Art Isn't Reality

Gracie says, "Once upon a time, we had the ability to interact with art as sane people," but she now thinks we've lost that ability as we whine and complain about the unfair & unhealthy messages 'the media' sends to women:

In the graceful 'perfected' forms we did not see condemnation of our own imperfect forms. We did not see beauty, walk away with the message that we must change ourselves to reflect art, and then complain that we were being brainwashed into doing so.

Was it fair to either men or women to be compared to the classic statues of ancient Greece? Those bodies sculpted of marble in the Archaic & Classical periods were glorified ideals. Not just body-beautiful in terms of proportion & fitness, but forever young as even the elderly were depicted in their physical prime. Such physical perfection was the definition not only of 'beauty' but of 'piety', 'honor' and other values. Where were the complaints that men and women alike were harming themselves trying to obtain the impossible? Where were the complaints of a youth-obsessed culture? Why haven't I read about spouses who, having kicked one another out of bed for eating crackers while not looking like Greek Gods, no longer fornicated?

Did anyone think to scream bloody murder at Leonardo Da Vinci for the Mona Lisa? Yet who among us could copy that enigmatic smile? None. However I've not heard of any suicides, facial mutilations, or deep depressions from the female population of the 16th century. Nor have I heard that the population dipped because men, dissatisfied with the smiles of real women, refused to get laid.

Was it fair to women for Peter Paul Rubens to portray the ideal woman as full-figured & voluptuous (his now famously "Rubenesque" women), when the masses, the majority of the population in the 17th century, were thin? They were thin from hard work, poor sanitation, and other issues of health & economy, and the full-figured standard of beauty was again based on rarity, and indeed unfair. Did they bitch & moan of the unfair standard of beauty, link it to health problems of excess, and demand their government impose artistic standards? Model standards? Did men suffer great unhappiness because they would never be satisfied with the more common thin bodies of real women?

She wonders if it's film or something else which has us confused:

Somehow we as a culture have forgotten that the photo, the TV show, the film, the talking heads and swaying hips selling us stuff, are each artful creations of their own. Skillfully created to move us to consume and screw more often than to motivate us towards 'beauty', 'piety' and 'honor', yes. But skillfully created nontheless. It's art.

And perhaps that's the real distinction on this continuum of art... It's not the skill required but the value it seeks to emulate, emote or force us to emit. It's in this territory that the 'art vs. porn' debate has long fought, that blurred line between 'beauty' and 'arousal'. Beauty is a virtue; arousal is a verb. But they meet in there... somewhere.

We'd like to make the distinction between art and artifice, the differences being critical to our acceptance of its value, yet we won't take responsibility for what those distinctions mean or how we choose to act upon them.

Is the camera to blame? Does the camera add envy along with those 10 pounds? Are we no more savvy than the Aborigine who fears that magic box will steal his soul? Why don't we see the distinction between representation & repression, between objectification in art and the self-imposed objectification we choose, rendering us victim to some to oppression we are only too willing to act upon ~ like a recipe. We see a pretty picture and we don't just imagine wanting it or being it, we must be it.

But is it really film which confuses us? Or is it that we no longer intend ~ even pretend ~ that we're responsible for our own actions?

...We don't need more legislation to protect us from ourselves; we just need to start taking responsibility for ourselves.