Last week I retreated to the tranquil Yorkshire village where my parents live to blitz through an essay. Despite replacing the Manchester sirens with birds and having a full stomach of homemade soup I was in a very bad mood. As I stomped down to the kitchen to refill my hot Ribena the thought came upon me that listening to Nightwish for the entire afternoon might not be the best way to a peaceful and balanced mind.
How many more adverts, songs and films will you consume in your life than political speeches, or even soundbites? Add on graffiti, sculpture, plays, architecture, websites, sports, novels (even newspapers). They are all an expression of the creative genius (some more genius than others) of our contempories and those who died along time ago. Some art is consumed by millions, some art is consumed by choice, some isn’t, but every piece you encounter is likely to trigger a reaction in your brain.
On a nearly universal level people express themselves through dance, song and different levels of complex art. A Parliamentary Bill has difficulty speaking on the same level.
Art is not something which is a bonus add on to society. Every aspect of the way with live is infused with creativity and an agenda (even if it’s just to make something look pretty).
Often it is the art of a purist nature which is held up as ‘high art’ but increasingly it seems that we are going back towards art which anyone can produce
One advantage of a political system is that it gives a skeleton off which the ‘meat’ of culture can hang to give definition and shape to a society. However, politics and art are intrinsically linked and bounce off each other.
It greatly excited me to find out that Desert Island disk was hosting one of the greatest artists from Manchester who is still living. I won’t stoop to the Marmite catch phrase, but he is certainly a divisive artist. Morrissey is famous for moaning, hating authority and his fiery temper – he walked off stage and didn’t return when a fan threw a bottle at him in Liverpool a few weeks ago. However, he also penned the lines “In a country where the President is never black, female or gay/Until that day you have nothing to say to me, America” in 2004. A British politician would never have been able to say that, but as someone elected through chart success the Birtish public have given Morrissey a platform to air his views and be heard by new people.
Of course there are some artists that a more overt about politics than others, Rage Against the Machine for example, but interestingly one of our music editors informed me that often the artists with the most radical political messages also package it in radical forms of music making them difficult to access. For this reason the Sex Pistols were highly successful as they had a radical message, but in a very simple and familiar musical format.
Why do we pay attention to the big artists and why has celebrity culture infused the news? I don’t think it’s because we have our heads full of candy floss. I think there are two elements to it. Firstly, enjoying gossip which doesn’t injure or involve them and their friends. Secondly, it’s about being identified with a certain lifestyle and certain skill. Many people wanted to gain some of the ‘Tiger focus’ whether through buying the watch he wears, reading about him, or just enjoying him practicing golf. So when it has transpired that Woods has flaws and cracks under pressure like that rest of us hours of media analysis occurs so we can cope with this. Yet if he comes through this it is likely that his imperfection will make it easier for us all to identify with his life and work due to our own shortcomings.
So how do we take the celebratisation of politics? I was surprised to hear that David Cameron had done an interview with the glossy women’s weekly Grazia, but I’m sure if the same thing was around at the time of Caesar he would have exploited down a photoshoot of him in the Colosseum (though it might be more likely to appear in the Times 2 magazine).Putting leaders on pedestals is not a new phenomenon, but the endless and invasive scrutiny is. Sometimes this works to the advantage of those in the spotlight as it gives politicians a chance to connect and show their human side (which they are often accused of not doing). On the one hand it could be seen as cheapening the substantive work they do by giving them a ‘brand feel’ through their commercialisation.
Some of the very best, most original and indeed lasting art is not perfect; Mozart was scorned for not writing operas in Italian, Bob Dylan laughed at for not being able to sing, Von Gough died broken, poor and without an ear. Should we allow our politicians the same imperfections in their humanity and celebrate their successes while in power?
