Art holds a
mirror up to the world. It takes what the artist sees in the world, changes
around a bit, then shows the artist’s interpretation of the world to those who
view, read, hear, and even taste or smell it. Sometimes it’s merely a
reflection for the sake of entertainment, and other times it has deeper
meanings – bordering on educational. It’s one of the great things about art, as
combining entertainment with education is the most effective way to teach –
and, being open to interpretation, art allows people to come to their own
conclusions. Yet, sometimes I wonder if we artists reflect too much.
When
artists set out to create deep, meaningful interpretations of the world that
allow them to share their ideas and revelations with others, they take the
elements of the world they want to showcase and make them very prominent in
their work. The idea is often to say, “Hey, look at this! Does it remind you of
anything?” and then proceed to show the observer why it is good, bad, or
sometimes just to get them thinking about it. It is a marvelous form of
education, but sometimes we have to stop to consider... What exactly are we
teaching?
Back in
highschool, an English class assignment was to examine the lyrics of a song and
interpret the meaning of it. One of my classmates chose a song that I was
amazed the teacher even allowed to have the lyrics shown for his presentation.
However, as he went through the song, he was representing it as a satire – a commentary
on a particular type of lifestyle rather than, as it appeared to me, bragging
and lauding said lifestyle. Until then, it never would have occurred to me that
the song was satirical – and that’s where we hit a major flaw.
What
happens when something is intended to be satire, and people interpret it as
real? What happens when commentary is interpreted as praise? What happens when
metaphor is taken to be literal? What happens when an artist is just making art
and people are convinced it’s full of deep meanings?
What ends
up being learned isn’t always what was intended – and learning wasn’t even
necessarily intended in the first place. However, learning is what humans do
constantly – we take in our surroundings and interpret and learn from them. We
don’t even know we’re doing it half the time. We just keep absorbing and
absorbing....
So, when an
artist presents to us the world as it is, highlighting the flaws, some people
will see what the artist is saying and learn from it – maybe even help the
world to change and grow. Others may see it and simply disagree, while others
will miss the point entirely. Often what will happen is that people will see it
as just a straight up statement of “This is how it is!” which they will take to
mean it’s normal, which is the most dangerous view of all.
By showing
the world as it is, artists can inadvertently reinforce the very flaws they
seek to highlight. The art reflects the world, and the world – upon seeing its
reflection – says, “This is how it should be,” or perhaps, “This is how it is,
and there’s nothing to be done about it.” Then the art is no longer teaching us
about the flaws in the world; it is teaching us to make all the same mistakes
of the past.
It makes me
wonder what the difference would be if there was a dramatic shift in art – from
reflecting the world as it is, to reflecting the world as it could be. What
changes might be wrought in our society if, rather than displaying and
normalising how everything is, art
showed us how the world could be? I
suppose it’s possible that it could do nothing. On the other hand, it might
make all the difference in the world.
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If there's any subject you'd like to see me ramble on about, feel free to leave a comment asking me to do so.
