For ppl asking why she’s an anti black, anti Semite. She has used the n word and compared her depression to the holocaust
Even not counting her poetry her private journals are full of disgusting, overblown antisemitism. She didn’t just use Jewish people for her metaphors, she outright hated them irl and yet decided to use their suffering for her own gain
okay, I’m Jewish and I appreciate this sentiment. and if someone wants to cut out Sylvia Plath, go for it, I get it.
But. by this logic we’d also need to stop reblogging TS Eliot, Oscar Wilde, and Shakespeare quotes. Virginia Woolf wrote anti-semetic things in her private journals, too. If you only want to read classic poets who liked Jews and black people, that’s fine, but like. good luck? Sylvia Plath isn’t an exception.
idk. Tumblr’s attitude of “consume nothing problematic” just doesn’t work if you’re part of a group that most culture-creators over the last few centuries have hated by default. For people actually in those groups, it’s not like the only two choices are 1) worship authors who hate you or 2) completely cut the majority of literature out of your life. You learn to read critically and acknowledge flaws where you find them.
anyway, as a Jewish woman, I would much rather see a version of this post that said “please read Sylvia Plath poetry critically because she’s anti black and antisemetic” than just “stop reblogging Sylvia Plath poetry.”
IMO, reblog Sylvia Plath all you want, just not unthinkingly.
Sometimes I fell like tumblr has put itself on the the extreme opposite of “consume stuff incritically”
“Don’t consume stuff instead of dealing with it.”
If I ignore its existence then I won’t have to take a layered view on it.
But guys… anti-semitism is a thing and it’s been a rampant thing for centuries. You can’t ignore that the middle ages or the early 20th century existed. Or heck, the middle of the 20th century in the US.
People always are a product of their times. And some times where just racist as fuck! That was normal! And that is something you have to look at and look at critically because these times will return. And very normal people who are talented and nice will have very horrible, unthinking opinions.
That includes you, btw.
So think instead of ignore.
My history professors were always trying to tell us that you CAN NOT view the past through a contemporary lens if you expect to have any kind of understanding of the past. And “understanding” does not mean acceptance, so let’s get that out of the way right now.
We have the privilege–yes, PRIVILEGE–of living in a time that is the product of other people’s grueling hard work, of centuries of people before us being arrested, beaten up, impoverished, KILLED so that we could stand on our high horses and be proud of growing up in the enlightenment they made for us. Any one of us unlucky enough to have been born 100, 200 year ago would like 99% be racists, anti Semites, and probably misogynists (yes, even minority groups, because anti Semitism and misogyny have long histories in black culture too) because the only way to not be all that in a world where it was so normal it was like believing in gravity was to be exceptional. I mean, beyond your time philosophical genius kind of exceptional. For any of us to believe that we would just magically be all enlightened and woke if we hadn’t had the benefit of a world around us teaching us not to be is an insane level of arrogance. It would be like trust-fund Brad insisting he would still be a success even if he hadn’t inherited 80% of a company to start. No, Brad, someone did all that work before you were born buddy.
Even the amazing people who were taking leaps to end various discriminations a century ago are still problematic. The white abolitionists were definitely racist by our standards, just not racist enough to want slavery (and most of them were insane Christian fundamentalists who had no tolerance for any other creed). But it would be insane and a gross dereliction of historical duty to just ignore these people and pretend they didn’t exist because they couldn’t magically meet all our privileged standards 170 years ago.
Update! I’ve downloaded my entire backlog of posts, photos and videos just in case. I’d hate to lose my content, and I’d hate for you to loose any of your content either. So thank you @pupdiesel for the recommendation of TumblrThree, super easy to download and I had my entire backlog within 5 minutes.
I don’t know much about SESTA/FOSTA, but it can’t hurt to consider
downloading/backing up your:
Tumblr blog content.
Posted/fave AO3 fics.
Your Google products like Drive.
