"The Game": Thoughts On The Culture Of Cultural Criticism

[moches]

There tends to be a bit of discomfort surrounding works of art produced by people who we would consider to be privileged: look at the reaction to Girls in the television industry, for example, or the general reaction to Vampire Weekend. This article attempts to delve into the hypocrisy of cultural criticism that dismisses these works based on the background of their creators, summing it up as a game played to avoid talking about the issues they raise:

The Game is largely played by people who are white and/or middle-class, and much of it involves trying to outmaneuver one another about precisely that fact. At the heart of The Game is fear and loathing and boredom concerning the possibility of being bourgeois. Being bourgeois is The Game’s great sin, and it is often referred to using the code word “white."[/b] If you can’t avoid this sin by virtue of being working-class or Ghanaian or something, your best bet is to deftly corner the market on wary “whiteness"-based critiques of anything that smacks of being bourgeois. The critique will try to present itself as an incisive dismantling of class/race/privilege, but at its heart it will just be “oh noes bourgeois." The great paradox here, of course, is that The Game is itself an incredibly bourgeois pastime, but never mind that: just keep The Game in mind as we trace some of the history of Vampire Weekend.

I find the fluid definition of what constitutes a "white" person particularly interesting; here's how the author describes the reaction to the members of Vampire Weekend:

People would look at pictures of them, at lists of their names, and describe them as “four white guys," or even “four WASPs" — WASP, of course, being the doubly pointed variety of “white." And this was interesting, of course, because one of them is Persian, and he was standing right there. Right there! At the time, I would mention that fact — or wonder what it means to describe Jews as WASPs — and the response I tended to get was: yeah well sure but you know.

An unintended consequence of this view is that it indirectly condescends towards people who The Game determines "not-white": in order for "white" culture to be open to criticism, there has to be an ideal to compare it against, which the author describes as an illusory "realness."

Mostly The Game just uses non-white people as cudgels for Americans to outmaneuver one another on the subject of who’s too bourgeois. In order for The Game to criticize bourgeois “whiteness" as privileged, over-educated, too polite, and too clever, it needs various non-white people to go on representing some kind of “realness" — plus, accidentally, poverty, lack of education, and vulgarity.

She also goes on to accuse critics:

The critic, ever wary of a band like Vampire Weekend’s likely privilege, doesn’t look very far into what, if anything, they’re saying about class — so sure is she that her take on class issues will be more important and incisive.

The big question I think this article asks is this: does the value or truth a work of art holds depend on the position of its creator? Is The Wire inherently a more important work of art compared to, say, Girls, or is there a different standard we should evaluate both shows by? The author says no, but there's a bit of grey area.

This is why I think most of us could afford to stand down our participation in The Game. What it tends to draw out of us are critiques that sound fierce and penetrating but are mostly about arrogance and oneupsmanship and posturing. It’s tiresome.

Some other interesting questions to ask?

1. The author argues that in The Game, every single position of advantage is aggregated into one signifier: being white. Is this true, in your experience? Is there an inherently racial factor in every category of status, or are there exceptions?

2. Who holds more power - creators of art or critics of art? Who gets to define what a work of art really means?

3. Is criticism even important to understanding art? Literature has the Western canon; music and film have thousands of lists about all of the classic albums/films that every self-respecting person must listen to/see. Are we obligated to experience these works revered as classics, or is it more important to find what is important to us?

[Pseudo Enigma]

2. Who holds more power - creators of art or critics of art? Who gets to define what a work of art really means?

I think a good artist has control of their audience, and is not controlled by their audience.

This "game" being played can roughly be marked down to common racism.

However, this does raise a good point. To go as literal as possible, how do we see the "colour" white, unless we have other colours surrounding it? Is white truly white if we take away everything that makes us determine that it is white?
Maybe it is necessary as a culture to surround ourselves with other "colours" to compare ourselves to in order to assure ourselves that we are white..



just my uneducated 2c on this

You all just lost the game, by the way.

