The Guilty Pleasure of Lowbrow Art

People often like to differentiate between highbrow art and lowbrow art and look down on the latter. But is it really that low? Doesn't it have an important function in our lives? Do we really have to feel ashamed for enjoying it?

Many highbrow individuals enjoy lowbrow art as some kind of "guilty pleasure".

Having a master's degree in literature, I often feel obliged to adore highbrow art. Which I often do. Yet what I sometimes also adore is lowbrow art, even though I agree with all those critics saying it's garbage.

And I know I'm not alone. There are many fans of Fifty Shades of Grey who are intelligent, highly educated people, perfectly aware of all its flaws. But they enjoy the series nonetheless. As some kind of guilty pleasure.

So if lowbrow art does find fans among people who typically aren't supposed to like it - Is it still lowbrow art?

What Is the Purpose of Art?

There are many people out there who believe art to be useless. And, on the surface, it is. However, in truth, it is one of the most important forces driving individuals and whole societies to become better versions of themselves ...

Art may not save lives in a biological sense, but it does save souls.

There are professions people respect more than others. There are people who save human lives, and there are people who just shove piles of paper across their desks. There are people who help other people to live a happy life, and there are people who work solely for the goal of making money.

And there also are artists. What do they do?

Blackwashing Is Racist Too

Whitewashing is just simply weird, ridiculous, racist and unnecessary. So … let's turn the tables and make justice by "blackwashing"? Well, I'm afraid that it's a horrible and extremely racist idea: Because blackwashing means denying racism.

Who else wants to see big-budget movies and TV shows about exciting events like the Haitian Revolution?

Racism is a horrible thing. I believe this is something we can all agree on. Yet racism is also part of our history. And part of the history of art as well. One might think that in 2018 it should be in the past. Yet, apparently, it isn't.

The Ridiculousness of Whitewashing

Sadly, such things as "whitewashing" still exist. This term is used in various contexts, but in general it means: replacing coloured people with white people. When a white person is cast for the role of a coloured person in a movie it's whitewashing. When a character's race is changed from coloured to white it's whitewashing. When the creators don't seem to have the guts to make a character fully coloured and give him or her one white parent (so that the character is not too coloured) it's whitewashing as well.

What Is Artistic Success?

There isn't only one way to be successful as an artist. Even though making a living through one's art and getting praise seems like a universal ideal, it is not. So what is your definition of artistic success? Here are some thoughts ...

Chaliapin was an extremely successful opera singer. And for a reason!
He indeed was very talented and had a beautiful voice.

There are artists and artists. Some are considered successful, but in reality are unhappy. Some are unknown, but happy. Some can pay their bills from what they earn. Some don't earn anything. Some dream of worldwide fame, but never get it. Some don't even think about getting famous, but they get "discovered". Some have talent, others not really. Some love their art, others think it's never good enough.

Clichés and Stereotypes in Art

Usually clichés and stereotypes are considered bad. They can even deprive an artwork of its artistic value. But what are they actually and are they really as bad as many people think?

Both clichés and stereotypes put our world in order, categorizing everything and everyone.

When I first started writing I unknowingly used many clichés and stereotypes. That's actually part of what defines a beginner: Someone who is yet inexperienced doesn't know what has already been there and may fall for some false beliefs.

The next stage of my development was avoiding clichés and stereotype at all cost and praising works by others that did it as well, regardless of their actual artistic value.

Now I believe that clichés and stereotypes are neither good nor bad. They're merely tools and it's up to the artist to decide how to use them (no matter if it's about writing, painting, music or even game design).

So ... What are they and how to use them? Here are my two cents on the topic.

The Portrayal of Men in Media

What our culture defines as masculine hurts: If a man fails at being that perfect, invincible hero, he's a loser. Shouldn't we creative people help finding new heroes and role models?

A "real" man is the shining hero, the dragon slayer who never wavers,
always able to overcome even the hardest difficulties. This needs to change.

It is very common nowadays to see women as the misrepresented gender. And I can't argue with that. Being a woman myself, I do perceive issues with the portrayal of women in media.

However, having an egalitarian mindset, I can't look past the simple fact that patriarchy suppresses both genders. In different ways, yes, but both genders suffer. And while much has changed for women in the past decades little was done for men.

No, Men Do Not Have the Same Rights

Sure, the portrayal of women in media is still far from ideal. But we do talk about the issue. Much. We have a discussion. And sometimes we even have shitstorms.

