Like many of us who didn’t work during winter break, I was soon washed away into the seas of boredom in the wake of the holidays.
I found myself resorting to increasingly tired means of entertainment to avoid wanting to return to school early.
One of these means is trawling Youtube for funny or interesting videos. A combination of clicks, considerations and morbid curiosity led me to an episode of “Geraldo” from the early 1990s. The show functioned much like that of Jerry Springer, but with considerably fewer Nazis and a great deal more class. The subject for the episode was where to draw the line between what is art and what is smut.
Despite my suspicions that Geraldo would present a one-sided view of the issue, the panel of individuals on his show was as diverse as a bag of jellybeans. From the infamous and controversial punk musician GG Allin to lawyers, other artists and professors; there was a rich tapestry of opinions and viewpoints.
If the show had instead been a theatrical stage, one could say all the actors played their parts to the letter. Allin ruffled feathers with his controversial lyrics and stances, the Reverend Bud Green was escorted out of the building after attempting to light a marijuana cigarette, the lawyer and professor argued intensely over where the line between art and smut ought to be drawn, and the audience voiced its disdain and approval of the different viewpoints respectively.
What really stuck in my mind weren’t the hairdos we now consider abominable, or the coke-bottle pairs of glasses, or the fanny packs, or the loose-fitting denim shirts. What stood out to me was that 20 years later, the discourse surrounding the quintessential “art versus smut” argument has not changed at all.
Ever since certain societies started viewing art as controversial or dangerous, artists of all sorts have had to fight a constant battle against censorship and repression. But in the 21st century, I think we as a society can do better at distinguishing what is art from what isn’t without denigrating the work of the artist.
I must say I never liked when the word “smut” was used in this context. “Smut” usually refers to something that is perceived as dirty, such as pornography or graphic nudity, but when it’s used in the world of art, the word is a slur in that it fails to recognize the importance of the freedom to express one’s own artistic self, whether that self is welcomed by mainstream society or not.
It seems what mainstream society wants of artists are classical paintings such as the Mona Lisa and the cherubim of the Sistine Chapel, not works that will genuinely attempt to change the world of art and our perceptions of it. The fact is, whether we want it to be or not, art is in a constant state of evolution to avoid becoming irrelevant or tired.
Sometimes certain pieces challenge our most deeply held moral, religious or political beliefs, but it’s important to understand that just because a certain piece of art upsets us or seems particularly distasteful, does not make it smut. Sigmund Freud once said “Civilization began when someone threw a word instead of a stone.”
So when certain pieces of art, literature or music come to our attention that make us angry, appalled or incredulous, using the word “smut” to lazily label it as distasteful becomes the proverbial stone of which Freud spoke. In a truly tolerant society, we can all accept the existence of controversial pieces of art without exuding anger toward the intentions of the author; and in an artistically literate world, we can respectfully express that certain pieces of art are not our cup of tea without reducing them to filth.
Respond to Ian at