[DossarLX ODI]

Originally Posted by moches

1. The author argues that in The Game, every single position of advantage is aggregated into one signifier: being white. Is this true, in your experience? Is there an inherently racial factor in every category of status, or are there exceptions?

2. Who holds more power - creators of art or critics of art? Who gets to define what a work of art really means?

3. Is criticism even important to understanding art? Literature has the Western canon; music and film have thousands of lists about all of the classic albums/films that every self-respecting person must listen to/see. Are we obligated to experience these works revered as classics, or is it more important to find what is important to us?

1.) In the United States there is an obvious divide in favoring whites over dark skinned people. Just look at how more unfairly blacks are treated when it comes to the justice system. I wouldn't say there is an inherent racial factor in every category of status but I will say that for certain races it is a lot harder to make progress because of societal barriers. Not everyone is born with equal opportunity

2.) This depends. Is the art commercial or is it for no monetary benefit? Anyone who is creating art and plans on using it to mainly make money etc. needs to appeal to their audience, so the criticism is absolutely necessary. However, if it is more of a hobby and not for commercial gains, the creators have a lot more power in defining what a work of art is. Nero's Day At Disneyland for instance is not a big commercial artist, but instead has more of a niche audience. His tracks Lexus Made of Bones, Everyone Here is a Guard, Hero Reconsidering, Beautiful Beachfront Properties, Help Me Find My Child or the Gold are examples of art that create their own stories within the tracks themselves. But these tracks would just be considered cacophonous noise to a bigger audience that would listen to pop etc. because those people are not viewing the tracks in the correct context.

3.) Ultimately everyone creates art with the intent of sharing their works in some degree, so yes criticism is necessary in this aspect. However, criticism should not limit creativity (ESPECIALLY if the art is not done for commercial purposes). Honestly whether something is more important to us mainly depends on if the topic at hand is related to monetary gains or hobbies. In other words, context is key.

[Arch0wl]

Originally Posted by moches

1. Is there an inherently racial factor in every category of status, or are there exceptions?

no, status has nothing to do with race. I am not even sure how you could demonstrate a racial connection; the only thing I can think of is if someone argued that people perceive certain races as better or worse, but that follows hard factors like income -- if you reverse the hard factors, the perception will change.

Originally Posted by moches

2. Who holds more power - creators of art or critics of art? Who gets to define what a work of art really means?

this is a false dichotomy; the people who hold power are the people with the most resources, e.g. money and/or influence. people with resources can be artists or art critics, and some people are both artists and art critics, and some people are both artists and art critics and people with resources.

Originally Posted by moches

3. Is criticism even important to understanding art? Literature has the Western canon...

stop right there -- "criticism" isn't synonymous with the western canon. the western canon is influenced by a host of things, namely the biases that authority creates, and whether a book is included or not really has more to do with tradition and institutionalized hype. the criteria for book awards, for example, which are observably some of the strongest determinants to whether a book is included in the canon, have more to do with certain criteria that are valued by a set of people than other criteria, even if those criteria may not be superior to other criteria. for example, "literary fiction" seems to overwhelmingly favor character development as opposed to conceptual development, plot development, etc.

now, to your question. criticism can *aid* understanding of art, but it's not essential; I don't see why it would be at all, unless you're tasked with understanding a particular critic's idea of what a certain art constitutes

[moches]

responding to everybody at once:

the first interesting point people bring up in this thread is about the dynamic between artists and audience. there's actually overlap between what Pseudo Enigma said:

Originally Posted by Pseudo Enigma

I think a good artist has control of their audience, and is not controlled by their audience.

and what Arch0wl says here:

the people who hold power are the people with the most resources, e.g. money and/or influence. people with resources can be artists or art critics, and some people are both artists and art critics, and some people are both artists and art critics and people with resources.

I didn't think about it as a resource/control issue, so that's nice to think about. It also makes more sense on a practical level to deal with the issue on a case-by-case basis instead of saying something is fundamentally in the hands of artists or in the hands of the audience.

