Art and the Death of Culture

Between Sinead O'Connor's vendetta against the sexualization of the music industry and Madonna's refusal to grow old gracefully, Lady Gaga hiring Millie Brown to vomit dyed milk on stage and Casey Jenkins knitting from her vagina for 28 days, the final battle is brewing in a war inside the world of art. 

If you want to see the future, take a good look. This is it. Our world of tomorrow might look a little more like 1930, even 1830, than 2030. When one of the last vestiges of purported creativity is to lose virginity in front of an audience, it's safe to say that our era in art history is coming to an end.

"I was at dinner last evening, and halfway through the pudding, this four-year-old child came along, dragging a little toy cart. And on the cart was a fresh turd. Her own, I suppose. The parents just shook their heads and smiled...Now, I could just shake my head and smile. But in my house, when a turd appears, we throw it out. We dispose of it. We flush it away. We don't put it on the table and call it caviar." - Sir Gerald Moore, Bonfire of the Vanities

Say what you will about the film adaptation of Bonfire, but Tom Wolf is an accomplished and respected author. Although his comment on the "fresh turd" was directed at Bonfire's anti-hero, Sherman McCoy, it is a commentary on modern art theory reflected in Wolf's other writings including The Painted Word and From Bauhaus to Our House.

The art war is nothing new. From architecture to music, critics have bickered about theory throughout the history of our culture. But what's taking place now isn't a simple division between the appreciation of craft and method. This isn't Warhol versus the Masters. The theories have become so polarized that today, a "fresh turd" can pass for art because the crap on the other side smells just as bad. 

We can't blame the Millie Browns and the Casey Jenkins' for doing what they do. Pop art, whether it's film, print, or music, has become so commercialized by think tanks, target audiences, and profit that in order to stand out, one must truly be shocking. 

But it's not art.  

There is nothing inherently artistic in reacting to the lowest common denominator. Vomiting as some sort of commentary on commercial art negates itself by admitting mainstream puke exists. Shitting on a wall will never be art, it's just more shit.

Mischa Badasyan is a 26 year old Berlin artist who plans to begin his performance piece in September by having sex with one man each day of the year. This may remind some of Clayton Pettet, a 19 year old London art student who claimed he would lose his virginity in front of an audience. When the time came, he asked each of the 120 people in the audience to put a banana in his mouth. 

Art.

Marina Abramovic is another performance artist who, although far less racy in her premise, was just as lazy. In 2010, Abramovic sat at the MoMA for more than 700 hours while more than 1000 people sat in front of her, simply watching. 

Art.

Despite the slovenly gyrations performed by commercial artists like Ke$ha and Mylie Cyrus, the mind numbing and inexplicable length of Madonna's career, or the fact that Justin Bieber has one at all, those on the self-assigned elite side of the art spectrum are just as hackneyed, commercial, and arrogant as those commercial artists who make no excuses for the checks they cash.

Meanwhile the audience is left to suffer through auto-tuned amateurs, or pretend to understand a narcissistic performance piece with a shoehorned message.

Before starving artists had YouTube, shock rarely found itself in front of the public eye. But today, anyone with more than 500 Facebook friends can post a grainy video of themselves defecating online and within a week, if it isn't picked up by Tosh.0, it will find an audience with some veiled excuse to call it art.

Throughout history, each culture or era can be defined by its art, its music, its architecture, and this is where our's comes to a close. This is where our art ends. The canyon between good and bad has become an ocean separating two mediocre ideals. Perhaps soon art can reborn as something more - better - than puke stained canvasses or Justin Bieber.

Until then we're stuck looking at a turd, or a turd pretending to be something its not.

You Can Be Sexy, as Long as You Aren't Sexy About It

I never thought I'd find myself defending Justin Bieber, on anything. 

Sinead O'Connor, the one-hit-wonder known for her remake of Prince's Nothing Compares 2 U and destroying her own career on Saturday Night Life by ripping up a photograph of the Pope, has found a way back into the media by becoming every pop culture fan's biggest troll.

Her open letters to Mylie Cyrus denounced the young artist, accusing her of selling her sexuality. But her tangential rants sprawled aimlessly. Targeting a 16 year old Britney Spears video for Hit Me Baby One More Time, O'Connor criticized the sexualization of Spears' school girl outfit forgetting that Steven Tyler put his own daughter in the same outfit a few years earlier for Aerosmith's Crazy video.

She managed to garner some support for her comments, but what she said simply comes down to slut shaming. Unfortunately such an act can easily be veiled by someone as politically active as Sinead O'Connor. How can a vocal advocate for the empowerment of femininity be lumped in with the likes of Rush Limbaugh? Because O'Connor isn't advocating for femininity, rather a gender blind neutrality where you're free to be sexy as long as it isn't sexy.