This is what I know about it so far, from eff.org:
“The U.S. Senate just voted 97-2 to pass the Allow States and Victims to Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA, H.R. 1865), a bill that silences online speech by forcing Internet platforms to censor their users. As lobbyists and members of Congress applaud themselves for enacting a law tackling the problem of trafficking, let’s be clear: Congress just made trafficking victims less safe, not more.
… It’s easy to see the impact that this ramp-up in liability will have on online speech: facing the risk of ruinous litigation, online platforms will have little choice but to become much more restrictive in what sorts of discussion—and what sorts of users—they allow, censoring innocent people in the process.
What forms that erasure takes will vary from platform to platform. For some, it will mean increasingly restrictive terms of service—banning sexual content, for example, or advertisements for legal escort services. For others, it will mean over-reliance on automated filters to delete borderline posts. No matter what methods platforms use to mitigate their risk, one thing is certain: when platforms choose to err on the side of censorship, marginalized voices are censored disproportionately. The Internet will become a less inclusive place, something that hurts all of us.”
(The temptation to drop this image and post is pretty strong but I’ll go on just a little more in the remote chance that you’re being serious.)(But really when you look at him, there’s pain there, in addition to the humor he’s trying to cover it up with, what he’s actually saying here is pretty flippant “We’re lucky to have such a home,” No honey, it’s not luck and you know it, but that’s a discussion for another time.)
NO CUTS WE LONGPOST LIKE MEN
I’ve been there, Anon, and at least in my case, I’m an adult and I don’t live with my parents, so I don’t need them to also like what I like, and I don’t need their approval to like the things that I like, but I remember feeling so validated when they DID like what I liked. I had a very good relationship with my parents over and above the fact that I admired them and respected their opinions on pretty much everything.
I talked about VC when I lived with them and they were receptive when I needed them to clarify things for me that
I didn’t understand at 11 years old. But this is the case with every piece of media and every new thing that I came across as I was growing up and all the way to currently, they were and are a valuable resource and sounding board for my developing ideas.
Sometimes I brought up VC to illustrate a point. Like Armand’s line in the movie was pretty motivational and helped me immensely when I was a bullied kid and needed confidence:
~We must be powerful, beautiful, and without regret.~
^Which Louis rejects bc he knows that regret absolutely does have value, especially to him in that scene. But I think, isolated, I took it as:
“You’re carrying too much regret, wallowing in guilt is not working for you, and you need to let go of those things that are out of your control now, past mistakes are in the past, try to learn from them and do better, move on and you can be happier.”
And I think that while my parents may not have been thrilled that I loved a series that centered around murderers, they had no issue with it as long as I wasn’t taking inspiration from it out in the backyard sacrificing rats to Louis or whatever! We would watch reruns of the Twilight Zone, Unsolved Mysteries, the X-Files, plenty of shows with crazy shit happening, we liked the thrill of monster stories, murder mysteries, all that stuff that takes you to dark places safely. Stories that didn’t shy away from exploring the various aspects of crime, accidents, monsters, and we talked about all of it! As we did then and still do, the lively debates about these things were and are very intellectually stimulating.
I don’t know how old you are, but do you agree with your parents that you talk about VC too much? I think it depends on what you’re saying when you talk about VC. It’s a work of fiction, if it’s making you unhappy you can chuck it out the window. If it’s making you happy, then keep talking about it.
There are those who have asked Anne Rice to denounce the VC. When she returned to religion, there were Christians who felt that writing about ghosts, witches, and vampires was very wrong and bad, with no consideration as to the actual content of her books. There are so many more reasons for censorship out there. Some ppl might want to censor her books for daring to suggest that the same gender person can love the same gender person, and I know from conversations with other fans that it was a heartbreaking epiphany, to find fictional characters who could do that, that simple and natural thing, those readers who identified with that felt validated and relieved that someone was writing about it, someone was finally accepting them. It helped some of them realize that they were not alone.
