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mc776http://taxidermied.livejournal.com/42521.html
Also, just because it deserves a mention, HOLY FUCK WORST APOSTROPHE MISTAKE EVER
EDIT: Googling the guy out of trainwreck syndrome. Seems like he's made a bit of a name for himself. And the more I read, the less I like.
Nevermind the art thief issue for now, but let's just consider what we could presume to be original material. My gripe is much simpler: Todd Goldman represents and fosters everything that I find degenerate about Western civilization.
First off, a very simple four-part theory of good art. I will assume that art, as an endeavour, should ideally help people find virtue and goodness in their lives. This is merely an extension of a purely utilitarian view on what good means; if your idea of good does not involve such utilitarian assumptions, this standard may not make a whole of of sense. Art, in my view, is anything created through a person's will that has some kind of communicative, aesthetic value; by "communicative" I mean to include the aesthetic portion, so abstract works of course also count even where they carry no express message.
With that in mind, good art should have at least one of the following characteristics:
Mere entertainment, in this set of standards, amounts to little more than an incentive to bring the audience to the work. An important incentive, but
Example: 300. Its explicit purpose is 1). Unfortunately, it also does 3), in such a bumbling and unsympathetically simplistic way that it undermines its own purpose.
Example: Bridge to Terabithia. In a few respects a bit short of 4), especially given what the audience had been told to expect by the marketing campaign, but all three other criteria are well met.
Example: South Park. I can't think of any non-ironic, non-"ironic" expression of 1), which given the art style (combined with the nature of comedy itself) is just as well. I see enough of 2) for a yes on that count: enough satire is "internalized" by the protagonists that we can empathize with the flawed characters qua flawed characters. 3) is demonstrated, and even explicitly flaunted in the episode where they make fun of Family Guy. I'll leave evaluation of 4) to the reader.
Now let's take a look at Goldman's work, namely the pictures I linked to above. I've decided to decline to go over any particular one with description and all, but rather to address them generally with examples as needed; so do take a look and keep that window open to see for yourself.
Criterion 1): Surprisingly enough, I do see something here, most obviously in "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them". The general exhortation to be more assertive and less reverent to unexamined social norms is on its face a good message under any standard that values free speech. Such an exhortation must still be supported by some context to be of any worth. I see no indication from these messages that any such norms should actually be examined; rather, they seem to be disregarded wholesale ("Sometimes I like to run...") except where it serves the speaker ("Spandex is a privilege..."). Ultimately the pictures just exhort people to be rude.
There is another criterion 1 issue, but I'm going to address that in criterion 4.
Criterion 2): Some of the statements (e.g., "I don't repeat gossip...") may be understood as coming from sympathetic characters. My gut instincts tell me that it would be far too charitable, however, to ascribe such creation of sympathy to even a token attempt to fulfill criterion 2. The only other example I can find of similar issues is "Smoking kills...". In both of these, read in the context of "You say I'm a bitch...", exhude a certain smugness that, far from indicating an admission of fault, openly exhorts the wrongdoing described.
Criterion 3): I wish to address this under criterion 4, as my impressions are inextricably bound to the technical expression of these ideas. This is also the issue I had deferred above under criterion 1.
Criterion 4): In terms of the humour, almost utter failure. I say almost because I did smirk at "Spooning leads to forking". But I smirk at just about any stupidly cutesy reference to the word fuck as a bad habit. Someone of similar background as myself but better restraint over wholly prurient pleasures would not find it unfair to call it an utter failure. All the jokes are trite beyond rehabilitation; it is only a little less obvious in the ones whose main punch lies in shocking the viewer, simply because the viewer is inevitably distracted by the sexual or other reference. Perhaps one day they may gain some value as an attempt at camp. That day is not today.
In terms of artistic technical merit, every picture except "Smoking..." and "Golddigger" (and maybe "Spooning...") consists of an extremely crude image that but for its straight, smooth lines, looks like it had been drawn by a small child. This is, of course, not simply because the artist is incapable of any better: the style is a deliberate capitalization on the primitivist "noble savage" ideal, the return to some mythical childlike innocence that has been espoused in our mainstream literature since the Romantic era. The implied narrative, of course, is of civilization's fall from nature's grace: we as adults have been somehow corrupted to a point where only a crude developmental atavism will be able to save us. This narrative is problematic on two counts.
