Modern Art and Shock Value

Last night I crashed a party and then managed to be the last guest to leave.  Technically I wasn’t last because I left with Will, but it was 6am and he was offering me a ride on his way out after finishing an incredible poker game.

It was a good party, at a house in Tremont full of 20 to 30-something service industry workers and their friends.  I went there with some friends from work, and I knew most of the guests.  I did not know the host, but we had some good conversations during the poker game, including a debate about Tucker Max and quality versus shock value.

photo by flickr user tatan_acosta

I’m not sure what I was saying at the time, thanks to some nice cocktails, but my point on the Tucker Max debate was that the ability to shock society is a skill, and it is a skill common to all popular artists throughout history.  Our host’s best friend, a Navy Seal in training, was trying to impress upon me that the present United States culture is somehow bad.  That we are more immature, have a shorter attention span, and that we fail to appreciate skill in favor of the fascinatingly disgusting.

While I agree that our culture is changing, I don’t think this is bad.  I don’t think modern artists should be looked down on for having adapted to our tastes.  In any culture, the artists who gain audiences are those most skilled at fascinating us.  Are Tucker Max and Maddox bad people for monopolizing on a truth about human beings, or are they clever artists for setting themselves up as household names for something we crave?

I think I was trying to make a point with Hemingway last night, but to be more universal I will use Shakespeare’s plays.  I believe that Shakespeare is widely accepted as an example of a great writer.

William Shakespeare wrote plays using stories he ripped off of other playwrights.  He focused on common themes such as murder, sex, and political power.  The Taming of the Shrew is about psychologically torturing a woman into obedience.  MacBeth is about murdering for personal gain.  Romeo and Juliet, as we all know, is about two kids who defy their families to have a bunch of sex and then kill themselves because they are sixteen and stupid.

Tucker Max, to my knowledge, has never written a story that featured murder or suicide.  He has never romanticized sex.  He has been sure to label himself a mega-asshole upfront before publishing his chronicles of misadventure with women.

Not that I’m claiming Tucker Max is as good a writer as Shakespeare.  Unlike Shakespeare, I have not spent any time studying Max’s craft.  I’ve read a handful of his essays, not even any of his books.  My point is that his subject matter, while crude, does not make him “bad.”  It makes him an artist who knows how to draw an audience, and this is something to admire.

I am tired of being made to feel ashamed of my culture and it’s icons.