Escapist Confrontation?
My experimental drawing professor told us about a class that he had had earlier on in the day. He said that this particular class was full of younger males, and that these males had an almost fanatical preference to fantasy and comic book media. When he asked my class why we might have thought it was so, I conjectured that maybe it was their way of escaping from the boring, the mundane, the routine of their lives. I mean, I could definitely relate because, hell, I love fantasy, science fictions, comics and video games for exactly that reason. There’s something empowering about imagining that we as people can rise up and match our full potential, and that that potential can be very great indeed. We’ve always imagined what it would be like to rise up to the occasion and we would all like to think that if faced with an unimaginably horrific zombie apocalypse we would be able to take it by the throat and beat the living hell out of it. We dream of flying through the stars, traveling instantaneously from location to location, lifting and throwing freight trains and mountains. The list goes on and on.
Suffice it to say, my professor’s viewpoint is that artists aren’t supposed to escape the drudgery of reality, but to confront it. I must say that yes, there is a part of me that agrees with this statement. However, can we also not surmise that by “escaping” from this reality through forms of media or creative interpretation/expression, we are in a way confronting it? Bear with me if this speculation seems a bit specious.
By leaving this reality behind temporarily, we teleport ourselves to worlds in which the normative rules and mannerisms of the people different. By reading about these worlds, we can form ideas and postulates on issues that we would not have a chance to address in our daily routine. I don’t know about you, but the person I am today has been shaped by me from taking ideas and ideals from characters that I have observed in my readings. They are by no means who I am, but they have helped me to become the person I am today by helping me to pick and choose which characteristics and thought processes I feel would benefit me in the way I live my life.
By creating works of art or writing a piece of literature, aren’t the artists allowing the innermost workings of their subconscious out into the world? Don’t they leave evidence of their own ideals in the pieces they create? By doing so these artists and writers are facing their inner demons and are confident in their unveiling. They are unafraid of the revelations in character that their art serves as a conduit for. By releasing their pent up energies into their works, people are allowed the privilege of sweeping out the skeletons in their closets and giving it a good dusting.