Her beef with the Biebs wasn't as expansive as her open letters to Mylie Cyrus and any other famous female who dared wear a heel higher than a twenty year old Birkenstock. Maybe that's because O'Connor recognizes that she doesn't have the same frame of reference when it comes to male artists. 

If she wanted to truly make her point, she could have pointed out the double standard that exists because the sexualization of male and female artists. Instead she just proved her own ignorance, showing us exactly why celebrities shouldn't be political roll models.

Be You, Hairy or Not

In the latest in a long line of efforts to maintain a sense of irony, hipsters have begun donning their unkempt beards with fresh cut flowers.

For the record, I don't mind beards. I like a stubbly, scruffy look, but beards aren't my thing. Tim Taylor's assistant on Tool Time does noting for me, but beards can be classic and clean.

However, sometime last autumn hipsters began challenging each other to grow their beards as long as they could. In other words, in part of the hipster community's never-ending quest to look as gross as possible, they challenged each other to avoid shaving.

As someone who prefers a 90s era Rob Thomas to the man we see today, I'll admit, I like dirty guys with greasy hair. If you smell like Jack Daniels and cigarettes you probably turn me on...assuming I don't get tangled in a web of hirsuteness. 

But the beard challenge isn't sexy, and any BuzzFeed article that argues otherwise is confusing the inherent sexiness of its models with the incidental presence of any models' facial beard. 

There's little to say about adding flowers to already unkempt facial hair. With Urban Outfitters peddling $60 t-shirts and items otherwise found in thrift stores, hipsters are the new normal. Dipping a beard in potpourri is just a last ditch effort to stay ahead of the curve. 

The once unique fashion statements found in post-emo hipsters in the early 21st Century have become so exhausted that the only way for one to be truly ironic is to shop at the Gap or hit the gym.

I am now more hipster than hipsters.

----------------

In a similar vein, Matt Stopera's BuzzFeed article regarding body hair made the rounds on Facebook last week and shows the same confusion between hairiness and manliness as the recent love affair with unkempt beards.

Stopera's post includes a laundry list of musclebound men who'd be sexy with or without body hair, confusing the incidental presence of body hair with physiques that take time to build. I challenge Stopera to glue some hair to Mr. Potato head and tell me its sexier than Ryan Reynold's topless. 

Confusing physical prowess with the unkempt man is confusing superficial appearance with the reason truly unkempt men are sexy: they're sexy because they don't care. Men and women alike tend to prefer natural to groomed, but the psychological reasons have nothing to do with what's in front of them. An ungroomed man implies a low maintenance, too-cool-for-school renegade unconcerned with fashion and spa products because he's so hot he can get by on his own merits.

Adorning beards with flowers, or simply growing one to excess is counter to the inherent, even animalistic sex appeal of the man who cares not. It's simply hyper masculine drag, a Tom of Finland cartoon, masquerading and fetishizing manliness behind a facade of insecurity. 

If you're hairy, be hairy. But don't be afraid to buy a razor because BuzzFeed tells you that your greatest insecurity is cause for praise. Part of being yourself is understanding and dealing with your own insecurities, not joining a cult that fetishizes your quirks. If you want to shave your shoulders, shave them. It's ironic, but both the gay and hipster communities self ascribe themselves as groups that embrace individuality, yet more often that not, in one way or another, you need to alter your own instincts and appearance to join. 

Be you, hairy or not.

Dear Gay White Men: Stop Acting Like Black Women

That's what University of Mississippi senior Sierra Mannie wants, and it blew up the internet this weekend. While it may seem like Mannie's seen a few too many episodes of RuPaul's Drag Race, her grief comes from a real place. Unfortunately it's a very subjective place and her article that was posted everywhere from Time to Slate was offered up without interpretation.

Read the article here

The subject of re-appropriation of black culture is nothing new. South Park covered it years ago. But Mannie didn't stop at white suburbanites using the terms "hizzy" and "jawn," she singled out gay white men who joke about weaves.

It may be inappropriate and disrespectful, but if Mannie actually spoke to these men she might find she has more in common with them than an appreciation for Beyonce. Having grown up and gone to college in the South, as a gay white man I've seen exactly what she's talking about. Sassy men who refer to themselves as Shaniqua and quote Shirley Q. Liquor. It's obnoxious. But the South is a hateful place, a hotbed of racism and homophobia. Gay men in the Deep South have little to laugh about within their own community so they seek out others who understand discrimination.

Mannie shows her inexperience in life by suggesting that gay men can hide while black women have to wear their minority status. Claiming the truth, "white people are not racially oppressed in the United States of America" she ignores the fact that gay white men are oppressed. Because in her America, hiding your sexual orientation is the only option gay men have.

The men she's referring to clearly don't want to hide, nor should they want to. They're seeking solace in other marginalized communities, trying to embrace women who don't care that they're gay. Could they go about it a better way? Of course. They could simply be themselves. But in the South, a gay college senior is coming off of eighteen years of being despised for being himself. Maybe if she sat down and spoke to some of these men she'd understand why they're so desperately trying to be someone else. 

