Brian -- You are coming very close to saying "you believe what you want, and I'll believe what I want." Because censors have used moral reasoning to support their actions does not mean that meaning and morality can't be discussed and used as means of making aesthetic judgment. That sort of reasoning leads to all kinds of problems -- we can't discuss religion, because of the Crusades; we can't discuss marxism because of Stalin; and so on. Eventually, you come to the point where the only way to discuss art (or anything else) is that pure formalism, which means removing art from any social context and rendering it irrelevant to anything aside from beauty. I personally can't go with that. It is an idea that has gained credence since the "art for art sake" folks and the New Critics during the past 150 years or so, but the idea that there is a connection between art and morality goes all the way back to Plato and Aristotle. I'll go with them.

I agree with Kate, and don't mean to imply that all art exists to communicate a serious message. But even comedy, when done right, shows us our foibles -- and we can learn from seeing these foibles ridiculed.

And I also thought that Natural Born Killers was artistically irresponsible and morally objectionable. But I tend to find all his recent films to be so. And I don't think the director meant Natural Born Killers to be a farce. Could be wrong, but I don't think that's how he saw it.

Scott

I agree with Kate. This monologue reflects the same compartmentalization of intellect and emotions that allowed Auschwitz commandants to listen to Mozart after work. Brian, I simply cannot agree with your idea that a work of art is a "closed system." I guess I am an old-fashioned kind of artist who thinks that art is mimetic, it holds the mirror up to nature. I tend to agree with Horace: that art exists to entertain and instruct, and that the artist has to have some sort of responsibility to others. American Psycho has very little redeeming social value, in my opinion -- and I am baffled how anyone could think it is funny. But Brian and I have rarely agreed on issues of morality in art, so I'm not all that surprised.

Scott

That IS funny! In the novel, the monologues are in his head - the story is a first person narrative. It comes off much more chilling. The reader senses that the killer never really interacts with his victims on any real level. In fact, his murderous actions are afterthoughts to the "important" business of being the perfectly up-to-date 80's man--the expert on all things high culture. I guess this is also true in the film, but the portrait of Bateman in the novel is one of a man apart, one we dare not laugh at without the risk of becoming his next victim.

Jess

Well! I never thought I'd hear anyone refer to Bret Easton Ellis' "American Psycho" as a comedy. That book turned my stomach almost as much as "Exquisite Cadaver" by Poppy Z. Brite. Is it the film that is presented comically? I haven't seen it... Ellis' novel plays up the disparity and bleakness of a supposedly victim-less world, but I don't think he's going for a comic effect. Any lightheartedness in the book only serves to drive home the brutality achieved by the protagonist through actions inadvertantly condoned by the "succeed at all costs" lifestyle of Wall Street in the mid-80's.

Jess

this weekend I watched "The Fourth Wall" at UNCA and "Picasso at the Lapin Agile" at WWC. Both are the highbrow comedy of which Kate is speaking. Both were directed by students. Both just weren't funny (the productions, not the scripts - at both shows the scripts got plenty o' laughs...)

Comedy is hard work. It falls mainly to the director to implement the mechanisms of comedy, and then to hard-working actors to carry it out. Neither of these productions accomplished this. Both productions had as their action - - "sitting down and saying my lines."

Bleah.
Jess

Actually, Jess and I had a brief, but interesting dialogue about Restoration comedy after my post -- so it is possible. To clarify: I dislike comedies where I am supposed to laugh at people being objectified. In Restoration comedy, women are objectified, and the "fun" revolves around predatory men (and a few predatory women) trying to manipulate others. "The Shape of Things" and "In the Company of Men" does the same thing -- people wear masks in order to deceive, and brutalize, another person. It is comedy that allows high status people to laugh at lower status people, and that makes me queasy. I have never been able to find David Letterman funny for the same reason -- his humor revolves around making other people look stupid, while maintaining his "cooler-than-thou" attitude. Me? I'll take traditional low-status comedy like Laurel and Hardy, Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Abbott and Costello, and Lucille Ball any day of the week.

Scott

Hold on there, cowboys - Is "The Shape of Things" the play that Laura had folks work scenes from in Acting II last year? I think I should give it a read so's I can weigh in on the subject.....

Jess

I agree with Kate on this one -- I found it despicable. Provocative in a non-illuminating way. Much like the playwright's other abomination, "In the Company of Men." I object to it for the same reason I object to many Restoration plays.

Scott

Brian -- Did you read the discussion of this play in the TCG presentation I sent out as a link? Kushner said he started out writing a SNL script that suddenly turned toward understanding and sympathizing with Laura Bush. Kushner says he actually is sympathetic to her, since she is a "big reader" who is married to...well, let's just say "not a big reader."

That said, I somewhat agree with Brian about the tendency to stick with the political in our theatre. I am getting weary of art at the level of the social. My spirit calls out to be addressed. I'll take Brand, with all its flaws, over most contemporary American plays. Although I think that Kushner usually goes beyond the political to play around with epic and spiritual issues. I certainly thought that of Angels in America.

On a practical issue: we'll meet at UB on Monday, but we should probably addresss the location issue. Not just the noise, but the expense. Perhaps it is too much?

Scott

Thank god John doesn't have to leave early!

Whew!

Jess

I'm all for bringing our own lunches and meeting in a quieter space. Maybe on campus?

Sorry, Scott. I haven't finished Brand yet. It's on my list for this weekend. So far, all I can say is that it certainly is epic.

Jess

So, Jess, what did you think of the ending of Brand?

Scott