On Friday, I received an email from a reader that stumbled onto my Tumblr blog post inquiring about what I meant about “resisting distinctly as an artist.”
I sent them the following email to elaborate (with minor omissions specific to what the reader shared privately):
…
Regarding what I meant by “resisting distinctly as an artist”: it’s a loaded statement ripe for interpreting as you see fit and appropriate for your own circumstances. That being said, I hope these points will help you find your own means of resistance as an artist:
When creativity and creation are seen as assets to be commodified into economics – create anything and everything that is in direct opposition to economics. For instance, in Hollywood, if creativity and creation mean that whiteness is the centerfold of a story – create a world and story in which whiteness is not the centerfold of a story.
Understanding the politics of your identity is key to usurping pivots of power. Within the context of America, the pivots of power are currently white supremacy and patriarchy: if you are a heteronormative white cis-male in America, you are allotted societal privilege to behave and engage in a spectrum of human experiences and emotions without the restrictions of assumed categories; compare this to the larger narrative of what how most Americans perceive African American women (see: welfare queens, angry black woman, etc.)
In understanding the politics of your identity and how it falls within the spectrum of your circumstances, you can work actively against that as an artist in what you choose to create. Drawing from the previous example: within the American pivot of power: creating an artistic endeavor that imagines African American women as free agents of their own destiny and desire – distinctly juxtaposed to the current narrative of ‘welfare queens’ – is an act of defiance against the assumed underlying power dynamic that ‘only white cis-male individuals are able to achieve certain degrees of human accomplishment.’ Or, to paraphrase Mindy Kaling: “I have a personality defect where I refuse to see myself as an underdog because I was raised with the entitlement of a tall, blond, white man.”
Boiling it all down:
Understanding current limitations and boundaries of imagination and reality helps us create works of art that undermine those limitations and boundaries: as artists, we can imagine worlds beyond the paradigms of what is currently assumed and normal.
Dare to imagine something beyond what is considered the norm and assumed, and be mindful in how you approach your imagination. What are the implications of creating something new, or inspired by something prior? Are you appropriating something, or are you paying due homage? What norms and assumptions are you challenging in your creation?
Disregard what is seen as ‘profitable’ and consider what is moral and ethical.
Speaking for myself, I am a filmmaker foremost, and everything else in my life is secondary and informative of how I approach filmmaking. I don’t limit myself only to the spectrum of cinema – my participation and engagement with life helps me understand larger implications beyond my own individual experience, how my experience is consequently informed, and how I can consequently challenge larger systems in place. It’s a circular system of analysis, deconstruction, and construction of something different, if not entirely new – just like jazz. (For more on this, I highly recommend watching this video essay on Chuck Jones’ development as an artist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHpXle4NqWI)
Artists have the power to question power indirectly while having profoundly direct impacts on the minds of those who experience our work. It’s why the phrase “it’s just a book” and different iterations of such are so, so false: the jester in “King Lear” understood this with regards to comedy, and likewise Hitler understood this with regards to the power of xenophobia in Mein Kamf.
Some last notes:
When it comes to art – nothing angers oppressors more than being out done by anyone they aim to oppress. Oppressors aim to stifle progress and creativity because they themselves are fundamentally incapable of imagining and inventing a better world than what is currently the status quo. So as an artist, creating art that is better than what an oppressor can conjure up is one of the greatest forms of resistance because an oppressor can never, ever replicate true talent and sincerity. (See: Trump’s replica of Obama’ inauguration cake.)
Existing is an act of resistance – never forget that.