During my upbringing in a conservative evangelical community, managing children’s exposure to art was a top priority. The underlying belief was that each artwork carries a distinct message, and consuming messages that conflict with Christianity could harm one’s faith. An illustrative song called “Input Output” perfectly captured this aesthetic theory with its lyrics. The search for secular artworks’ “inputs” sometimes took a paranoid form, like the belief in subliminal messages recorded in reverse or hidden sexual imagery in films like Lion King. However, the analysis was primarily focused on direct consumption. The portrayal of a behavior or belief without an immediate negative judgment was seen as an endorsement and recommendation. It was believed that individuals who consumed such messages would be more likely to adopt those behaviors and beliefs.
This theory formed the foundation of Christian contemporary music, which aimed to replace a powerful channel for negative messages. A running joke of mine for many years has been that all Top 40 music is effectively Christian contemporary music now, as American Idol confirmed the dominance of the “praise band” vocal style. Additionally, mainstream criticism, particularly in film and television, follows a similar evangelical structure, if not in content. Every artwork is believed to convey a clear message, and the portrayal of a particular behavior or belief is seen as an endorsement. This phenomenon crosses partisan boundaries, with both left-wing and right-wing critics engaging in this approach. For instance, there are videos of right-wing provocateurs decrying the woke excesses of products like Barbie, while reviews also praise the same product tie-in as a feminist fable.
However, my primary focus is on the left-wing critical practices, with Jacobin being notable for its reductive and moralistic cultural coverage. In a recent column, critic Eileen Jones expressed concern over the lack of urgency in a film about nuclear war and climate catastrophes, assuming that those dangers are already understood. Instead of an educational presentation on nuclear war, audiences are presented with a biopic that takes creative liberties with its subject’s life for the sake of entertainment. Despite criticisms, Jones finds more positive aspects in Barbie, despite its long history of reinforcing superficial feminist ideals and consumerism.
This trend is not limited to a single publication but rather permeates online culture, particularly on social media. For instance, discussions on Twitter after a weekend movie release highlighted the absence of Japanese characters in a film about the creator of the nuclear bomb, as well as the erasure of Indigenous and Hispanic communities surrounding Los Alamos. While these concerns may be valid, it is essential to consider the challenges of portraying these sensitive subjects in a film. There is a delicate balance between portraying victims without idealizing them or suggesting they deserved their fate.
Although leftists do not need to be as paranoid as Christians searching for satanic content when playing records backward, their demand for artworks that align with their politics can be limitless. This open-ended demand can ultimately lead to artwork that becomes straightforward political propaganda, a mistake that evangelicals and Stalinists have made in the past. Even though we are unlikely to witness a Leninist version of VeggieTales, this style of criticism diminishes the audience’s intellect by assuming they are mere ideology-processing machines, unlike the insightful commentator who can see through the deception.
Political issues cannot be resolved solely on the artistic level. People often consume politics as a form of aesthetic performance or as a way to express their aesthetic preferences. Reducing art to political propaganda results in poor artistic quality, and aestheticizing politics leads to irresponsible and shallow political practices. While aesthetics and politics are not entirely unrelated, they primarily belong to different realms. Political messaging can be part of an aesthetic effect, just as politics can benefit from aesthetic appeal. However, confusing or collapsing these categories leads to a lack of progress.
This article is an adaptation of a blog post by Adam Kotsko from An Und Für Sich.
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