First, there is the now trite irony that such an ideal is being packaged and marketed and sold quite profitably as a commodity. We see this everywhere, I won't go into detail. Suffice it to say that anyone who can afford good publicity has not attained such a return.
Second, aside from those who have profited from packaging and marketing and selling the atavistic ideal, such an ideal has helped no one. If anything, it's done considerable damage to anyone who has accepted it in good faith. Without devaluing other causes of what are of course complex issues, I blame on this meme the following:
I do not deny that people find entertainment value in the pictures; Goldman has received a good deal of money and publicity for his works and to dismiss the demand as stupidity would be to fall into that very trap of cynicism the promotion of which I find his (and others') work disturbing.
One thing remains to be clarified. By this harsh criticism of Goldman's work I do not mean to refer solely to Goldman's work alone. Far from it. I've seen (and done) this kind of thing for years, and after the novelty of "attitude" wore off the problems and grievances I've expressed in this post had been sitting and building up in the back of my mind for quite some time. I had better things to do, naturally, and didn't bother to go further; today's sudden distraction, however, got me thinking about it again, and the work I've seen just happened to serve as a near perfect example of why so much of what passes for art has become utterly irrelevant in the past couple decades.
Also, just because it deserves a mention, HOLY FUCK WORST APOSTROPHE MISTAKE EVER
EDIT: Googling the guy out of trainwreck syndrome. Seems like he's made a bit of a name for himself. And the more I read, the less I like.
Nevermind the art thief issue for now, but let's just consider what we could presume to be original material. My gripe is much simpler: Todd Goldman represents and fosters everything that I find degenerate about Western civilization.
First off, a very simple four-part theory of good art. I will assume that art, as an endeavour, should ideally help people find virtue and goodness in their lives. This is merely an extension of a purely utilitarian view on what good means; if your idea of good does not involve such utilitarian assumptions, this standard may not make a whole of of sense. Art, in my view, is anything created through a person's will that has some kind of communicative, aesthetic value; by "communicative" I mean to include the aesthetic portion, so abstract works of course also count even where they carry no express message.
With that in mind, good art should have at least one of the following characteristics:
- It should inspire noble sentiments to remind the audience that there is something greater that they can aspire to;
- it should inspire disgust and pity, holding up a mirror to help the audience understand and hopefully address their own flaws;
- it should please the aesthetic in support or propagation of some ethical principle or mythopoeic narrative that helps the audience better themselves in a given way; or
- its very production should showcase some technical merit in furtherance of one of the above, with the proviso that the ultimate motive of the work not itself be reprehensible for some other reason.
Mere entertainment, in this set of standards, amounts to little more than an incentive to bring the audience to the work. An important incentive, but
Example: 300. Its explicit purpose is 1). Unfortunately, it also does 3), in such a bumbling and unsympathetically simplistic way that it undermines its own purpose.
Example: Bridge to Terabithia. In a few respects a bit short of 4), especially given what the audience had been told to expect by the marketing campaign, but all three other criteria are well met.
Example: South Park. I can't think of any non-ironic, non-"ironic" expression of 1), which given the art style (combined with the nature of comedy itself) is just as well. I see enough of 2) for a yes on that count: enough satire is "internalized" by the protagonists that we can empathize with the flawed characters qua flawed characters. 3) is demonstrated, and even explicitly flaunted in the episode where they make fun of Family Guy. I'll leave evaluation of 4) to the reader.
Now let's take a look at Goldman's work, namely the pictures I linked to above. I've decided to decline to go over any particular one with description and all, but rather to address them generally with examples as needed; so do take a look and keep that window open to see for yourself.
Criterion 1): Surprisingly enough, I do see something here, most obviously in "Boys are stupid, throw rocks at them". The general exhortation to be more assertive and less reverent to unexamined social norms is on its face a good message under any standard that values free speech. Such an exhortation must still be supported by some context to be of any worth. I see no indication from these messages that any such norms should actually be examined; rather, they seem to be disregarded wholesale ("Sometimes I like to run...") except where it serves the speaker ("Spandex is a privilege..."). Ultimately the pictures just exhort people to be rude.
There is another criterion 1 issue, but I'm going to address that in criterion 4.
Criterion 2): Some of the statements (e.g., "I don't repeat gossip...") may be understood as coming from sympathetic characters. My gut instincts tell me that it would be far too charitable, however, to ascribe such creation of sympathy to even a token attempt to fulfill criterion 2. The only other example I can find of similar issues is "Smoking kills...". In both of these, read in the context of "You say I'm a bitch...", exhude a certain smugness that, far from indicating an admission of fault, openly exhorts the wrongdoing described.
