I
like it when someone doesn't like a movie (a novel, a painting, a poem). I like
it so much more than anyone's bland acceptance, like the word "good,"
when presented with a manmade creation. A friend's passionate aversion to a
work of art conjures my
defense of it. Sometimes it changes my mind. It pushes me beyond sitting silently
with only my unformed experience of the book (the play, the album).
Having a less-than-favorable opinion
about a work of art does not mean you don't respect the artist, or that you
can't recognize effort exerted or talent on evidence. It means that you considered
the work on its own particular terms (i.e., its intentions, time and place) and
you had your own reaction to it. It's a risk to say you didn't like something.
(I
guess a disclaimer is needed here: I'm not referring to personal attacks or opinions
based on ignorance, which are really the worst. I am also not referring to comment
trolls. I compulsively read comments; it's a curse, really, on my internet life.
I have discovered people will have comment wars over anything, including a
recipe for borscht or a YouTube video with instructions for replacing an oven
door. I don't like that. The sort of critique I'm getting at is rarer.)
Needless
to say, a friend, a party-mate, a colleague liking something with zeal is most welcome,
too, but only if the approval is articulated to the same degree as the intense aversion (somehow people find the words more easily
when they dislike). Tell me what was good about it.
Often
people don't like to disagree on a work of art; they will back away from the
conversation, as if disagreeing about a movie were a form of aggression or the
argument were personal. As if aesthetics were on the list of topics to avoid at
social occasions, along with politics, religion and sex: but then, what else is there? Please invite me to a party where the talk is mostly along the lines of politics, religion, sex and aesthetics!
The
saying goes that critics are failed artists. Because they cannot do anything, they
critique others, spewing envy and frustration. I
go back and forth with a friend who thinks that if you're not making something,
you're not entitled to pronounce your own snippy thoughts, because making
something–for example, directing even a crappy Hollywood movie–is hard. You haven't directed a movie, who are you to say it was crappy? To this, I say, Is there no
room for the thinking viewer? We're being asked to give our attention, our time. Are we then supposed to withhold any thoughts it inspires, or offer only the favorable ones?
I do think it's a different story
when the critic represents a greater authority, like the notorious Michiko
Kakutani of the New York Times Book Review. I can understand a novelist objecting to
the fact that the king-maker, the executioner, has never struggled through
writing a book herself…. But official critics shouldn't be rejected wholesale. They
often account for the only culture coverage we get in the mass media, and they
can help bring attention to worthy projects. They can serve the same function
to your own thinking as a friend liking or not liking something. You just have
to feel the courage as a nobody-reader to disagree with all of them, too, if
necessary.
I
don't mean that I would like to see everyone start a blog featuring their Very
Important Opinions about what to read or watch. But wouldn't it be grand if a
forum where people were expressing their thoughts and preferences, say, a
Facebook feed, yielded more strong opinions about movies (books, etc.) and
fewer photos of what is being eaten? I can appreciate a picture of a decadent
meal in the way I can appreciate a funny picture of a cat. But sometimes it
feels like the picture of the food has taken the place that an experience of art used to occupy. It confers the eater with a sense of having accomplished something, said something, of having acquired the creative spark used to create the food.
Except that with the food, unlike a performance, what that person will be doing
with it, basically, is putting it in his face and saying, "Mmmm." …The
question is whether people are afraid to speak strong opinions (fear of fewer
thumbs-up "likes", fear of seeming unlikable), or whether we've lost
the patience to find the language to express the opinion.
Finding
the words gets you on the path to pursuing your own sensibility, to go beyond
passive consumption. That sounds like work, but is actually a thrill. It means
going beyond categorizing books as good or bad, or art as high-brow or low-brow,
or music as hip or lame (because some critic said so); it means being able to
find what nourishes your thinking life, your sense of beauty, your cares, your sensibility
in particular.
If
you happen to make poems, drawings, those sorts of things, a strong reaction to
a work is also a clue to your own aesthetics. You may not like something
because it's the opposite of what you want to be doing with your own work. That is valuable information in a time when there's such a bewildering explosion of varying criteria for
what constitutes art.
***
Thanks
to Best American Poetry Blog folk, Stacey Harwood and David Lehman, for having
me back this week!