But as for men ... With the old ideals being questioned nobody seems to even know what it means to be a man anymore. As a woman, you can choose how to live your life when it comes to career and family. On paper, men can choose, too. While in truth ...

Good and Evil in Stories

Interesting, complex characters aren't "grey", since grey is still only a mixture of black and white. Good characters have colour. And for that storytellers need to shift more towards an alternative worldview ...

The very idea that there is only one true god expresses that
there is only one right way to think and to live and everything else is bad and linked to evil forces.

One advice storytellers often hear is not to make their characters black or white but grey. Everybody seems to be fed up with shiny, good, pretty heroes fighting evil queens, overlords and their ugly henchmen. So the advice is to put both good and evil into one's own characters, to blend black and white into various shades of grey. This, people say, turns two-dimensional characters into complex three-dimensional characters.

However, what people often forget is that grey is, still, a mixture of black and white. It technically isn't even a colour. "Grey" is still a symptom of a two-dimensional, even deeply religious worldview.

Good, Evil and Religion

I'm not quite sure when this binary perception of the world first was created, but there's no denying that monotheistic religions eagerly make use of it. The very idea that there is only one true god expresses that there is only one right way to think and to live and everything else is bad and linked to evil forces.

Should Artists Create for Financial Success?

Modern technology makes it possible to calculate what you have to do if you want to be financially successful as an artist. But wouldn't following those calculations kill art and turn it into faceless, commercial crap?

Selling well and quality aren't opposites, but it's good that not every artwork is a bestseller.

A book doesn't become a bestseller by coincidence. This is result of Jodie Archer and Matthew L. Jockers' research, summarized in their book The Bestseller Code: Anatomy of the Blockbuster Novel. The software they developed for analyzing novels has read about 5000 books, both bestsellers as well as non-bestsellers. It took a closer look at things like topic, sentiment, writing style, characters and so on and noticed some specific patterns that are found in bestsellers.

Are Artists an Intellectual and Moral Authority?

Famous artists are often treated like some kind of superhumans with an accordingly superhuman authority, even on subjects they have nothing to do with. What are the consequences?

We can't trust anyone expressing his or her opinion publicly.
And how can we consider someone so untrustworthy an intellectual and moral authority?

You see this quote often. Artists, let's say the actors Ex and Why, say that Donald Trump is bad, that everyone should work together to fight world hunger, cancer and dictatorships, that misogyny is horrible and so on. And for some reason the more widely known Ex and Why are, the more weight their words get. As if famous artists weren't just normal humans like you and me.

Getting famous people to support one's cause is an old, widely known and widely used marketing strategy that benefits both sides: People, organizations and everyone whose agenda Ex and Why support get more attention and more money (if they collect donations). And since artists usually support causes that are considered good by most people, they get more positive attention by the media, more popularity and eventually more money.

Famous artists are people looked up to. Their opinion matters. Even if it is wrong, opportunistic or just a marketing strategy. Isn't it questionable?

Why Is Art Lying?

When we were little artworks taught us lessons about the world that turned out to be lies as we grew older. Every one of us has faced such disappointments in life. Every one of us knows how they hurt. So why do we keep passing these lies on to younger generations?

We keep passing on stories about great heroes from generation to generation. - Why?

Last week I had a discussion with a colleague who said she was disappointed in men. She is not the first woman I heard saying this. And definitely not the last. Moreover, I was disappointed in men too, and I've come across quite a few men who said they were disappointed in women. It seems that from a certain age on most of us are disappointed, be it in love or another area of life.

The culprit here is not other people or this oh-so-cruel world but rather our own expectations. Expectations shaped by the first years of our life. Expectations to some extent shaped by the stories, myths and motifs we were exposed to as children.

Sooner or later, however, we get a taste of the real world. We learn that all those stories about great heroes slaying dragons, true love and the good always defeating evil are lies. This realization is often traumatizing. So why do we keep telling those lies from generation to generation?

Am I a Racist Writer?

There are many groups underrepresented in today's culture. As a woman, I often feel underrepresented. As a straight white person I'm objectively overrepresented. And I do underrepresent people of colour and the LGBT community in my own writing. So am I a bad person?

If you look closely and try to understand why underrepresentation happens you sooner or later
realize that you underrepresent other people as well ...

When I was seven or eight years old I made a curious observation: Almost all heroes of the stories I liked were male. Women and girls were usually nothing more than side-characters, prizes to be won or even some weird kind of background decoration. Needless to say, I rarely could identify with them. This may be one of the reasons why I have issues fully identifying with my gender: What I was told being female means never really matched what I wanted to be like. Fairytales, books, movies ... All those stories taught me to identify with men.

