Not exactly, but out of all the performances and artwork exhibits I’ve been to the Opera was the most memorable and the one that affected me the most. It even inspired me to write a research paper about it (which I’m still in the process of doing by the way).

Before this class I was not exposed to a lot of art, and the art that I was exposed to I never really paid much attention to. The Opera opened my eyes to a whole new world that I thought didn’t exist for me. It really is very magical and unique and I wish that I would have been exposed to it earlier. I think that Operas like Les Contes D’Hoffman criticize man’s fickle and foolish ways in love, much like Shakespeare did in his plays.  So why is it that it in high school it is imperative that we read works like Romeo and Juliet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but we seldom get the chance to learn about great works of Opera. The tales of Hoffan and Carmen could serve the same purpose as Shakespeare.

Although I didn’t see Carmen the Opera I did see Carmen: A Hip Hopera and I though it was amazing. It kept me engaged and it was a cute twist to the classical Opera. In it, it contained many lessons. One of the main themes was how following your dreams and desires recklessly could lead to your demise. Society as a whole tends to choose what your dreams and desires should be so when you choose something else you tend to work even harder to get it. “Wanting what you can’t have.” This in turn could turn out good or bad. In Carmen it all just turns out bad.

(Heres a clip I like from Carmen. Don’t listen if you don’t like rap :p )

Likewise in The Tales of Hoffman we go through the sad journeys of Hoffman’s love. In the end Hoffman end up alone but is that really so bad? He still has his work and his muse. And as the saying goes it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.

Operas are just as important as any other piece of artwork, even if they seem like they are only for the old and rich. It is a form of art that we could learn from and have fun watching at the same time.

In other words, I believe that Operas should be shown to younger generation across the nation so that they too may experience this magical world and one day aspire to go there dressed in gowns like me.

I’m not the kind of person who gets “affected” by artwork, probably because I don’t take the time to really appreciate it (because really, there aren’t enough hours in the day).  When I look at artwork it might affect me at that moment, but it doesn’t leave much of a lasting impact on me.  But one of the last books I read was the Metal Children by Adam Rapp, and that definitely made me think about the issues in today’s society.

This play presented an interesting situation caused by censorship .  This reaction doesn’t seem realistic, but the idea that total censorship by an authority can lead to an uprising is.  Rapp was presenting the issue of censorship and what it leads to.  Often when you tell someone you can’t do something, they’ll do it anyways.  No one likes to be told “No” and be denied something, so this is the response one can expect.  In writing this play he was criticizing this method of “Tell them they can’t do it because we said so.”  It’s the same logic a parent uses to tell their children not to climb on the furniture or that they can’t go out late.  The only problem is that it only works when their kids are young, once they get older they demand real answers, and if they aren’t satisfied by it they do whatever they want regardless of the consequences.  Teenagers especially, are notorious for going against adult authority.  The stricter the rules, the more likely they are to break them. So in the play, when the book The Metal Children is completely banned by a community it’s no surprise that the teenagers of the school rebel.  What is surprising is the type of response they give and how devoted to their “mission” they are.  I don’t know many (if any) girls that would willingly subject themselves to the beyond difficult life of being a single teen mother.  The choice they make reflects the lack of a deep connection with family and shows the flaw in their community.

Rapp is also criticizing the girl’s choice.  Especially Vera’s, because everything she does is for the mission.  Vera doesn’t care much for her daughter the way a mother should.  Her daughter is just another step in her mission, she cares for her because its part of the statement she has tried to make.  She seems mature and sure of herself, but in reality her way of thinking is very flawed.  She doesn’t care who she hurts or what it takes to further this goal of keeping the community in Idaho running.  She uses a very sneaky manipulation (playing upon Tobin’s very real paternal feelings) to get him to support her cause.  Tobin really does care about this daughter that he has only just met, and seems like he’d do anything to support her.

The style that Rapp uses to present this criticism really caught my eye, because the characters seem somewhat believable.  Tobin, the passive guy who gets all but bullied into doing things and Vera, the teenage girl who decides to go against what society expects of her.  To me the focus was more on censorship and the impact it leaves on a community, rather than teen pregnancy itself.  Because the parents and community leaders weren’t speaking against teen pregnancy (even though that should have been more important) instead they were focusing on making sure this book was banned from curriculum, deeming it a “virulent element that was threatening to pollute the minds of our young people” (Rapp 53).  It makes you ask yourself, what kind of small community would allow such close minded censorship when common sense would tell you that it isn’t going to solve anything?

