Sex, religion, and politics. These are the three things people say you shouldn’t mention when first meeting someone. Have you ever wondered why that is? What can these three things possibly have in common?

Well, each of these is very personal. You can’t just walk up to a person and say ‘hey there buddy, how’s your sex life going?’ You just can’t. That’s really weird. The same thing can go for politics. It is a very personal thing and if you openly criticize politics you may be criticizing a person’s beliefs. Many people even find that an attack on their beliefs is attacks on themselves, and they will not take this so well.

For this reason, the role of an artist as a political voice is a very controversial role. Even though art always reveals the personal view of the artist, some are opposed to having an artist’s political views expressed in their artwork. This is because uninformed people will be easy to influence. When the artist portrays a view the audience dislikes, they will be upset because of the power artwork has. If it is a masterpiece it will be able to convince people to pick up the same view.

Imagine if the greatest masterpiece of all time had the message of “yay communism!!” This would have people rethinking their own political systems and views. Of course, this can go the other way around like with The Jungle by Upton Sinclair. He wrote a book to promote socialism yet people totally ignored the message. For some it is easy to separate the work of art from the artist’s message, and for others it is not. It is these people that make political art controversial.

The role of the artist as a political voice is also controversial because of who sponsors the art. If the government sponsors art then there is a chance that the artist looks towards pleasing his sponsor rather than pleasing the audience or truly expressing himself. In a way this will result in propaganda.

In the excerpt we read from “Theater” Mamet brings up noteworthy points about political art. One specific point I would like to mention is his idea about “meaningless spectacles.” These spectacles are works that arrive at a conclusion without first exploring how to get to that conclusion. Political art that does this will just overtly state that an idea is bad without giving reasons why. This type of political art is ineffective and considered controversial because the way it criticizes another view without stating reasons. It’s like when you are giving criticism on something, if you were to tell someone that the song they worked so hard to compose was just garbage, people would think you are mean and not ask you for criticism anymore. However if you were to explain the reasons why you think something is bad people will be more inclined to listen to your views. As with the artist as a political voice, they cannot simply state something, they must present facts and allow the audience to be the judge. This style is achieved by Michael Moore in Fahrenheit 9/11, and it is brought him great success.

Also in Series 8, Sontag mentions something I found very interesting, that “photographs cannot create a moral position, but they can reinforce one—and can help build a nascent one.” This supports the assertion I made before, that because art is powerful it becomes controversial when the artist attempts to persuade the audience of a political view.

If the artist can express what they want, what’s the big deal about political art? Why can’t people separate the politics from the artwork, or must they treat the piece as a whole? System of a Down says it well in their song “Hypnotize”:

Mesmerize the simple minded

Propaganda leaves us blinded…

The “simple minded” or common people will be easily influenced by such things as propaganda. Perhaps people categorize political art with propaganda, which already has a negative connotation with it. So, what makes something political art and what makes something propaganda? Is there a difference? Is this where the controversy comes from? Perhaps…