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Analysis: Good Fiction Gone Bad
by Ali Asadullah 05/07/2001
Fiction, under the right constraints, can be one of the most powerful tools for the enlightenment of the human mind and the strengthening of the human soul. Various writers, musicians, artists and filmmakers have, throughout history, endeavored to make fiction serve just that purpose, through the examination of humanity and thus exploring human frailty, the capacity for love, the penchant for hate, the relationship with the Almighty and so much more. However, in the post-modern age, fiction seems to have taken a wrong turn - a detour of sorts. With ever-increasing demand for works of fiction as entertainment and with such profitable business models pushing production of films, books and music towards a lowest common denominator, fiction has taken on decidedly trashy quality.
Now this is not to say that the fiction of past eras has been wholesome beyond compare. One needs to look no further than the Marquis de Sade to realize that filth, masquerading as fiction, is not a new phenomenon. However, at the dawn of the 21st century, it must be recognized that there is a tacit acceptance that fiction is little more than entertainment and that the more violent, sexually explicit and verbally coarse it is, the better it is from a critical point of view.
The key, contributing factor to this situation is the persistent, pervasive hegemony of moral relativism in the West. Only with moral relativism do we get cliched words of praise such as "pushing the envelope", or "daring", or even "irreverent". There was a time in the West, America in particular, when such words had seriously negative connotations. To be irreverent was to flirt with hellfire. To be daring was to be irresponsibly negligent. To push the envelope or "cause a sensation" was to assuredly raise the righteous wrath of the community. This is no longer the case.
Take for instance the 1999 Lion's Gate Films release Dogma. Watching this film, one gets the impression that writer/director Kevin Smith watched a few too many episodes of Joseph Campbell's PBS series on mythology. The movie was one assault on religion after another, with depictions of angels and apostles that should raise the hackles on the backs of every God-fearing monotheist on the planet. And to top things off, America's favorite rage-filled female musician, Alanis Morrisette, played the role of God, turning the Creator and Sustainer of all existence into a dim-witted eccentric incapable of communication. The movie featured all this and a script filled with the most profane language and unacceptable sexual references you can think off.
The reaction? The film was screened at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival in France and was lauded by no less than five major newspapers in the United States, including the
New York Times, the New York Post, the San Jose Mercury News, the
Los Angeles Times, and the Chicago Sun Times where popular movie reviewer Roger Ebert wrote:
"As someone who values his parochial school education and still gets into interminable debates about church teachings, I enjoyed the "Dogma" approach, which takes church teaching jokingly and very seriously indeed--both at the same time. ... What's more, I think a Catholic God might plausibly enjoy a movie like "Dogma," or at least understand the human impulses that made it, as he made them."
One cannot even begin to go into the very serious problems with Ebert's statement, not the least of which is his own irreverent implication that he knows what God thinks.
The real problem here is the practical application of art. Because human nature stands as the one constant throughout history (and will remain constant until the end of time), it has become more difficult to break new ground with reference to positive exploration of the human condition. Even the treatment of the darker side of humanity through the use of the cautionary tale has become passe. As such, its seems that writers, filmmakers and other artists are turning
en masse to the only untouched regions of the human condition: the perverse, the dark, the dysfunctional, the irreverent, the lewd, the crude and every other previously forbidden or questionable subject matter available.
Are these artists making statements about the societies in which live? Sure they are. But do all those statements actually need to be made? Most definitely not. Do sick and twisted movies such as the
Hellraiser series really need to be made? Does the genre of "Sexual Thriller" really need to exist?
What it all boils down to is this: to be vulgar or excessive takes less skill, talent, inspiration and energy than finding new and innovative ways to be positive, intellectual, advisory and/or uplifting. And because of the supply/demand scenario that controls the entertainment business, there has been little incentive for writers and filmmakers to buck the trend. But, the interesting thing about popular culture is that it has a tendency to cannibalize itself. Things become obsolete almost as quickly as they are released. So the time might very well be right for a new breed of creative minds to step to the fore and begin ministering to the deeper needs of humanity though fiction once again.
The question is: Who will be willing to take that step?
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