Most people enjoy living their everyday lives within their comfort zones. Anything out of the ordinary, or anything that will mess with the norms of life is normally avoided. That’s why most people try to avoid controversial topics, they do not want to be exposed to these topics so that they won’t have to think about them.

This is where the artist plays a very important role. If ordinary people aren’t going to think about controversial issues, then someone has to address them right? By creating art that will spark reactions, the artist is creating an environment for a discussion of issues that would normally just be overlooked. For that reason, The Metal Children had the greatest impact on me.

This play by Adam Rapp addressed issues by presenting these issues in such extreme situations. I mean a whole group of teenagers vowing to get pregnant and form their own society to fulfill the “mission”, what is the likelihood of that really occurring? Well you probably wouldn’t have ever thought that something like that could even be a possibility until you read this play. Adam Rapp is able to not only bring up the issue of teen pregnancy in this play, but also is able to bring up the controversial issue of censorship.

In the play, a town has completely banned a school district from reading a book that was written by a young author Tobin. Sound pretty normal. Doesn’t this seem to occur quite often? Don’t schools always pick and choose what their students will be allowed to read? Well the reaction that is shown in this play is certainly not the reaction that we always hear about. This reaction was extreme, to the point where the whole community was divided and acts of violence were occurring. By creating such an extreme situation Adam Rapp is setting the stage for important discussions to arise. How much should a school be able to control what it’s students are and aren’t allowed to read? Is censorship a good idea? Does censorship take away from our freedoms? Are we not allowed to have the right to freedom of speech and expression? What’s next, is society going to try to control our very own opinions too? Well maybe that last question is a little too extreme, but you can see how so many questions can arise after just reading this play. That’s exactly what a good social critic should be able to do. They should be able to create a work of art that will be the source of further discussion. They should highlight the very issues that need to be highlighted.

This piece of artwork further appealed to me most and affected me most because it not only dealt with the very important issue of censorship, but also the topic of teen pregnancy. Once again Adam Rapp presents this controversial topic in such an extreme way. His play doesn’t involve one girl who wants to make a statement and therefore gets pregnant. No, it involves a whole group of girls who do this. This issue so important in society today and this is why I felt as though this artist was most effective as being a social critic because he was able to address and issue that is so common in our generation. His play puts teen pregnancy in the spotlight. This obviously is going to draw some attention to his play. Should teen pregnancy be glorified? Is teen pregnancy still such an important issue today? Should it be something that we’re paying more attention to.

In class when we discussed teen pregnancy and talked about shows such as Teen Mom and 16 and pregnant, I couldn’t help but wonder why such shows would even exist. Were these shows meant to raise awareness? I believe these shows were definitely made with good intentions. These teen mothers wanted to show everyone else how they had made a mistake in their lives, and how they now had to deal with this, and just how difficult it was. They hoped that girls would learn from their mistakes. However as I turn on MTV and see commercials for the new season of 16 and pregnant (/www.mtv.com/shows/16_and_pregnant/season_2/series.jhtml), I can’t help but wonder if this show was meant to get teens to realize that teen pregnancy was very difficult then why would they need to have another season to accomplish this? Shouldn’t they have been able to accomplish this within the first season? Now it’s just becoming a form of entertainment.

So in the end an artist can have a great impact as a social critic. The artist’s work is what stirs up such controversial discussions. We need artists to expose us to these controversial issues so that we can talk about them. Adam Rapp, through his extreme situations in his play the Metal Children was able to do an exceptional job in putting the spotlight on two very controversial issues, censorship and teen pregnancy. While I was reading his play I felt myself getting outraged by many of the things I was reading. This is when I knew that Adam Rapp had achieved his task.

Art is something that I felt was there for pure self-expression and entertainment. I really never looked at art as something that could be used to critique societies customs and traditions. However, reading and watching various pieces of art throughout this semester (so far) has made me realize art can be used for something meaningful and important.

I think the piece of art that has affected me most was the piece by Andy Warhol where he takes a bunch of pictures of celebrities and showcase their lifestyle. I feel affected by this the most because I believe strongly that our society is too influenced by media in all forms. Therefore, I think its important for at least one person to show and reveal how celebrities live and that they are just normal people like the rest of us. Additionally, kids, teens, and even some adults practically worship these people that come on television and movies and are influenced by their actions as well. Many people don’t stop and research issues on their own but instead believe what they are told on television, radio, etc because that is their only source of information. I think that this is especially true in today’s world and is also kind of sad. We should all be responsible enough to find out and research various issues by our own means and shouldn’t rely on someone else’s opinion.

