Okay, that may be the wrong causal flow. It might be more accurate to say:
Greed exploits censorship.
But either way, I do think there exists a dangerous correlation that has yet to be looked at –- and taken -- seriously. We live in a time when we are increasingly allowing non-creators to corrupt art for their own ends; and we do so with such little protest it boggles my mind.
I’m not talking slippery slope here, but more like a cliff drop.
The drop starts out with the theoretically good intentions of self-proclaimed “moral” people saying they are just trying to protect children or some other disingenuous holier-than-thou claim. They bleep over a “Fuck” or fuzz out a nipple. They cut away from a knife going into flesh. And Heaven forbid a penis, soft or erect, ever is viewed.
We wouldn’t want Americans to think people were born without clothes or that all that begetting in the bible has anything to do with sexual organs. Protecting the innocence of ignorance is evidently worth the cost of such defamation and goes largely unchallenged.
But cutting is an addiction. Soon whole scenes are deleted, or CGI altered to meet a current and ephemeral social inclination. Soon, great swaths of film are butchered; not just for ostensibly “moral” reasons, but rather for the avarice of subverted capitalism.
Have a ninety-minute movie with a two hour slot, but want forty-five minutes of commercials? No problem; just cut wherever. Who reads credits, anyway? So run them up the half-screen as fast as can be. Have some all-important show announcement to make? Flash it on the screen with some cheery animation. And don’t forget the growing-ever-larger network bug; who cares about what’s going on movie-wise in that bottom right-hand corner, anyway?
I do. That’s who. And I wonder if I am the only one.
I do, because I care deeply about the words I put on the page. I care about the words others put on the page. I care about film and paintings and sculptures. I care about dance and song and poetry. I care about vivid expressions of humanity that are far more priceless than an American Express card.
I care about the creative force of our culture being lost; of it being subjugated by the almighty dollar.
How much of our soul will we allow to be deceptively “edited for content” before we rise up and say, “What the hell do you think you are doing? Keep your filthy, infernal hands off MY art.”
How long before we take back control over our own creations?
Will we ever?
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
On Suicide
I have frequent suicidal thoughts.
I mean where I can vividly picture myself slicing my wrists, hanging from a beam, or jumping in front of a bus. I mean where I look at a knife and think “Hmm... Maybe. Maybe not, but just maybe...” Cutting would probably be the way I would choose to do it...
But anyway, I’m not writing the above for sympathy or sermonizing, but just as a statement. I’m not writing it to discuss technique. It’s just a fact of my life right now that I have periods of extreme bleakness that I deal with in my own way, usually by creating art.
“What stops you?” my therapist asks me.
“The next moment,” I say.
For the next moment is always a new moment, one full of potentiality that would disappear in death. Potential badness, yes, but also potential goodness. Since death stops all potential, all chances to create, why not just hang on one more moment and see what it holds? Why not try to live one more moment before stopping all moments? Why not try to create one more page before calling it quits?
In my novel-in-progress, an uncle is advising his twelve-year-old nephew who has recently come out to him. He wants to be the role model he never had back twenty-three years ago when he was a twelve-year-old self-identified gay boy. His own coming out had some tragic, childhood-scarring consequences. He wants to be the role model he never had while not letting his own fucked-up experience contaminate what should be a normal rite of passage for his nephew; a rite of passage where his nephew should feel a-okay for being born this way.
The uncle doesn’t just want to tell his nephew that it gets better; he wants to make his nephew’s life better. The kind of better that the 1980s didn’t permit.
Jamey Rodemeyer recently called it quits after, ironically, making an “It Gets Better” video; which he probably made for himself as much as for anyone else. I wish I could have replaced Jamey’s present moment with one precious next moment that would have allowed him to hold on, proclaiming: “It IS better!”
“...the journey from Kamakura to Kyoto takes twelve days. If you travel for eleven but stop with only one day remaining, how can you admire the moon over the capital?”
- Nicheren Letter to Niike
I mean where I can vividly picture myself slicing my wrists, hanging from a beam, or jumping in front of a bus. I mean where I look at a knife and think “Hmm... Maybe. Maybe not, but just maybe...” Cutting would probably be the way I would choose to do it...
But anyway, I’m not writing the above for sympathy or sermonizing, but just as a statement. I’m not writing it to discuss technique. It’s just a fact of my life right now that I have periods of extreme bleakness that I deal with in my own way, usually by creating art.
“What stops you?” my therapist asks me.
“The next moment,” I say.
For the next moment is always a new moment, one full of potentiality that would disappear in death. Potential badness, yes, but also potential goodness. Since death stops all potential, all chances to create, why not just hang on one more moment and see what it holds? Why not try to live one more moment before stopping all moments? Why not try to create one more page before calling it quits?
In my novel-in-progress, an uncle is advising his twelve-year-old nephew who has recently come out to him. He wants to be the role model he never had back twenty-three years ago when he was a twelve-year-old self-identified gay boy. His own coming out had some tragic, childhood-scarring consequences. He wants to be the role model he never had while not letting his own fucked-up experience contaminate what should be a normal rite of passage for his nephew; a rite of passage where his nephew should feel a-okay for being born this way.
The uncle doesn’t just want to tell his nephew that it gets better; he wants to make his nephew’s life better. The kind of better that the 1980s didn’t permit.
Jamey Rodemeyer recently called it quits after, ironically, making an “It Gets Better” video; which he probably made for himself as much as for anyone else. I wish I could have replaced Jamey’s present moment with one precious next moment that would have allowed him to hold on, proclaiming: “It IS better!”
“...the journey from Kamakura to Kyoto takes twelve days. If you travel for eleven but stop with only one day remaining, how can you admire the moon over the capital?”
- Nicheren Letter to Niike
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