Criterion 3): I wish to address this under criterion 4, as my impressions are inextricably bound to the technical expression of these ideas. This is also the issue I had deferred above under criterion 1.
Criterion 4): In terms of the humour, almost utter failure. I say almost because I did smirk at "Spooning leads to forking". But I smirk at just about any stupidly cutesy reference to the word fuck as a bad habit. Someone of similar background as myself but better restraint over wholly prurient pleasures would not find it unfair to call it an utter failure. All the jokes are trite beyond rehabilitation; it is only a little less obvious in the ones whose main punch lies in shocking the viewer, simply because the viewer is inevitably distracted by the sexual or other reference. Perhaps one day they may gain some value as an attempt at camp. That day is not today.
In terms of artistic technical merit, every picture except "Smoking..." and "Golddigger" (and maybe "Spooning...") consists of an extremely crude image that but for its straight, smooth lines, looks like it had been drawn by a small child. This is, of course, not simply because the artist is incapable of any better: the style is a deliberate capitalization on the primitivist "noble savage" ideal, the return to some mythical childlike innocence that has been espoused in our mainstream literature since the Romantic era. The implied narrative, of course, is of civilization's fall from nature's grace: we as adults have been somehow corrupted to a point where only a crude developmental atavism will be able to save us. This narrative is problematic on two counts.
First, there is the now trite irony that such an ideal is being packaged and marketed and sold quite profitably as a commodity. We see this everywhere, I won't go into detail. Suffice it to say that anyone who can afford good publicity has not attained such a return.
Second, aside from those who have profited from packaging and marketing and selling the atavistic ideal, such an ideal has helped no one. If anything, it's done considerable damage to anyone who has accepted it in good faith. Without devaluing other causes of what are of course complex issues, I blame on this meme the following:
- the Unabomber;
- the grassroots, anti-intellectual, anti-rational fundamentalism that, if aggravating and harmful in the past, now spreads like a cancer through the greatest bastions of both Christianity and Islam;
- any countless number of aspiring bad artists who believe that their creativity will take them anywhere, leaving their actual technical skill in gross neglect;
- both great totalitarian ideologies of the twentieth century, the Nazis sacrificing all human decency on the altar of unthinking passion and the Communists doing both that and systematically undermining their own nations' entire cultural superstructure as sophistication-ergo-corruption; and
- the great systematic breakdown of civility and rise of everyday unavoidable anomie, as indiscriminate love of diversity of views seeps from substantive to merely formal matters to the result of much of my generation being lost or isolated for want of any proper early childhood guidance in the most basic of human interactions.
I do not deny that people find entertainment value in the pictures; Goldman has received a good deal of money and publicity for his works and to dismiss the demand as stupidity would be to fall into that very trap of cynicism the promotion of which I find his (and others') work disturbing.
One thing remains to be clarified. By this harsh criticism of Goldman's work I do not mean to refer solely to Goldman's work alone. Far from it. I've seen (and done) this kind of thing for years, and after the novelty of "attitude" wore off the problems and grievances I've expressed in this post had been sitting and building up in the back of my mind for quite some time. I had better things to do, naturally, and didn't bother to go further; today's sudden distraction, however, got me thinking about it again, and the work I've seen just happened to serve as a near perfect example of why so much of what passes for art has become utterly irrelevant in the past couple decades.
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(no subject)
Date: April 11th, 2007 02:50 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: April 11th, 2007 03:06 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: April 11th, 2007 04:09 (UTC)As far as I know, if Mr. Goldman hasn't asked permission and has copied a product, called it his own and is making a profit off it, well, that's plagerism of some sort. But I'm partial to Dirge anyways...
... and this coming from the Book of Fluids author. But I use my quote: "But BoF is a labor of love. And it's a non-profit type of love. So we're safe. For now."
This whole fiasco reminds me of the Ebaum's scandal: http://ebaumsworldsucks.com/articles/flash.html
(no subject)
Date: April 11th, 2007 04:49 (UTC)Of course, there is the issue of why Goldman would go through the bother of copying someone else's super-low-res cat icon if not to allude to it, hence my initial speculation in the title. But from what I've seen I have little reason, besides a few easily rebuttable common sense assumptions that only apply to less than half the world's population anyway, to believe that he isn't actually that bad an artist as to need such a reference or be unable to draw a cartoon cat...