Andy Warhol does a great job in portraying the lifestyle of all these celebrities and the essence of their lives. As soon as I walked in the room I felt like I was there with Warhol, meeting all those people. It was nice to observe and even be apart of. An artist as a social critic is a very important role that I believe should be part of some piece of all artists. This piece that portrayed the glamorous life of a celebrity showed a good side but also critiqued it in its own way. All the celebrities together were overwhelming to look at and this illustrated the pressures that this sort of life can have. This pressure is portrayed in Warhol’s other pieces also but this particular work shows the cause of it.

It’s important for us to be aware of our surroundings and know what is going on. Many times something may look good but isn’t or vice versa. It is everyone’s responsibility to know what’s happening and find the resources that will allow him or her to know this information. Warhol does a great job in portraying a lifestyle that we all want to achieve and bring this idea back to earth. Looking at his piece and others I realized art doesn’t just have to be present for entertainment like I previously thought. Art as a form of social critique is present everywhere if you look and this is has been and will be an important aspect of society. I think that Warhol’s message in this piece is a strong one and deserves some credit. =)

Last year I took AP Art History and I absolutely loved it.  I learned about many different art pieces throughout history and many of those paintings were social commentaries and criticisms of their time.  So when I read the assignment for this week’s blog, many different ideas of social criticism paintings popped into my head.

The only problem is that they’re from the olden days, and don’t relate to modern times.  Right?  Wrong.

The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch is from the 1400s-1500s.  It’s a triptych with three panels- the first panel shows the creation of man, with God presenting a newly created (and very naked) Eve to Adam.  The middle panel shows the downfall of man- he gives into his sexual desires and there are people having sex all over the place, with other people, animals and even gigantic fruit, which have seeds that symbolize fertility.  The third panel is darker, and shows damnation, with people suffering in hell as punishment for their actions in the previous panels.

Now what could this possibly have to do with modern society?

Well, as we all know, modern society is obsessed with celebrities, body image, being thin, looking hot, getting drunk, partying, and basically living the good life.  Our society promotes enjoying life and the “earthly pleasure” described in Bosch’s triptych.  Our culture is pretty sex-obsessed.  Most commercials, even ones that promote ordinary items such as deodorant or hair products, use sexuality in their commercials to promote their items because as we all know, sex sells.

Well, according to Bosch, if we continue to give in to these earthly pleasures and focus only on living the good life and giving into our physical desires, then we will surely rot in hell.  Now, I’m not saying I think we are all going to hell.  I’m just suggesting that there is more to life than physical pleasures.  That is what sets humans apart from other animals.  Most animals’ lives revolve around physical desires- food, sex and water.  They hunt and mate, raise their babies and then repeat the cycle.  But humans are above that.  We are not slaves to our desires.  We go to school, get a job, have friends, go out, wear clothes and live full, diverse lives.  We speak, we think and philosophize about religion and spirituality- is there a God?  Is there a higher being judging us?  So if we give in to our primal desires, we essentially become animals because now we are no different than them.  We need to focus on living meaningful lives and actually doing something worthwhile and not just living life to enjoy it before we die.

Again, I am not saying I believe we are all going to rot in hell.  I’m just saying that Bosch’s third panel shows us being punished for our actions.  I don’t know if this will happen- first of all no one knows if there really IS a God.  Second, if there is, who knows if he will care or want to punish us?  All I am saying is that Bosch criticizes sleeping around and giving into physical pleasures and living like animals instead of humans.  I took this social criticism and applied it as a social critique of modern times.   In this way his social critique seems timeless because it still applies to us about 500 years later.

No matter where we look, controversy always seems to lurk around in societal life.  Throughout the semester, I thought about this and I wondered what causes so many issues in a society.  Why is it  such a problem for the public to accept a certain piece of art or literature? Why is it so hard for us to not approve of something being taught to children without any problem?  Are we afraid of things that are different all the time? What is causing such a hesitance for the new and the different? All these questions ran through my mind as I chose a piece that portrays the artist as the social critic. In my opinion Adam Rapp shows controversy at its finest, criticizing society for its rejection of the new and different.

As long as I can remember in history, the American majority was always afraid of change something different.  One example that I always refer to are immigrants.  My history in teacher in high school explained that America was centered around the WASP acronym.  America was pre-dominantly the White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant country and if someone was different than this, he or she was an outsider.  I wonder why is it that the majority is always so willing to reject change so rapidly. I saw this in the “Metal Children”, and I wanted to write about this idea because controversy is something that is definitely not new to us.  Something is always occurring because of many people wanting to reject the new and the different.

