| DarthMetalliCube said: Art is a reflection of society, and that includes politics. And art of all mediums, should be given the right to free speech, which also means people expressing their political views. Though I think what some are responding to is the OVERT political messages constantly shoved in people's faces, and often leaning in one direction. And often times people do want to use art and especially entertainment as a means of escape, which means escape from the negativity and complexity of society and politics. So it's a tricky issue. By no means should people be censored from expressing political views or messages in art and entertainment, but at the same time, you could see why people who seek an outlet would want forms of these mediums totally free of these political bents. I often feel the same way. It's part of the appeal of watching, say, a baseball game for instance. Additionally, when you shove in overt political messages, you risk alienating a good chunk of your potential audience, because not everybody is going to agree with your views, so you immediately are risking repelling a certain amount of people, particularly through overt and not particularly well communicated or intelligent political statements. My two cents.. |
I just had to quote this, because this post rings true in my opinion.
Yes, art can have political messages, even if the author didn't intended it. Alone in reflection of the authors views on the world it can get political. That means often this isn't even a conscious decision. But sometimes authors WANT to project a political message. This can be good if the author is skillful and can show the political message while still producing an entertaining piece of art. In other cases that goes horribly wrong and the art suffers from the attempt to deliver a political message.
Commercial art often tries explicitly to avoid politics. A german opinion piece showed how Anno 1800 explicitly tried to avoid some political stuff in history or tone it down to avoid controversy. That is for instance the topic of slavery or the topic of colonialism. That is often for commercial art that don't want such discussions to impact the sales of their games. Again, a good creator can avoid politics or some political topics and still produce a great piece of art, but the artifical removal of political hot topics can equally hurt the art, because neither the creator nor the consumer of said art can avoid to think about these political frames in many cases.
So people will always be upset about some art being too political or not political enough or showing the wrong political stance in their opinion, while others are fine. I think as long the author either not thinks about politics or see politics as a tool to improve the art, it can work out great. If politics on the other hand is starting to feel like a restriction for the creator (be it that the creator feels he HAS to show a certain political point or he has to avoid one) it can impact the art negatively.
One other point: good art allows for interpretation. Even differing or possibly even contradicting interpretations. Above Rol pointed out Mario could be seen as communist. It is equally easy to see it as capitalist propaganda, after all Mario is hunting coins, skinning racoons or cats for his suits shows that he is destroying the environment to reach his capitalist goals and crushing the competition in form of Bowser to rule the helpless consumer depicted by Peach. So if we are upset by a political message of a piece of art, we should reflect for a moment if this message is intended by the author or an interpretation by myself and if other interpretations are possible and likely.
