Are you seriously saying that the point of art is to make money?
3 Likes
I guess in depends on the art, though, yeah? In the age of mass culture, where is the line between art and the commodity. Does the commodification of films and music exclude them from being also considered art?
7 Likes
No, and of course, whatever “art” is depends on the viewer and/or some sort of communal perspective.
I just can’t go along with saying that – as I read @anon47741163 saying – that making a shit-ton of money absolves art from being problematic.
Nor, come to think of it, with the other idea there that art that seems perfectly acceptable in its time isn’t problematic either. A lot of art that I like seems great to me because it’s NOT acceptable in its time.
I’m fine with something considering certain things both “art” and a “commodity.”
Anyway, I don’t mean for us to get bogged down in a debate about what “good art” is!
9 Likes
I’m saying the point of the Film Industry is to make money. And yes I hear filmmakers talk about the art VS commerce angle all the time.
My point is, you can’t just choose to only appreciate the art angle and completely ignore the commerce angle, not when the art in question has been seen by everyone you know.
7 Likes
I absolutely hate that part too. That wasn’t a makeover, that was a Stepford Wife-ing.
19 Likes
I totally agree with that. In fact, I’d argue that part of what makes something authentically art is the fact that we do interrogate it and take it seriously in terms of the messages it’s attempting to get across.
And I think the fact that the art helps to highlight problematic issues of its day, also helps to elevate it… meaning that something not considered art in its time (in this case, teen films) are now very much considered art because they help us to negotiate the realities of the time it was made.
I think in general, this comes down to the eye of the beholder.
9 Likes
Statues of confederate war heroes are not problematic. The art just is, it’s neither a good thing or a bad thing. Its the way that art is appreciated that’s problematic.
(OK, not all such controversial art is innocent. The Smithsonian architecture is problematic because of how it was made by slaves, snuff films are problematic because it’s models are killed, Hollywood special effects films are problematic because their CGI staff are taken advantage of… Those are production issues, not flaws in the final presentation.
1 Like
I have to disagree here, as it’s hard to disentangle the reasons for these existing from their status as art - as they were not created primarily as art, but as political, white supremacist propaganda. Statues built in public spaces during the civil rights movement aren’t the same thing as OutKast sporting a confederate flag.
In films and music, the goal is both the creating of art and making money (and, often, too acting as kinds of propaganda, too), making them far more ambiguous than a statue of General Lee or something like that. The intent wasn’t just to beautify a public space, but to send an unambiguous message of white supremacy.
[ETA] And we also should acknowledge that the shift in the production of art in the modern era was both democratic and the commercialization of folk arts more broadly. With regards to high art, the state became the patron, instead of aristocrats, monarchs, or the church. at the end of the day, artists still need to eat and pay rent, so that means working within the economic realities of the time.
13 Likes
Lately I’ve been daydreaming about defacing Stone Mountain down in Georgia… And while the sculpture is problematic, such a performance art piece is also troubling to think about. The Taliban felt pretty justified blowing up those Buddhist sculptures, after all.
I think what I’d most want to see happen with that, is a nice, nondestructive drape of concrete over the whole thing, to be removed when black people in Georgia say they’re OK with it, or maybe never, but the whole thing be turned into a time capsule… Rather than just a permanent piece of graffiti.
3 Likes
I ask this question every time I interact with women who are very nice and friendly, who later introduce me to their SOs who are…not. I guess opposites really do attract in some cases.
5 Likes
That should be down to citizens of Dekalb county and Stone Mountain (which is also a city in the Eastern Suburbs of ATL, which is historically black). I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Stone Mountain, but it’s larger than most people realize. You can sit a table on the top of the sculpture itself.
Or we could just add to the sculpture itself:
I also kind of object to the comparision to the Taliban - because taking down confederate memorials isn’t about erasing the existence of people - white people aren’t being murdered or having their heritage eliminated in the way that African Americans have had happen to them historically in the south. The construction of these works were not neutral acts, they were real attempts to scare the black community into submission and to erase the actual history of the confederacy. It was aimed at reinforcing white supremacy.
12 Likes
It sounds to me that we’re in agreement that changing the context of that particular bit of sculpture would be a good idea. Now that we’re talking about it, it occurs to me that just projecting light on its surface in particular patterns could have a beneficial outcome. Kinda like what these guys do.
1 Like
While we’re on the topic of re-contexting problematic sculpture: The Lenin statue in Seattle originally carried a book in one hand. Not long after it was originally installed, it was taken down and the book was removed, and now his finger is just pointing toward the ground. I’ve always thought this bit of re-contexting problematic art was especially ironic, given the Soviet reputation for re-writing history. And of course, when I’ve tried to document this claim via the internet, it’s vanished down the memory hole. All I have is my own memory of seeing it in its original site, before it wasmoved across the street.
2 Likes
First time I saw 16 candles was back in the 80s when it was in HBO or Show time rotation. I was in my mid 20s and embarking on a career as a film maker. So I was always very analytical of shows that I had seen. I remember it so clearly. I was killing time waiting for beers with an old friend who had been away for a couple of years. I sat down and watched through the show and was fascinated and entertained. Entertained because it was a good movie and fascinated because it was a teen movie but not with the tropes of like Porkies or whatever else was passing for teen movies at the time. My instant crush on Molly notwithstanding. I tried to express to my friend what I was thinking. That it was not written as a story by a 40 year old man who wanted to relive High School knowing what he knew now but if it were seen through the eyes of a teen.
I have always felt that way about Hughes’ work. It pleases me that after all these years Molly pretty much validated my feelings on the show.
3 Likes
Which is probably why I liked it so much. Thankfully it’s easy to take the bits that work and jettison the awful aspects, so it’s possible to emulate Hughes and make something that isn’t problematic. (As modern Lovecraftiana proves - some of the great work being produced by queer ladies of color that turns Lovecraft on his head - and probably has him spinning in his grave.)
I saw one of the teen movies on that level as a teen in the '80s and it left me feeling disturbed, thankfully I missed most of the worst.
What I was trying to get at is that even as artifacts, one has to be sure that the viewers are old enough to just be horrified, not inculcated with that worldview.
The election of Trump made me think:
Theodore Parker: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Theodore Parker, 2018: “Oh, my mistake.”
But in my more optimistic moments, I just think that America, for all its lofty aspirations, has actually always been a terrible country at heart, and things are getting better.
9 Likes
I hope so!
6 Likes
Yeah, I get it, the internet is not a place for nuanced ideas. I was not comparing modern efforts to take down those statues to what the Taliban did, I was imagining myself unilaterally going down there by myself with enough “art supplies” to permanently deface the stone work, and probably get myself accidentally killed. That is what the Taliban comparison was for.
3 Likes
And yet, we seem to be doing that right now! The internet contains multitudes, I guess!
So you’re comparing yourself to the Taliban? Again, seems weird. 
4 Likes
I came away with an entirely different understanding of her essay.
She said Sixteen Candles was more comparable to Porky’s than The Breakfast Club- and in my mind it was- from the slow pan of the male protagonists’ nude girlfriend in the girls’, locker room, to the panty auction in the boy’s bathroom, to the implied rape of the girlfriend in the shower.
7 Likes
I’ve not seen Sixteen Candles, this comment doesn’t really make me want to fix that any time soon 
6 Likes