Out of all the artists’ work we viewed so far, “Metal Children” appealed to me  because it interested me the most.  I think its because I have heard about so many controversies and the clash of different opinions so much, that I just read it with ease. Adam Rapp is such a vivid and blatant writer which is why he deserves the title of a social critic. He does not sugarcoat his language or plot for his audience.  If he wants to convey something about an issue, he will instantly apply his pen to paper and write it.  I think that his willingness to  write what is on his mind is what makes Adam Rapp a social critic; he would not silence himself to please the public.

The “Metal Children” fully explains why society can have so many controversies.  Each person has so many opinions of their own that you wonder if anything can be agreed on.  So many people want to be heard and express themselves. There’s just one problem to that, everyone that expresses their voice has a different opinion from the other.  Some people do not want their voice heard, but they want the society they’re in to be peaceful and comfortable.  In order for the society to be comfortable, they do not want any sort of conflict at all. We have societies that are filled with these type of people which is another reason why it is so hard to get along.

This is why the artist has a heavy responsibility when they decide to put their work for public display.  You will never know what result your going to get from them.  One side could view it as innovative and captivating, another may want all copies of the work burned.  This is because the artist puts their opinion out in the open for all to see. They are taking a risk of putting their work in a society where so many opinions are present. The public can get joy from the work one day and contempt and hatred the next.  It is so hard to be a social critic because you are putting your work that you are personally attached to in the open.

Adam Rapp took on this responsibility willingly thinking of no regrets. He wrote about how controversies form using Tobin Falmouth as an example. Tobin who wrote a novel as a catharsis from his divorce sparked a city to have such controversy and strife with one another.  Tobin inspired youths to have a say of their own and gain their own voice.  Sadly this leads to the banning of the book and much debate because as usual people have different opinions.  Adam Rapp had a similar scenario happen to him as well.  In the play, Adam Rapp wanted to convey that society should not be so eager to form controversy.  Controversy as seen in the play sparked more rebellion as seen by Vera.  What started as a little issue went further into drastic rebellion.  I think Rapp wanted to show that this can happen in many places of society, that the artist is not displaying radical ideas and there is no need for such controversy.

Adam Rapp was blatantly honest in his work.  He was not afraid of possible consequences that might arise in societies.  He took on the responsibility to convey his thought and criticize how society should not have so much controversy.  It is basically not needed to have controversy every single time a new opinion arises. This is what Adam Rapp discusses and what makes him a social critic.  His writing clearly states what he is criticizing about society.  It does not matter to him what society thinks about his work, he will express his opinion for years to come.  I am certain this will not be the last time I see Adam Rapp filling his role as a social critic.

After reading the title for this blog post, I’m sure that many of you who will end up reading this are thinking, “What the heck is she talking about?”  Well, the title is exactly what I’m talking about.  Imagine walking around all day in New York City–one of the busiest cities in the entire world with your top off in public.  Or rather, how would you feel if you were walking around the city and you saw a woman just chilling with her breasts hanging out?  Now, that’s definitely got to be something to get people talking.

Recently, I was watching the Tyra Show where Tyra Banks interviewed a special guest, Jordan Matter.  Jordan Matter spent over six years photographing over one hundred women in New York City with their tops off.  When Tyra first introduced him, I automatically assumed that he had to be smoking hot to get a hundred women to go topless for him, but soon found out that these women all volunteered to do this.  They ranged in ages as young as twenty-one to women who were old enough to be our great-grandmothers. The women all came from different backgrounds with different professions, education, and races, but one thing they all had in common–they wanted to empower other women.

Some of these women were having body image issues, some of them had breast cancer, and some of them just allowed him to take the pictures for the heck of it.  Jordan Matter wanted these women to feel a sense of “self-acceptance,” courage and pride while they were being shot half-naked, which is legal in New York.

Tyra had some of these women come to her show to share their stories.  One woman who was photographed with her daughter, who was eighteen at the time, suffered from a mild form of breast cancer and so in order to commemorate those who died from breast cancer and those who are still suffering from it, she wanted to do this.  However, she was unable to do it alone and so her daughter knew how much it meant to her and finally gave in to volunteer with her mother.  Another woman talked about being overweight ever since she was a little girl going through puberty.  She had been mocked and teased because of her weight and so she joined Matter’s movement to prove to everyone that she is comfortable with who she is.

I feel that this is the most moving form of art that I’ve seen in a while.  Nowadays, women are complaining about how fat they are, their cellulite, their crooked noses, and small breasts, but Matter wants to empower women and make them feel good-flaws and all.  Even women as beautiful as Kim Kardashian are using Botox because they aren’t comfortable in their own skin, but Matter wants to show us that this can be avoided by simply loving yourself.