Originally Posted by DossarLX ODI

1.) In the United States there is an obvious divide in favoring whites over dark skinned people. Just look at how more unfairly blacks are treated when it comes to the justice system. I wouldn't say there is an inherent racial factor in every category of status but I will say that for certain races it is a lot harder to make progress because of societal barriers. Not everyone is born with equal opportunity

Originally Posted by Arch0wl

no, status has nothing to do with race. I am not even sure how you could demonstrate a racial connection; the only thing I can think of is if someone argued that people perceive certain races as better or worse, but that follows hard factors like income -- if you reverse the hard factors, the perception will change.

just to clarify: are these thoughts on status in the artistic community or just status in general? (actually, they might be the same thing, one's just a subset of the other)

Originally Posted by Arch0wl

stop right there -- "criticism" isn't synonymous with the western canon. the western canon is influenced by a host of things, namely the biases that authority creates, and whether a book is included or not really has more to do with tradition and institutionalized hype. the criteria for book awards, for example, which are observably some of the strongest determinants to whether a book is included in the canon, have more to do with certain criteria that are valued by a set of people than other criteria, even if those criteria may not be superior to other criteria. for example, "literary fiction" seems to overwhelmingly favor character development as opposed to conceptual development, plot development, etc.

now, to your question. criticism can *aid* understanding of art, but it's not essential; I don't see why it would be at all, unless you're tasked with understanding a particular critic's idea of what a certain art constitutes

Yeah, good call on that: that question would be cleaner if I had just removed the first part entirely. What I really meant to ask there was about whether it's important to subscribe to a canon of art at all: it's an issue I face a lot as a music critic because there's often bands people are continuously talking about that I haven't listened to or do absolutely nothing for me.

Partially I think it's a cultural divide (what is important to an American adult male writer is probably going to differ from what is important to me), but I'm sure other people aren't losing sleep over never having heard a 65daysofstatic song while I am STILL wondering if I should give The National another shot.

Originally Posted by DossarLX ODI

2.) This depends. Is the art commercial or is it for no monetary benefit? Anyone who is creating art and plans on using it to mainly make money etc. needs to appeal to their audience, so the criticism is absolutely necessary. However, if it is more of a hobby and not for commercial gains, the creators have a lot more power in defining what a work of art is. Nero's Day At Disneyland for instance is not a big commercial artist, but instead has more of a niche audience. His tracks Lexus Made of Bones, Everyone Here is a Guard, Hero Reconsidering, Beautiful Beachfront Properties, Help Me Find My Child or the Gold are examples of art that create their own stories within the tracks themselves. But these tracks would just be considered cacophonous noise to a bigger audience that would listen to pop etc. because those people are not viewing the tracks in the correct context.

3.) Ultimately everyone creates art with the intent of sharing their works in some degree, so yes criticism is necessary in this aspect. However, criticism should not limit creativity (ESPECIALLY if the art is not done for commercial purposes). Honestly whether something is more important to us mainly depends on if the topic at hand is related to monetary gains or hobbies. In other words, context is key.

I find both of these points accurate, but it sounds like "popularity" might be a better signifier than "profit" here. Usually, profit and creativity aren't opposites and often go hand-in-hand.

[Cavernio]

"Is The Wire inherently a more important work of art compared to, say, Girls, or is there a different standard we should evaluate both shows by?"

Some art you need the perspective of the creator to fully understand. Other art, the creator(s) make it more accessible. If you need to know where the creator comes from in order to understand a piece of art, then you would definitely need to use a different criteria in order to evaluate it.
For what it's worth, each season of the wire explores a different class/aspect of class, so I'm not sure it's a great comparison to Girls (presuming Girls explores only 1 class, I don't actually know, I've never heard of it.)

To value one work of art more than another is opening an entire can of worms though, as I don't think you could really get into how classism affects value without exploring what gives art value in the first place. One could use popularity as a measure of art's value, since it reaching a lot of people means it actually has influence.


As to race v class, obviously being white is it's own separate thing and surely is skin deep and could be the reverse of what we have now in terms of hierarchy. But contrary to what archowl concludes, I think it's very, very hard to separate class from race. The term being used, and one that resonates with younger people such they understand it, is 'white' afterall, and not 'bourgeoisie'.