Art Is Immortality - Why Artists Never Die

It's fascinating how the words "art" and "immortality" often stand close to each other. We speak of art that is immortal and the immortal fame of artists. And though this may sound like mere rhetoric, art and immortality actually are linked very closely. Because, in a way, art is suited for communication with people long dead.

The most realistic way to become immortal is to create art.

There are true words of wisdom said by the therapist, psychologist, communications theorist and philosopher Paul Watzlawick:

"One cannot not communicate."

Communication is behaviour, and behaviour doesn't have an opposite. What doesn't have an opposite doesn't have gradations. One can't say a person is more or less communicative than another, because even if a person hides from the rest of the world and never says a word, this person still permanently communicates that they don't want to interact with anybody.

Perceiving Art in Circles - An Autobiography of Being a Fan

Sometimes we love an artwork so much that it impacts our whole life. I'm a passionate fan of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and the person I am now is the result of re-reading the books and re-watching the movies over and over for about 20 years ...

Some artworks give us guidance throughout our whole life.

Some artworks stick with us throughout our whole life. We keep re-reading, re-watching and re-playing them over and over again while our friends and family just roll their eyes and wonder when we'll finally be fed up with them. But, sadly for these people, this never happens.

For me, The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien is this kind of artwork. After my parents introduced me to its prequel The Hobbit at the age of five and I forced them to read it to me over and over again they decided it was time for the great trilogy. I was only seven years old back then. And little did I know that this novel would be one of the greatest influences in my life.

Childish Fascination

My first experience with LotR was an adventure. I completely immersed myself in the world of Middle-earth, I was really scared when the Hobbits were buried alive in the Barrow-Downs, I participated in their every step, and I developed a childish crush on Merry.

Is Performing an Art Form?

Are actors, singers and musicians performing other people's creations actually artists? What do they create? This week I dive into the specifics of performing arts.

When performers enjoy themselves they pass this joy on to the audience.

Nowadays we have quite a culture of idolizing actors, musicians and singers. But being a writer, I kept wondering:

Art is about creating. Writers create stories. Composers create music. Artists create drawings and paintings. Architects create buildings. Sculptors create sculptures. Game developers create games. But what do actors, musicians and singers do other than perform what other people have created?

Art Is Propaganda - Part II: Art and Democracy

Art has always been a tool for influencing people's thinking. What does such propaganda look like? Is it really bad? And can there even be art without propaganda? In Part II we discuss propaganda in democratic systems.

Every nation is built on propaganda.

Two weeks ago we discussed Soviet propaganda. The examples mentioned in that article contradict the famous ideal that art should be "free". And this is when I have to ask: What means "free"? As already mentioned, there's always an ideological context.

Growing up in Germany, I did believe that in a "free" country there is also "free" art. When I grew older and more experienced I realized that "free" art is nonexistent. As a multilingual and multicultural person I just kept noticing differences in artworks from different countries and their links to certain ideologies.

Art Is Propaganda - Part I: Art and Soviet Ideology

Art has always been a tool for influencing people's thinking. What does such propaganda look like? Is it really bad? And can there even be art without propaganda? In Part I we take a look at some examples from the Soviet Union.

Propaganda? - Definitely! But also a piece of art.

No matter what your opinion is - as soon as you express it there will always be someone saying you've been brainwashed by somebody's propaganda. This is just how the mind of a modern homo sapiens works:

"I have a very good reason to believe what I believe, so everyone who believes something else is wrong."

We all consider ourselves intelligent and sincerely believe that our own opinion is based on facts. The funny thing is, however, that a truly intelligent and critically thinking person would rather say:

"I know that I know nothing."

Let's be honest: Throughout all of human history people tried to influence each other and developed some well-functioning techniques. And since people tend to believe their personal experience and emotions most this is where the most skilled influencers strike.

Can Art Unite the World? - Creating and Perceiving Art from Different Perspectives

Our world is home to a sheer endless number of different cultures with
a vastly different understanding of moral values and aesthetics.

I often come across cliché phrases like: "That event united people from all over the world by their love for music/books/whatever." This is a nice image. The world united by art. But is it really possible?

Let's remember that we are all limited in our perception which is shaped by our surroundings. These surroundings also determine how we react to different pieces of art and they influence our own artworks. Let's ponder on this.

