Dear Gretchen: Can Art Be Evil?

Dear Gretchen,

Are there any movies you consider morally irredeemable? If so, do you  still think that there’s something to be gained from watching them?

-Christian

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Thanks for your question, Christian!

The short answer is that no, I don't really think of any art as irredeemable. The exceptions would be propaganda and corporate art, which exists solely to prey on insecurities and frustrations for financial gain. That, to me, is a perversion of the purpose of art and should be stamped out. There is no gain to the many in advertising that couldn't be replaced and exceeded by socialist programs. Art can be awful though, obviously. Woody Allen's cringing, calculatedly pitiful self-apologia, Clint Eastwood's nationalist sentimentality, the casual fat jokes and transphobia of a good half of all mainstream movies; it's all reinforcing poisonous cultural trends, fostering hatred through the dehumanizing cruelty of cheap humor and stereotyping. 

Aronofsky's Requiem for a Dream is probably my least favorite movie, but I wouldn't classify it as irredeemable. Watching it was useful to me in determining the things in art that I find hateful and stupid. A harsher, more superior attitude toward addicts isn't something the world really needs, and intentionally or not Requiem is supremely condescending toward and uninterested in addicts as human beings. Its technical and creative merits are few, but it would be foolish to claim there's nothing to gain from taking them in. It's always valuable to study craft. It's a harmful movie, heartless and with little to say and an immensely smug way of saying it. The world might be better off without it, but it can still teach you a few things about how to point a camera.

There are many films within a few standard deviations of Requiem which make a much better argument for their own existence. Eyes Wide Shut is kind of precious about marriage in a way I find boring and square, but it's also one of the most beautiful and unsettling movies ever made. Breakdown is pretty much a suburban power fantasy about an office worker beating evil hicks to death and rescuing his helpless wife, but it also rips, its action scenes daring and wild, its characters well-sketched. Even if art comes from a morally or emotionally distasteful place it can be moving, or beautifully made. 

Nothing is pure in art. I'll always enjoy Rosemary's Baby even knowing its director is a serial predator, his thoughtful adaptation of a story about a woman's loss of sexual agency a bitterly satirical thing in and of itself. Month after month, year after year, art and artists are reassessed along moral lines. Some of this is vital work. Predators like Polanski and the recently deceased Alec Holowka shouldn't be in positions of power over others. Their actions should be widely known for the safety of others in their fields. Art itself, especially once it becomes financially uncoupled from the artist, doesn't follow the same rules.