VC brought people together for what it contains, it continues to bring people together, I have met some of my best friends through VC. One of them I have driven my claws into and will not release has stuck with me for over 20 years, my first Real Life VC friend, and we met because I saw her reading QOTD on the bus to school. How dark and miserable my life would be without her.
Censorship, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
I have to bring it up for the millionth time, #sorry not sorry. I’ll bring it up until my dying breath.
Censorship has become a bat some fans use to bludgeon other fans. I can’t support the crusaders who on a daily basis want to shame other fans for liking fictional characters. Despite their flaws, there are characters that have inspired readers. There are characters who have saved lives by opening readers’ eyes to the beauty of living.
Knowing what I know now, I think it would be hard for me to decide whether to let a child of mine read these books at the age that I did, and yet, I started to read them when I was 11 and I loved them. I think as long as a reader of any age has someone(s) they can rely on for clarification, then the books can be read. They can be discussed. They can inspire.
What is storytelling? In so many forms, whether it’s sculpture, painting, music, theatre, TV, movies, books, cave-painting… It’s sharing one’s own experience, trying to spin straw into gold, trying to find the silver lining, trying to tell one’s story to exorcise one’s own demons, and maybe, to try to give others the tools to exorcise theirs, too.
I hope your parents can see that when you talk about it, you’re looking for a connection with them, whether to share your impressions or get their feedback and clarification as they have more life experience than you do. Many parents miss out on the best part of having kids, which is the mutual sharing of ideas and perspectives. Mine knew it. I hope you have the kind of parents who know that, too.
“this ship/work of fiction could hypothetically hurt someone” is not an argument.
We don’t prohibit alcohol just because some people can hurt themselves/other people with it. People who can drink responsibly aren’t at fault for people who can’t.
You either believe in people to be personally responsible for themselves or you believe in a dystopia where all fiction is subject to censorship due to any possible cultural impact.
While digging through my drafts just now to clear some posts out I was reminded of my habit of seeing something stupid on Tumblr and writing a vicious text post in response to roast all the idiots and douchebags and then drafting it instead of publishing it because ultimately my blog is my own space and I have the control of the tone I set, and it’s my general goal to keep it relaxed and breezy in here. (Despite what my penchant for angst might say LOL).
Common themes include:
That I am a Grown Ass Adult and I hate all forms of censorship.
I don’t have children and don’t give a fuck about other people’s children. And when I say that I am generally speaking about the purity police on tunglr dot com who are worried about all the 14 year olds lurking around. And, whoops, they’re definitely not my problem.
Making me responsible for other people’s children is a step above telling me that my only use as a biological female is to make babies.
I especially dislike being censored and restricted for the sake of the children who do not occupy my house. (Including lists where this manifests in the Real World, outside of Tumblr, ie: rules about pot edibles, cable television, childproof drug bottles.)
Ranting about the cognitive dissonance of people who would typically be on the SJW side of things and don’t realize how their bullshit plays exactly into real world conservatism and how that’s uhhhhhh not good lmao. (See previous point about censorships and safeguards in the Real World, often put into place by the religious right.)
If one more person tries to re-victimize me by telling me which of my childhood experiences traumatized me and forbidding me to interact with them I s2g I’m gonna start breaking some jaws. (Which is funny considering that one of said experiences involved getting punched in the face so hard that it damaged the ligaments in my face and my jaw still clicks but that’s beside the point.)
Not to be a dick (well, only a little) but honestly like 99% of the bullshit on this site is so ideological and nonsensical and hypothetical and doesn’t fucking happen outside in the real world and a lot of your anguish would be solved if you’d just go outside and interact with real human beings who do not live in your dashboard echochamber.
Anyway. I SAY ALL THAT TO SAY. Just imagine a day I rant and rave about any of these topics and just go fuckin wild. Just imagine. Pretend it happened.
