestion: Make art that's honest to your own vision, honest to the world you live in, and honest to your audience. And, yes, people are going to be offended. How could they not, if your art is an honest reflection of the offensive society that you both live in? But the important thing is that honest, well-researched, wrestled-with art creates an opportunity to confront and process the problematic material, rather than just dismissing it (as with those who simply brush past issues of, say, racism in their work with 'that's what the muse told me') or sweeping it under the rug (as those who edit all potentially problematic material out of their art do)
To take a game I played recently as an example: Poison'd, which is a game about pirates, includes rape on the list of sins your character may have committed (or might commit in play to particular mechanical effect) and includes rape also in brutalities your character might have suffered. This is really offensive to a fair number of people, it's potentially horribly problematic in play. But it's also honest to the subject matter, to the society and the world that the author and audience live in, and to the themes of the game, which include a lot of cycle-of-abuse and dysfunctional abuse relationships and such.
Check this: To do otherwise (not include rape) would be far worse: it would mean that the game didn't consider rape a sin or a suffering, that a character who blasphemed damaged their Soul in a way that a character who raped did not, that a character who was beaten suffered in a way that a character who was raped did not. That would be way, way worse.
Anyway, that's a few thoughts.
(no subject)
The big no is, well, no. You are not going to produce a piece of wholly non-problematic art, no matter how squishy and liberal and consciousness-raised you are.
And it's foolish to expect otherwise, nor did I say that was the goal. In fact, I said nothing of the sort, but I totally get that it is a really easy, natural and automatic conclusion to reach, and if I was interested in people not reaching it, I needed to be crystal clear about that part.
So let me be clear. I believe that learning involves mostly failing in new and different ways. I believe that confronting evil in art doesn't glamorize evil unless it does, and that can be a result of ignorance, laziness or honest mistake. I mean, it could be that you're evil, too, but, to haul out an old chestnut, Lovecraft was a flaming racist but Cthulhu is still scary and the mythos are still cool.
There's a line, and I think this line is different for everyone, where you accept the work and ignore the problematic aspects; if you like the work enough, you might even forgive the creator for some of the fail they bring out in it. I still like HPL, because he went places that no one else did, and he brought us with him. He actively wanted us to go there and mess with his stuff. Yeah, he was a racist, and some of his stories start the eyes rolling, but shared mythology was 80 years ahead of its time. Orson Scott Card, OTOH, drives me up the wall, and his foulness ruined my happy 13 year old memories of Ender's Game for good.
The challenge is the same as in anything else, minimize the fail, maximize the awesome. I don't get to tell you where to make the trade, but I will tell you that I think you have to take responsibility for that decision. That's all.
(no subject)
I find it hard to forgive still-living creators who do any of the above, though I might still get their work from the library or used bookstores. (I really like the Alvin Maker world, but damned if OSC's getting a penny from me.) People who lived and died in another era are easier: I can tell myself that some of Lewis's problematic views, for example, were a product of his time and place, and that he'd probably have changed them and apologized had he lived. Harder to do with HPL, who seemed virulently xenophobic even for a 1920s New Englander, but still possible in a way that isn't with, say, Card or McCaffrey.
*I distrust people who use the word "muse", as a general rule. By and large, they're either pretentious dicks or...soulbonders. (There needs to be a font for "extremely creeped out just by having to type this.")
(no subject)
(no subject)
Working on the Bliss Stage VN in particular, as an ignorant liberal White Guy, I've been... well, when lifted my hands from the keyboard to read my Anna calling my Derek a faggot, I was stunned and very uneasy with myself.
But this one would. Never mind that she's bisexual herself in this version - she would totally use that as an insult.