Michael Mitchell: Archive

"We pore over TV shows for clues about their outcome, which we present with power-point precision. We treat all art like editorial cartoons, interpreting it the way we would a drawing of a fatcat politician holding bulging moneybags in each hand, and accept or reject the story accordingly. We treat the comics and novels that form the basis for our blockbusters as holy writ, we insist that fiction hew inerrantly to the facts that inspired it, and we punish those who stray from the path. We elevate our favorite characters and relationships to the point where the stories they inhabit are mere vehicles to get them to the place we'd like to see them go.

"In all four cases -- the Theorists, the Activists, the Purists, and the Partisans -- we're treating the inherently subjective fields of art and art criticism as things we can be objectively right about. We're taking work that's complex and capable of conveying multiple contradictory meanings and reducing it to a simple either/or, yes/no proposition."

--Sean T Collins, The Four Worst Types Of TV Critics

I think this article is a great examination of the facetious appreciation and shallow criticism inspired by art these days (and a demonstration of our pathetic expectations of creators), but unfortunately the writer is missing the obvious conclusion.

"Theorists" think they can predict a future that is created by someone else. "Activists" think they can make art mean whatever they need it to mean. "Purists" think adaptations of original works can be carbon copies. "Partisans" think art is created just for them.

These types of critics don't think they can be "objectively right" about their appreciation and evaluation of art; they think they can make it fit their every subjective whim. It is the fact we think art is subjective -- we think its copyright belongs to its creator but its interpretation belongs to us -- we think art is a two-way street -- that is the problem. But what else could we expect? This is exactly what critics, like the writer quoted above, tell creators and fans, and what fans tell creators and critics, and what creators tell critics and fans.

Isn't this what we wanted? Discussion and controversy on the widest possible scale is all we expect from art, therefore that is all we are receiving and all we deserve. Today's art is as far from "complex" as it has ever been and, predictably, so is art criticism and appreciation. "Multiple contradictory meanings" in artworks has logically lead to multiple contradictory responses from viewers. We're just taking songs and movies and books and making them our own like we were told we could. We think art is open to interpretation. We think art is public property. We think art is subjective, so it is -- because we create it that way.

The only way to raise the intellectual level of art appreciation and criticism is to raise the intellectual level of art. This starts with artists honestly expressing their personal viewpoints, their intellect, in their work rather than trying to represent everyone equally. No one -- neither artist, critic nor fan -- is expressing what he/she really thinks these days, only what he/she feels or guesses others feel.

It's tragic. We used to view art to see the world through an expert's eyes. Now we just want to see ourselves and, like it or not, that's all we'll see, until a few brave artists rediscover what art is.