^AGREED WITH ALL OF THE ABOVE. I also hate all forms of censorship, especially the more recent wave of censorship under the flags of “This is Problematic” and “Romanticizes/Normalizes X.”
I’ve been ramping up my defense of Dark Fiction, as you may have noticed. I’m not thrilled about it, but it’s a recent development. I do it because there was an attempt to shame me for Liking Bad Things and I felt that my silence was acceptance of this, and so, for those who may be too shy to defend their right to consume/create whatever tf they want, I want them to see that this blog is a citadel of support for fans who choose to like what they want to like and make/enjoy the fanworks they want to see in the world.
I try to promote civility in the fandom and encourage the creation and sharing of fanworks. IMO, that’s the lifeblood of the fandom. It is trampling other fans when someone demands that a fan interact a certain way on the fan’s own blog, tries to shame them for liking specific characters, or tries to get that fan to leave a fandom altogether. That, to me, is one of the worst crimes in a fandom. Attempting to crush someone’s love for a fictional character or ship is divisive and unnecessary. No, we do not need to critique or examine or do anything we don’t want to.
No one can tell you how to fandom. Please don’t let them bully you. Please don’t self-censor for them. Everyone with internet access is responsible for their own experience here, common courtesy would be tagging your posts so that they can avoid certain characters/ships/etc. If someone cannot handle your liking a fictional character, it is on them to deal with it accordingly.
As I wrote on this post (OP: @pazithigallifreya), and it bears repeating: Please don’t feel like you have to literally ask anyone for permission to hold certain opinions. I’m happy to share my ideas, but they are only my ideas. I’m a random stranger on the internet! I love my followers, the interactions we’ve had, the messages you’ve sent me publicly and privately over the past few years have kept my blog alive, and I can’t thank you enough for that ❤
But! If I can just paraphrase from that post, Do not give some random stranger on the internet that much power over your mind! Don’t be so afraid of forming your own opinions that you have to ask someone else to give you opinions to hold!
Please do not become part of some random stranger on the internet’s rabble ready to crucify anyone who doesn’t do as they are told!
Hello Anon, I’m sorry that it took me almost a month to answer this. It’s an extremely sensitive topic, as I’m sure you know, and these are very loaded questions. I took time to reach out to my trusted advisers, talked to them for hours, and considered their responses very carefully.
I’m very sorry to hear that you are a survivor of this kind of trauma in real life. The fact that you are still able to love the Vampire Chronicles despite the fact that they contain parts that are difficult for you to handle means that there must be something good in them for you, and I hope you don’t lose your love for them. Could you come back and tell me some of the things/characters you love about them? Or how you first got into them? I love those kinds of stories!
This has become a very long post, much to my chagrin. I wish that I could simply agree with you and move on, but I can’t do that. The issues you bring up are very nuanced to the point that a blog post on tumblr can’t truly cover it all, but I will do my best to keep this blog post concise and to the point. I have also placed the cut only after most of my response as I have been accused of hiding things under cuts on past controversial topics, so it’s all out, clogging your dash. Sorry.
Before we go any further: My stance on dark fiction (in this case, incest/pedophilia) is that I do not endorse or condone it in REAL LIFE. Period.
TL;DR: No, I don’t think the VC tv series will “dive too much into the incestuous/pedophilic undertones that the books had at times.” Standards & Practices won’t allow it. I’m going to use the term “dark fiction” because I don’t necessarily agree with you that every instance of fictional adult vampires feeding on fictional children is definitely a very erotic experience for the vampire, and therefore carrying incestuous/pedophilic undertones, but it is definitely harm against fictional minors. Harm against minors and incestuous/pedophilic undertones all fall under dark fiction, however.
I’m not asking you to like dark fiction, Anon. There is some that I can’t stomach, either. I’m not saying people who like dark fiction are in any way superior to those who don’t. I’m advocating that some of us do want some dark fiction, and that consuming/creating dark fiction is not necessarily endorsement, whether you are a best-selling author, a fanfic writer, a filmmaker, a fanartist, a popular metal musician, or a cosplayer, or a consumer of the media made by any of these.
