In class today we focused on the question “What makes art
political?” In books and films, often how the characters are portrayed (their
beliefs and ideas and also the settings and situations the characters are put
in and how they react and deal to them) are what makes the work political. Arts
have the opportunity to make their political statements very subtle ways or in
outright ways, though subtlety is much less likely to be censored.
Censorship in itself is interesting because it often does
the opposite of what it’s supposed to. When something is censored, it is even
more popular. Czechoslovakia was very pro-censorship. This gave some art a
political meaning, even when the artist did not intend it to be political or
the viewers do not see it as political. This makes Communist Czechoslovakia
(the censor-ers) their own worst enemy.
I think The Joke is both art with political content and art
given a political meaning because of its content. Kundera is interested in
humanity and relationships and moral development and his characters just happen
to be in political situations, which would suggest that it is given a political
meaning after the fact. But The Joke also has political content, as seen
through Ludvik leading a bourgeois lifestyle even under Communism and poking
fun at the “Baptism” and therefore mocking the regime. It’s political because it’s
critical of the current political situation.
We then moved on the truth in art. In this case The Joke, a
fictional novel, can still have truth. While characters and situations can be
fictional, made-up, the characters’ feelings and reactions can be true in the
sense that people Trudy do react and feel that way and can relate. Simply, it
represents life the way it is.
Finally we talked about the truth in music. This left me
with a question:
If a musical piece has no lyrics, can it still inspire the
truth?
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