guess what? still art.

[truelove]

Well, that's fascinating. I'm watching this hour-long feature on women in film for class, 'Reel Women'; I believe it's about twenty-five years old. Anyway, Susan Seidelman is described as being "one of the rare American women filmmakers today to be accruing a body of work. Now, what you see with a lot of women directors today is that they will make one or two very uniqe and remarkable efforts and then they'll either disappear altogether or they'll go into television."

I recognise that this really is true, even today: television is separate, different, lesser than film. Television isn't anything to take seriously. It's not really art. Film struggles enough to be taken seriously, and so it makes damned certain to make it very clear that television stuff isn't. You have to have *something* to be better than.

To which I say, like hell.

You know what, right here I will own up to being a populist hack; I don't claim to be otherwise. I want to write pulp fiction, science fiction; entertainment for the masses. I don't deny that.

But I'll also tell you that what the populist hacks of television (and literature, and, and, and...) do is damned well art too. I'll defend television as much as I'll defend quilting and other fiber arts as arts. I'll defend it the way I'll defend tagging as art.

That you don't respect something doesn't make it not art.

I find it fascinating that television was not and to a great extent still is not regarded as a body of work to be considered. That it isn't a meaningful aspect of those directors' careers. Really?

You know, I would love to know what women directors made a distinct but short mark in film and then went into television actually did in television. I think it's as important to consider as the films they made.

I really shouldn't be in film studies, I think. I should be in media studies, classes that look at film and television more equally.

Comments

[shirou]

How do you define art?

[truelove]

Roughly? The expression of a vision or emotion.

It's a loose definition, yes. And definitely includes a lot of things that I actually loathe. But that I loathe something does not mean that it is not art. After all, I happen to loathe quite a lot of styles of painting in general, much less in the specific.

And still most people would agree that that I -- or anyone else -- might loathe them, or fail to respect the artist or the end product, paintings are still Art.

A very great other number of mediums, though, don't have that underlying respect, that acknowledgement of the basic artistic nature. In many cases, people's lack of respect for the artist or end product means they cannot bring themselves to acknowledge the medium itself as an artistic one.

(Do I think all television is fine and wondrous art? Hahahahaaa, um, no. I give you: Barney and Friends. But low art, if you will? Yeah. Television production is a complex and an art: a vision is brought to life. That I've no respect for the vision brought to life does not mean I've no respect for the craft that brought it to life.)

(Sorry for the repost, I used the wrong account. *wry*)

[shirou]

That's a pretty good definition, and by that definition, I agree with your assessment.

I was asking out of curiosity, by the way, because I myself don't have a good definition for art. It's rather an amorphous concept. I do think that my definition would differ somewhat from yours in that I would prefer my definition to include something about the ability of art to evoke a reaction in the observer. Of course, this also makes the classification of something as art far more subjective.

[truelove]

That is rather the trouble with discussing art: nobody really *has* the same definition and most people wade into the fray long before they attempt to sort out their terms. *wry*

Mostly my problem with more subjective definitions of art is that too often mutates into "Well, if I don't like it, then it's not art." I mean, people don't say that, usually, but if you look at it, it often is what they're doing. So I do find it troubling to use more subjective to define art.

I don't devalue the subjective and emotional aspects of art, though! It's definitely important, I mean, usually that's one of the things the artist is trying to *do*! Provoke some kind of a reaction. Maybe the reaction they're going for is "Ooooh~! That's gorgeous!" or maybe it's ">_< I hate the world," but usually, usually a reaction is being sought.