(1) The Rices have said that they will try to adapt the books as close to canon-compliance as possible. Whether that means including incestuous/pedophilic undertones and/or harm against fictional minors, the show will very likely have to follow it’s network’s Standards & Practices Dept.:
In the United States, Standards and Practices (also referred to as Broadcast Standards and Practices) is the name traditionally given to the department at a television network which is responsible for the moral, ethical, and legal implications of the program that network airs.[Wiki]
Further:
…the essential responsibilities of the editors [are]… assuring that the programming is acceptable to the bulk of the mass audience. This involves serving as guardians of taste with respect to language, sexual and other materials inappropriate for children,… [More about S&P from the Museum of Broadcast Communications.]
^These are the people who are paid to point out when dark fiction has crossed the line, and together with the showrunners, they decide whether something in a given episode should be revised or must be “taken out completely,” (which is censorship, defined as “the suppression or prohibition of any parts of books, films, news, etc. that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security.”).
When we talk about censorship, the easy way to deal with dark fiction would be to just “take it out completely.” After all, why do we even need dark fiction? Not everyone wants it. Hannibal is a good example of why those of us who are fascinated by psychology want dark fiction. I foundthis great essay by Warren Ellis. Here’s a quote from it:
“… Fiction is how we both study and de-fang our monsters. To lock violent fiction away, or to close our eyes to it, is to give our monsters and our fears undeserved power and richer hunting grounds.”
“Fiction, like any other form of art, is there to consider aspects of the real world in the ways that simple objective views can’t — from the inside. We cannot Other characters when we are seeing the world from the inside of their skulls. This is the great success of Thomas Harris’s Hannibal Lecter, both in print and as so richly embodied by Mads Mikkelsen in the Hannibal television series:For every three scary, strange things we discover about him, there is one thing that we can relate to. The Other is revealed as a damaged or alienated human, and we learn something about the roots of violence and the traps of horror.”
(2) For movie!IWTV, I don’t know what the writing or editing process was like, but I would assume that there was a S&P Dept. of some kind (or at least similar considerations were taken into account) because there ARE instances of the vampires feeding on children that were changed from how they were presented in the book!!, there’s a few examples that come to mind, and in each instance, and I think it was revised to make it less incestuous/pedophilic. I have examples under the cut so you can avoid them if you need to.
(3) One example of the filmmakers choosing to remove something (almost) entirely from canon: Armand being a teenager around 15 or 16 years old in canon, and he was aged up to the very not-teenage Antonio Banderas, who was 34 yrs old at the time.
^There are still fans today who believe that that change drastically changed the story, and he’s still the butt of jokes about it. Personally, I would say that this change did not drastically change much in IWTV. I don’t think he was described as being that young in book!IWTV, and I don’t think his appearing to be a teenager would have, for example, had enormous impact on Louis’s feelings towards him at that time; that he felt like Armand could be the teacher/mentor Lestat couldn’t be. That’s just my unpopular opinion on that. I have more thoughts on
So yes, I think if some things like that were taken out completely that were not absolutely necessary to their given place in canon, not much would drastically change, but talk to anyone who really dislikes/disliked Antonio!Armand, and you’ll probably get a very different answer.
SO… where does that leave us?
(4) In Fiction, we can explore these things from a place of safety, we can always close the book, or change the channel, or walk out of a movie theatre, as Oprah did during a screening of movie!IWTV in 1994 (my highlights added):
^She walked out because of the gore, which is understandable, there’s alot of blood. That, and the “force of darkness,” which isn’t all that specific. When Tom says, “The movie is not for everyone,” it’s not to say that anyone is lesser for not being able to handle it. I think he was intrigued by the darker aspects, and I think it might be the first truly antagonist/villain role he had taken up until that point. He wanted to explore that.