(no subject)
Date: April 11th, 2007 06:16 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: April 11th, 2007 06:37 (UTC)Anyway, I've just elaborated on this post with a rare longish rant further expounding on my own thoughts.
(no subject)
Date: April 11th, 2007 06:56 (UTC)I, being naive, totally did not get the pun you point out in the 'Spooning' one. I found the transfer from "spoon" to "fork" kind of amusing because I read it as random[1], not because it was meaningful. (Now that you point out the meaning I just find it annoying.)
[1] Such random humour would be very much in character with me and my family.
(no subject)
Date: April 11th, 2007 07:11 (UTC)So you didn't get the allusion to the old sexual taboo joke at all, or just not that particular word? (this may turn out to be just another statement about my own perspective on the world...)
(no subject)
Date: April 11th, 2007 07:33 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: April 11th, 2007 07:51 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: April 11th, 2007 08:15 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: April 11th, 2007 15:08 (UTC)What Todd "Goliath" here is doing is just stealing another artist's work. No irony, no parody, no reference. He's not making fun of Purple Pussy, he's just outright STEALING it, and putting it in galleries without crediting Dave Kelly. Same with Lenore and so on.
Parody is actually legally protected as fair use; just tracing the work and changing some minor details, isn't. That's where the difference between Weird Al and Todd Goldman is.
(no subject)
Date: April 11th, 2007 16:16 (UTC)I'm fairly certain there was similar stuff around when I was a teen and liked that sort of thing, but I operate under the general belief that teenagers are fundamentally dumb.
(no subject)
Date: April 11th, 2007 21:54 (UTC)I wonder how this web comic might relate to the theory.
In regards to the witless attitude icons, I'm instantly reminded of Happy Bunny--all that merchandise with pictures of that smiling cartoon rabbit and remarks like "you suck and that's sad" and "it's cute how stupid you are".
Compare, if you will, the Life is Good brand, featuring incredibly simple artwork, yet is a marketing success with their emphasis on humor and humility.
http://www.lifeisgood.com/about/inspiring-letters.aspx
(no subject)
Date: April 11th, 2007 22:16 (UTC)http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/04/11
(no subject)
Date: April 12th, 2007 06:08 (UTC)As for the comic... let's do the test!
1) no
2) At first glance you'd think. Okay, I'd think, since I tend to presume yes when doing this test. But on further consideration, I can't look at this and honestly think that this is actually intended to reach out to believers so much as preach to the antichrist and lolislamofascist choirs getting a cheap laugh at the expense of a mutually agreed-on other.
3) ~In the beginning when mankind was in its childlike state of fear and confusion, there was the darkness of religion. And then [mankind] discovered the fire of [enlightened reason], and those who dared to be real men strove to drive the darkness away.~ Prometheus, Marduk, Odin, Gilgamesh, heck, Jesus for that matter, ... and now Athe the goddess of Atheism. :P This narrative is pretty strongly implied as that particular strip's underlying assumption, but I can't think of any moral weight this narrative by itself can carry that isn't already reflected in my analysis of 1 and 2.
4) Ehh, well, it's recognizable.
As for the second link... :oa
(no subject)
Date: April 12th, 2007 06:16 (UTC)In other words, totally agreed on the dumb issue.
(no subject)
Date: April 12th, 2007 09:14 (UTC)At any rate let's all be glad that this took place in California not Texas (http://www.legalreader.com/archives/003212.html).
(no subject)
Date: April 12th, 2007 13:42 (UTC)And then people wonder why our society is filling with morons.
(no subject)
Date: April 12th, 2007 22:40 (UTC)Ha! I like that.
(no subject)
Date: April 13th, 2007 05:52 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: April 13th, 2007 15:33 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: April 13th, 2007 21:10 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: April 15th, 2007 19:25 (UTC)You can read the whole thing at the forums, it's in General Bullshit and stickied so it's at the top, there's a whole fuckton of stuff going on/being discussed. The only bad thing is if you don't have a forums account you can only view x amount of pages in x amount of time then you get "locked out" for a time (cuts down on their bandwidth strain). Read sloooowly :V
(no subject)
Date: April 15th, 2007 20:54 (UTC)Yeah, I look at the thread every so often. So apparently no settlement yet XD Just an offer of non-apology and a very specific C&D...
(no subject)
Date: April 16th, 2007 05:41 (UTC)