[This is not a political post. Let me get that out of the way right now.]
The last two weeks have been a bit harrowing for the people of the US. We’re on unstable ground morally, ethically, and politically. Tensions are high, opinions are loud, and there isn’t a whole lot of room for rational conversation these days. To be perfectly honest, it’s terrifying.
That’s why I wanted to talk about the nature of art and the inherently political nature of creating. There has been a lot of discourse on social media over the last week about how politics has no place in art and authors/artists/musicians should just “stick to what they know” instead of making bold statements. The problem with that statement is that we, as creators, are influenced by EVERYTHING around us. It’s in our nature to take the things we see and mold them into what we want to see. To comment on our surroundings. To offer opinions and suggestions on how to make things better. At least, what we consider to be “better.”
Whatever your leaning, it’s going to appear in the things you make.
Look at Rage Against the Machine — a band whose music is exceedingly subversive. It’s loud, angry, and powerful. In many cases, it’s overtly political, making big, bold, and possibly dangerous statements against injustice. Over the last few months, I’ve seen a couple of different conversations recently where people suddenly realized that the music they’d been rocking out to for decades didn’t really fit into their worldview, which has left them confused and angry. That has had me thinking about this for way longer than I care to admit.
Then you have movies like The Purge — which speaks to a primal part of the human psyche and the idea that if the government allows those urges to be fed, it’s safer for everyone in the long run. It doesn’t seem political, but the idea of “necessary sacrifice” is something every leader will eventually have to face. If you look at it from the point of view of the populace, it does make a strong statement about societal structure and the roles that classism and capitalism play in personal safety. If you pull all the way back and look at it just as a story, you’re still faced with a moral dilemma: Is sacrificing the lower classes for the sake of the majority the right choice? How is it considered “fair” if you have to be wealthy to be protected? And when employing the “eat the rich” mentality where the lower classes still find a way in (we’re nothing if not resourceful), is it morally acceptable to punish the wealthy?
Personally, I can’t say what’s right about any of it. But I also don’t believe that the basis for the story is an acceptable method of population control or crime reduction.
As for visual art, my mind immediately turns to Banksy and the startlingly blunt way social issues are laid bare for all to see and understand. It’s a statement, for sure. And the fact that Banksy is still an anonymous artist speaks to the danger of powerful speech. How many government officials would love to silence that form of protest?
As authors, we have the unique ability to combine the various parts of political, moral, and ethical statements into a living vision. You have satirists like Voltaire who openly and shamelessly criticized the society of his day. Sometimes you have nonfiction pieces like Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, which showed the world just how horrible it was living through the atrocities of history. Then you have authors like Orwell and Vonnegut, who challenged the shifting tides of politics through fiction, but ultimately offered warnings about what sort of future we could expect to see if we continued down those dangerous paths.
HOWEVER… not all of us are interested in writing overtly political thinkpieces. Some of us want escapism in our fiction. But in creating that escape, we’re allowing our opinions and biases to flavor our writing. We create the worlds we want to see. Personally, I like big worlds full of diversity and differing thoughts and feelings. I want my characters to represent the society I long for — one of love and acceptance, where people are free to be who they are without shame. Does that make me political? As much as I don’t want to, yes it does. I’m offering my vision for a better world through the stories I tell.
Does that make someone whose writing reflects a less diverse reality somehow wrong? Not necessarily. It could be an indicator of bigotry, yes, but it could also mean that the author in question doesn’t have the same experience with people who are different from themselves. It’s a multifaceted conversation, and one that can’t necessarily be solved in a few hundred words on the internet.
Anyway… I say all of that to say this: as creators who are putting our work into the world, we all carry some level of politics in our writing. Whether we mean to do it or not, it still exists.
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What I’m Writing: “Diamonds & Rust” — Wonderland Wars #2
What I’m Reading: “Wolf Gone Wild” by Juliette Cross
Where to Find Me: Linktree