I don’t believe in just cutting out all the dark fiction, each instance should be considered and handled with nuance. Revision is one option, and total removal might be the better choice in some instances.
I think that’s part of what made movie!IWTV so successful, the enormous amount of care and sensitive handling of dark and light fiction, what they chose to keep, remove, and alter.
(5) The other thing you asked was “Why do you think Anne Rice would go [that] route in particular?”
The question has been raised, many times, whether Anne Rice is, and has been, writing (essentially) propaganda for her own view regarding sexuality, especially as it applies to minors in sexual situations/relationships with adults. Whether Anne Rice endorses sex between minors and adults, it seems pretty clear that she does, as this has been an element of her writing in other series, as well. To my knowledge, she has committed no crimes against minors in real life, and therefore I do not hold her as a criminal of thoughtcrimes. That is definitely an unpopular opinion to other fans, and again, it is why I will not engage in an ultimately fruitless discussion about a crazy lady who writes the books she wants to read. Thoughtcrime is not crime.
Since you asked, I’ll answer why I think AR would pursue that line of thought, under the cut, in case it is upsetting.
I hope that answered your questions in the limited space of a blog post, Anon, and I hope you weren’t offended at any of my response, I tried to be as careful as possible and share my thoughts as respectfully as possible. If any harm was caused, it was not intentional on my part.
Hit the jump for things I said I’d put under a cut.
(2) Instances of the vampires feeding on children that were changed from how they were presented in the book!!:
Louis feeding on Denis (Armand’s mortal “pet”) under the Theatre. In the novel, Louis feels the boy getting a hard-on against his leg. In the movie, their only point of contact is the part of the boy’s hand Louis is biting. Seems to have taken some of the sexuality out of it, and I don’t think it drastically changed that moment.
Movie!Denis himself seemed to be a “peace pipe,” with all those other bites on his hand, and Louis has to feed on him in view of the theatre vampires, making it more about Louis’ discomfort about being watched while feeding which we know from canon he really does not like DUE TO THE INTIMACY of the experience. This, however, is not really clarified in the movie, and it seemed to me to be more about a trust exercise, that he was given this little sip and had to trust that they had not poisoned the blood he was taking. This change worked for me, because the fear of being poisoned was very real in light of how Claudia had poisoned Lestat so easily.
Claudia feeds on Denis in the book, I think she’s even curled up in bed with him. She doesn’t feed on him at all in the movie. I don’t think it drastically changed that moment.
When Lestat turns Claudia in the book, he has Louis drain Claudia a second time, implying that it’s to actually finish her off. This doesn’t happen in the movie, and I was kind of grateful, because it’s more upsetting in the book, when Lestat tears her away from Louis and starts turning her without any discussion about it with Louis first. I’d say that this was a change for the better.
When Claudia offers those boys as a peace offering to Lestat, in the book, he has his hands all in one of their shirts, and as the poison takes effect, his arms are tangled around the dead boy’s body, it’s kind of scarier, this dead body clinging to him and binding him. I would say that this worked for me either way. It’s already a tense and scary moment.
…
(5) “Why do you think Anne Rice would go [that] route in particular?”
From what I understand, she was interested in sex before she was the age of consent, and was frustrated that she was being prevented from pursuing sexual relationships. When she writes these scenes involving underage characters, I think she’s placing herself in the role of the minor, and in some cases, trying to empower that minor with some amount of agency (Amadeo axing Marius’ door down in TVA), but it’s up to each individual reader to interpret the story for themselves and decide for themselves whether that minor was capable of any agency at all or was under duress, or whatever else they might headcanon about that relationship.
Again, I do not think she has committed any actual crimes. Thoughtcrimes are not crimes.
My painting is not violent, it’s life that is violent. Even within the most beautiful landscape, in the trees, under the leaves, the insects are eating each other; violence is a part of life. We are born with a scream; we come into life with a scream and maybe love is a mosquito net between the fear of living and the fear of death.