Iran's Modern Family

In what the Huffington Post has called "disheartening," the Islamic Republic of Iranian Broadcasting has copied the hit American sitcom Modern Family with its own Haft Sang. 

What's disheartening about Iran copying a show that promotes the morals of the modern American family? 

Well it leaves out Mitch and Cam, the show's gay characters and their adopted baby, of course, replacing them with a straight couple and their adopted baby.

But it's not shocking and the only ones who should truly be outraged are the show's creators, writers, and directors. International copyright laws aren't often enforced in Iran and many other countries. Russia copied Always Sunny in Philadelphia, obviously downplaying similar content perceived to be pro-gay. Although in the case of москве всегда солнечно, it may be more likely that Russian writers simply didn't get the show's satire and assumed that Always Sunny's slurs are meant to be literal.

Haft Sang

Iran is a different story though and this bit of western influence, even without its gay couple, is a good sign. Unlike Russian culture which was cut off from the world in the 1940s and is struggling to catch up, Iran was only severed from modern ideology in 1979. Plenty of Iranians remember a nation not unlike others in the 1970s. Read Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis for more on that. It's funny, charming, and sad.

Haft Sang has upset some conservative Iranians, primarily because it borrows from an American show that allegedly promotes homosexuality. Parliament's Culture Committee has stated that IRIB will appear before legislators regarding the show's originality. It's not the first American show that has been copied in Iran, but the American version has a sizable viewership online in Iran, perhaps prompting the IRIB to offer a localized version.

What many may perceive to be a conservative move is actually bold in an insular country with rigid laws against homosexuality, a crime punishable by death. The fact that the IRIB is tiptoeing into the comedic foibles of any modern family to cater to a public that already seeks this humor online is a step in the right direction. 

The impact that the mainstream media has had on the United States over the past twenty years is astounding, and it's finding its way to smart phones and iPads around the globe, showing those laughing from Tehran and Moscow, "we're funny, just like everyone else."

Somewhere, Gloria Steinem Weeps

Whether you're conservative or liberal, religious or secular, if you've been on Facebook - or just online - in the past week, you haven't missed out on the fact that this Hobby Lobby/Conestoga Wood thing is kind of a big deal.

The ruling essentially treats for profit companies like private individuals with religious ideals, even when the company profits on cheap crap manufactured in China, allowing them to refuse to cover medical procedures they unscientifically deem synonymous with abortion.

Displaying the evangelical extreme of these corporations, and the ignorance of the men on SCOTUS, these companies may now choose to exempt certain forms of contraception in their health care plans. Plans provided by informed health insurance companies, not the medical brainiacs selling silk flowers and yarn.

The most disturbing image of the Hobby Lobby Movement may be this one, of a young woman clearly possessed by the spirit of religious indoctrination, proudly proclaiming her freedom from a lifetime of choice.

Somewhere, Gloria Steinem weeps.

While the ruling only affects certain forms of contraception provided by health care companies tied to companies who wish to file the proper paper work, the women on SCOTUS recognized the slippery slope this precedent sets. Namely Justice Ruth Bater Ginsberg who stated that the court "has ventured into a minefield."

Specific or not, no ruling can control a precedent. We've seen precedents aid progress in the gay marriage movement, beginning with Civil Unions and state recognition eventually leading to full and equal representation.

In an era of sweeping progress across America, both in LGBT rights and affordable healthcare, this could be the beginning of the extreme Right's attempt to retaliate, a step towards evangelical relevance, at least in terms of political presence. 

But it may also hurt the GOP. Like fringe extremes on the Left, the evangelical movement has been a black mark on the Right. Prominent Republican candidates typically dodge evangelicals despite their willingness to vote for the Right ever since Pat Robertson ran for the White House.

Even Christians have criticized Hobby Lobby for referring to itself as a "Christian business" because of its thousands of products manufactured in China where child labor and abortion abound. There is bipartisan stink around this ruling and it will undoubtedly impact voters' decisions in November, particularly women voters in both parties.

Unfortunately, the precedent has been set for corporations to deny coverage for vaccines, blood transfusions, and life saving treatments that deviate from extreme Christian, Jewish, Islamic, Mormon, even Dianetic beliefs.

Corporations are now people and the evangelicals have rolled the dice. When your boss asks that you wear a hijab because your hair offends your employer's religious beliefs, just remember, religious zealots brought this on themselves.

First Trans Man to Win Mr. Gay Philadelphia

Philadelphia just keeps getting gayer, and that's a great thing. 

Last weekend, Lou Cutler was "crowned" Mr. Gay Philadelphia. Why's that astounding? Cutler is transgender. In fact, he's the first trans man to hold such a title.

Congrats, Lou, keep on being who you are!