Notes: The Limits of Art
A painting can't cure what ails our society
It’s hot in New Orleans. The unrelenting heat here reminds me of the heat I imagined the characters in Spike Lee’s film Do The Right Thing experienced on that summer day in Bed-Stuy. I’ve seen Do The Right Thing, Lee’s magnum opus about race relations and police brutality in America, only a handful of times. But certain moments from the movie replay in my mind often.
One such moment is the radicalization of the character, Buggin Out. Buggin Out initiates the film’s central drama: the boycott of Sal’s Famous Pizzeria. Since the bulk of the movie’s action takes place over one day, we don’t know all the real and perceived injustices Buggin Out experienced in life. Still, he arrives on-screen with righteous anger that feels lived in. His name is Buggin Out, after all.
As we see it, the spark for Buggin Out’s boycott is the Wall of Fame at Sal’s, which only features pictures of people Sal refers to as American Italians. Buggin Out thinks Sal should put some photos of “brothers” up on the wall to create a more welcoming environment for his black customers. The wall is a metaphor, a symbol; to Buggin Out, it’s a visual reminder of his lack of power.
Yesterday, amid mourning the overturning of Roe v. Wade, I saw a post from an art account I follow on Instagram. The post included a series of works of art by women, with a caption vaguely encouraging supporting women and taking action while offering no concrete suggestions or resources. The post, and ones like it from other accounts, worked on me like the Wall of Fame at Sal’s did on Buggin Out. Though well-intentioned, they symbolized the lack of power I feel right now. They made me mad, but they were not the true source of my anger.
My outrage lies in how exhausting it is to be a woman in this country. I don’t need to be reminded (again) that my body is a battleground or be shown a neon uterus with boxing gloves in the place of ovaries. I need someone to throw a trash can, but I’ll settle for all of us staying engaged in the fight for women to have autonomy over our bodies.
There are limits to what art can do. A painting cannot cure what ails our society, but it can communicate what’s wrong. Art is a spark that can light the path towards our collective liberation. But art alone won’t save us.
THE EXTRAS
Because sometimes a bit of historical perspective helps in understanding the metric by which some people operate…
In most cases it matters not which side of the aisle your democratically elected representative sits. At the end of the day money stands alone and unbothered.
I feel it to be gravely unfortunate that the overwhelming majority of readily available news media is controlled by a conglomerate of very few conservative leaning moguls.
If the human being is to have a role in her or his relationship with life, especially the current path that this so-called modern life is taking, than the human being must always be included in the equation when all modern technological advances are developed.
https://www.amazon.com/Temple-Man-R-Schwaller-Lubicz/dp/0892815701
Though it seems quite the contrary, I will try and keep this response as economical as possible though matters such as this are rarely cut and dry.
The framers of the constitution of these United States were slave holders. And as such said framers were rapists. Most of African origin as well as their indentured servants of European extraction did not realize the same rights and privileges as white land owners. Hence those who were not allowed to own property had no real recourse when being victimized with physical and sexual violence. That many people were considered property (and that included the womb) was the faulty premise upon which many of today laws are based.
Back then more slaves meant more work and therefore more income.
Back then, in Louisiana, this socially accepted barbarism takes on a cloak of psycho-societal decorum in the form of quadroon and octaroon balls. The balls were basically events where free people of color brought their daughters to dances where married white men of means could meet, impregnate, and sometimes marry women of color. In such cases, when the white husband of the wife and/or father of the child dies the wife or offspring inherited the property.
https://www.amazon.com/Temple-Man-R-Schwaller-Lubicz/dp/0892815701
Again, in the interest of being economical, I’m trusting that I have laid enough groundwork to serve as dynamic consideration for how we as a country have arrived at this junction.
“Deus ex machina” is a writing device used in soap operas script writing whereby a seemingly unsolvable problem in a story is suddenly and abruptly resolved by an unexpected and unlikely occurrence.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deus_ex_machina
According to Wikipedia soap operas) originated on the radio in Britain in1937. The Guiding Light, the longest running “Soap”, switched from radio to television in’52, and finally ended in 2009.
In the ‘50s these stories were geared towards women who stayed and worked in the home while the husband and children were away at work and school respectively. Employing all forms of immoral behavior these serial novellas remain famous for the ability to keep their audience glued to the storyline to the point of distraction.
Based upon the violent and immoral foundation upon which the formation of the this country was built I feel it reprehensible that such weight of power be bestowed upon any individual for life.
*I refer you to the Lubicz link above.*
https://www.npr.org/2018/09/23/650138049/a-timeline-of-clarence-thomas-anita-hill-controversy-as-kavanaugh-to-face-accuse
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/national/wp/2018/09/27/kavanaugh-hearing-transcript/
Lastly, I personally feel that the main problem with modern society today is the central banking system.
Second, I feel that any and everyone presently serving as well as those currently running, or in consideration for public office should make public their full financial disclosure for life.
Lately things are feeling like the Wild Wild West in so many ways. What a brilliant comparison that I would have never thought of, but it makes perfect sense. Until the court looks like the folks affected the most by Rod v. Wade, we need to be like Buggin Out. I don’t see any man carrying babies for nine months and a lifetime. So how is it that you tell me what to do with my body?