(I don’t know if this is a legit quote, but it’s worth posting one of his most famous paintings with it, Figure with Meat., under a cut. Warning: graphic depiction of animal carcasses and the person depicted in the work is also deeply unsettling.)
According to Mary Louise Schumacher of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel,
“Bacon appropriated the famous portrait [Velázquez’s portrait of Pope Innocent X], with its subject, enthroned and draped in satins and lace, his stare stern and full of authority. In Bacon’s version, animal carcasses hang at the pope’s back, creating a raw and disturbing Crucifixion-like composition. The pope’s hands, elegant and poised in Velázquez’s version, are rough hewn and gripping the church’s seat of authority in apparent terror. His mouth is held in a scream and black striations drip down from the pope’s nose to his neck. It’s as if Bacon picked up a wide house painting brush and brutishly dragged it over the face. The fresh meat recalls the lavish arrangements of fruits, meats and confections in 17th-century vanitas paintings, which usually carried subtle moralizing messages about the impermanence of life and the spiritual dangers of sensual pleasures. Sometimes, the food itself showed signs of being overripe or spoiled, to make the point. Bacon weds the imagery of salvation, worldly decadence, power and carnal sensuality, and he contrasts those things with his own far more palpable and existential view of damnation”.[2]
The jealous cruelty of this anon aside… there’s such a weird expectation that artists need to be creating some kind of socially-valuable “art” at all times… or that what’s created needs to be for the consumption of others. Artists are allowed to make things for their own pleasure, things that are meaningless to anyone other than themselves, things that are practice, things that are ugly.
Happiness is valuable. It’s like, y’know, how much time do people “waste” making themselves happy? Why is it better to spend your free time watching football or playing video games or reading articles on Reddit? Why is it that as soon as you’re making something, the thing itself needs to be valuable, rather than the joy of making it?
Fanworks are valuable too, particularly for women. They’re empowering to create because you are usually taking male-created, male-marketed media and recreating for female consumption. It’s validating to consume because it gives women a place to enjoy media spaces. Its also a way to network and form communities in empty places. It’s not “wasteful” to spend time on fanworks for this reason as well.
Ugh. I wonder if guys drawing Black Widow getting nailed by aliens get these sorts of “what are you doing with your life”/“why are wasting your talent” messages. Prolly not, because this sort of hyperbolic go-kill-yourself missive is pretty much tailored to female recipients.
This is important. When I dabbled in art classes in college I had one teacher who was deadest that all our projects had to have a ‘meaning’ and be ‘socially relevant’. If you were me, and just wanted to make a faerie house full of miniature food because that sounded like a fun way to fulfill her architecture assignment, this teacher would berate you. She spent a lot of time calling me unoriginal and uncreative. She made me cry in front of the class after a particularly nasty insult suggesting what I wanted to make was meaningless drivel and that she ‘expected better of me’.
It feels shameful to admit now, but I seriously considered leaving the art field all together because of this teachers insistence that the things I enjoyed, and enjoyed making, weren’t worthwhile. And looking back now, I think that teacher did a real disservice to countless young artists. Creation itself is valuable. Every act of creation has social significance and is a product of its time. You don’t have to be political for your art to matter. You just have to love making what you make. That’s it. That what makes it art, that’s what gives it value. Anyone who tells you otherwise has bought into the bizarre status-based BS I see sometimes in the fine art world.
And if my old professor from community college happens to see this: making life-size animal sculptures out of recycled plastic in order to send a message about the environment isn’t any more unique than the faeries I wanted to make in your class. I’m glad it makes you happy, I’m glad that message resonates with you and your collectors. But try to look outside yourself and recognize putting others down when you can tell they are passionate about creating is not the right way to teach. Ever. Encourage and nurture more young artists in the world. This isn’t a race to find out who can ‘make it’ by putting people through tests. There is enough room for all of us to shine.
I-want-my-IWTV 