Relevance of Background

Art is often used for political statements. And just as often it merely reflects what people think. A few years ago I've read a novel about the everyday life of German teenagers in the 90's. It was an interesting read for the sake of studying German culture and I got an idea of what teenage life was like back then (very pampered and silly compared to that of Russian teens of that time), but there was one particular line that struck me: There was a moment in an inner monologue when the protagonist mentioned something like even Russians having Bubble Gum and Coca Cola nowadays. I was well aware that it was only natural for a West German teenager to believe that, but having experienced part of Russia's 90's myself, I actually felt like strangulating someone. Because no, back then we did not have Bubble Gum and Coca Cola, all we had was spaghetti and vegetables from my grandparents' garden, sometimes we even had nothing to eat but potatoes every day, and the ones who did have Bubble Gum and Coca Cola (or rather: people who could afford wasting their money on them) were the nouveau riche ******** who stopped at nothing for the sake of making money. (Even the Italian mafia was shocked about the unscrupulousness of their Russian "colleagues" who had taken over once the Soviet Union went down like the Titanic with 293,047,571 people on board drowning in despair.)

Art and Academic Education - Why Artists Should Study

Education is one of the best sources for inspiration and innovation.

Last week I've published a video explaining the Typological Model of Narrative Situations by Franz Karl Stanzel, one of the most important theories in narratology and part of the basics in literary studies. At least, this is the case for Germany.

Well, in that video I mentioned something my senseis at university would have hated me for: I said that knowing this model is important for both readers and authors, since it helps us to understand literature better as well as to write our own prose. The "problem" with this statement is that literary studies are about analyzing texts and not about giving guidance how to write them. And yet ... One of the reasons why I've studied literature is that I wanted to learn the depths of this art genre in order to improve my own writing.

As far as I'm concerned, in the US you can actually study creative writing. In Germany you can't. Over here you can "only" become a highly educated scholar who has spent years researching great masterpieces of literature and their historical and cultural contexts. Yet I don't believe I've missed anything. In fact, I believe that studying literature helped me more that studying creative writing would have.

Learning by Analyzing

When learning any art the best thing you can possibly do is to learn from the masters. And the best way to learn from the masters is to analyze their artworks: How did they achieve a certain effect? What do they do to convey emotions? How do they structure their artworks? And so on ...

Art vs. Real Life - How Does Art Benefit Us?

Creating art is a very emotional process which may be the main reason why it's often described as "to express oneself".

Last week Naïve Gnostic commented on many of my blog posts via Google+ and we had several interesting discussions. Some of them were about the educational function of art, catharsis and that art sometimes feels like psychotherapy. Since I planned a post covering all these aspects anyway, I took it as a sign it's about time to finally write it.

By now I've written down quite a few thoughts on the relationship between art and artist on this blog. Trying to sum up my general experience, I'd say that creating art is a very emotional process which may be the main reason why it's often described as "to express oneself". For some creating art is a way of escapism, fleeing into their own fantasy world. For others art is a way to cope with their experiences and emotions, even traumata. There are even people who use art for some kind of academic exploration, speculation or even presentation of one's research findings. And there are also people for whom art is all this at once.

Art and Psychology

It always has a reason why an artist creates a certain type of work or why an art lover appreciates certain genres. There's also the fact that art can be used as therapy. This summer I've helped filming a documentary about psychological painting. In one of the interviews it was mentioned that adult non-artists who come to a seminar and paint for the first time often struggle with using colours - an issue that can be fixed if they paint only with black for a while. This says much about the world we live in, I guess.

Violence in Games and Other Media: Artistic Irresponsibility and the Forbidden Fruit Effect

People tend to show interest in things that are considered "bad".

Do violent games and TV shows spoil our youth? Every time this question pops up it triggers heated discussions. So it was only a matter of time until I felt I had to say something on this topic as well. And so ... Here are my two cents:

I'd like to start the discussion with a few things I believe we all can agree on:

· There are many people regularly enjoying violent media, but only a small percentage among them shows violent behaviour. 

· Countless studies prove that there actually is a link between media violence and violence in society. Whether gamers and fans of other violent media like it or not. However, it can't be said for sure whether violent media causes violence or whether it merely affects a pre-existing potential for violence. 

· Apart from violent media there are countless other factors that can lead to violent behaviour, such as domestic violence or child neglect, poverty, violent neighbourhood and so on. People can be taught to be aggressive and to accept such behaviour as normal. 

· There are people who are more aggressive and people who are more pacifistic just by nature. 

· Researching the effects of media violence is a difficult task, because these effects can't be seen immediately.