Matter also shares his motive behind creating this book of photographs, which is his wife.  His wife has had body image issues ever since he was dating her and he wanted to show her how beautiful he thought she was.  He says that it killed him every time he saw his wife putting herself down and he wanted all women in the world to embrace themselves.  (He even got his wife to participate)

Matter’s artwork has been featured on the Tyra Show, on NBC news, and many other talk shows because it has caused social uproar.  Many people do not condone of these women being naked and don’t see the deeper meaning behind them taking their tops off.  However in my opinion, Matter chose the perfect medium to get his point across.

Women all over the world, no matter what race, size, shape, class, should all feel powerful and beautiful.

Sometimes I wish I could time travel.  There are certain time periods in the history of the world I wish I could just sit in on. I may have learned everything about the era of Louis XIV, from what he ate to what he wore to what his lavish homes looked like, but imagine actually being able to sit on one of his gold encrusted chairs and be present in that actual time. It would be utterly enchanting. Though I cant actually time travel, watching certain movies brings me pretty close to my dream of defying time.

The reason why Taxi Driver spoke to me so directly was because it was an ideal example of how the perfect combination of the right time, the right script, and the right actors, can completely transport an audience to a different realm. In the New York Times review of the movie, published February 8, 1976, Vincent Canby wrote, “The steam billowing up around the manhole cover in the street is a dead giveaway. Manhattan is a thin cement lid over the entrance to hell, and the lid is full of cracks. Hookers, hustlers, pimps, pushers, frauds, and freaks—they’re all at large. They form a busy, faceless, unrepentant society that knows a secret litany. On a hot summer night the cement lid becomes a nonstop harangue written in neon: walk, stop, go, come, drink, eat, try, enjoy. Enjoy? That’s the biggest laugh. Only the faceless ones—the human garbage—could enjoy it.”

Scorsese revealed New York for what it was in the 70s. There was no Hollywood gloss over in Taxi Driver; it was a nuanced and stripped view of the city for what it was.  For someone like me who was not born until 1991, it was an intimate view of a version of New York I never will have a chance to experience.  I knew I was literally in a different time when I saw the area of the city infested with porn and hookers, a place that claimed to be Times Square. The wardrobe was symbolic of Scorsese’s message, an example of social hierarchies and standards that he wanted to highlight. It was the wardrobe of the upper class versus the lower class and the hookers and pimps and taxi drivers.  To me, watching this movie in 2010, it was also a model of the styles of the times.

Yet this critique of New York society in the 70s cannot only be attributed to the director. What’s interesting about movies as an art form is that they are so multidimensional.  A movie is different artists working in unison to create something greater than themselves. Yet each artist will also contribute something unique, in this case his own interpretation of the script and New York City. Unlike a Van Gogh painting, where the audience can stand in front of the picture, and see what one single man created. Movies are easily accessible reels of history and social critique that defy time and place. They are a view into the minds of many talented artists trying to get their ideas out into the public. They might be fixated on one time, but I can watch Taxi Driver today and learn from it and enjoy it. Every year that passes, gives the movie another level of depth. The people and the wardrobe may be stuck in the 70s, but Taxi Driver really defies time.

At the end of the New York Times review, it lists the main artists that took part in the collaborate effort of the movie.

“Directed by Martin Scorsese; written by Paul Schrader; director of photography, Michael Chapman; edited by Marcia Lucas, Tom Rolf, and Melvin Shapiro; music by Bernard Herrmann;  art designer, Charles Rosen; produced by Michael Phillips and Julia Phillips; released by Columbia Pictures. Running time: 112 minutes.

With: Robert De Niro (Travis Bickle), Cybill Shepherd (Betsy), Jodie Foster (Iris), Harvey Keitel (Sport), Peter Boyle (Wizard), Leonard Harris (Charles Palantine), Albert Brooks (Tom), and Martin Scorsese (Passenger).”

It so interesting to take a step back from a tunneled view of what a movie is, the director, the movie star, and realize that is so much more than that. Every person listed had an idea and a personal view of how to portray the characters and convey a certain society in this movie. The final effort is an amalgamation of these personal views. For movies, it cannot be said that they are an example of the artist as a social critique. Movies are many artists coming together as many social critics.  That’s what really makes movies magical.

Work Cited

Canby, Vincent. “Taxi Driver.” The New York Times 8 Feb. 1976: 1o Oct. 2010:

(http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=EE05E7DF173DA22CAB484CC2B6799A8C6896.)