Every few months, a high-profile artist makes a political statement of some kind. Immediately there’s a public outcry from those who disagree: “Artists should stick to their art. Let’s not mix politics and art!” Then comes the bold, enlightened response from the artist and his/her fans:
“All art is political.”
Suddenly, the conversation halts. We all pause to feel the weight of this statement and consider its implications. Is it true? Is all art fundamentally political? Were all our favorite fantasy stories, at their core, just an elaborate critique of fascism? Were all those beautiful paintings in the art gallery ultimately designed to promote social justice programs? Were those symphonies trying to tell me something about the hidden abuses of power in modern governmental structures?
Of course, there is some truth to art and politics being historically intertwined. I would never deny that some art is fundamentally political, both in its intentions and in the way people experience it. Take Max Ernst’s painting Europe After the Rain, for example, a bleak denouncement of Nazism and perhaps warfare in general. Bob Dylan’s hit song The Times They Are A Changin’ and John Lennon’s Give Peace a Chance had similar political implications. Or look at Banksy’s series of murals in the Calais refugee camp, which make a strong statement about the treatment of refugees. Or listen to Gil Scott Heron’s The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, featuring a politically-charged sentiment revived just this year in Marvel’s Black Panther. Clearly, art and politics are not entirely separate domains.
And let me be clear on another point: artists are free to make political claims or talk about political issues, whether in their art itself, on their platform, or in their everyday life. I think it’s good for all kinds of people, artists included, to be able to express their beliefs about politics. In some cases (given the myriad of societal atrocities throughout history) it’s actually a moral imperative for them to do so. I’m not trying to censor anyone’s speech here.
But the original claim above is that all art is political — that no art is truly free from the concerns of politics. I find this claim to be absurd; I do not believe it to be true. If it were true, it would not be something to be proud of. It would be the admission of a sad state of affairs, a critique of our own shallowness. Here are five reasons why the statement “all art is fundamentally political” is untrue and undesirable.
1. It broadens the definition of politics to the point where the term becomes meaningless.
I believe words, especially words we use on a regular basis, should be both understandable and useful. If a word has too many definitions, and we always have to use lots of words to explain what it means, the original word loses its conversational value. Similarly, if a word’s definition is too broad, it doesn’t have explanatory power — it says nothing of consequence. (If everything is awesome, nothing really is.) Here, of course, we are concerned with the meaning of the word “politics.”
When people say that “all art is political,” they have to perform a pretty intricate language dance to justify their claim. When Mark Vallen argues that all art is political, he says:
“It is largely market forces that determine the success or failure of art, and who among us will declare capitalism's various mechanisms to be free of politics? Since labor and commerce are realms understood to be political spheres, then art, which is inextricably bound to those fields, is automatically part of a political process.”
So from Mark’s perspective, anything created in our modern era is “automatically” political because it required labor and labor is related to commerce and commerce is influenced by political processes. It’s as if everything is a web — A is related to B which is related to C which is related to D, and therefore A is fundamentally D. If politics influences everything, his argument goes, then all art must be fundamentally political.
Dickon Stone takes a different path but casts the net just as wide:
“We...are social creatures, the concept of sociality running straight to the core of what being human is all about. Social, by definition, implies society and, consequently, social politics. The freedom (and equally the prohibition) of individuals to express themselves through any means by which influence is cast into the societal cauldron must, then, be political.”
In Dickon’s view, it seems that politics is basically anything that happens in society, and therefore all art is political.
By these broad definitions of politics and its purview, we could certainly say that all art is political. But to do so muddies the waters of what “politics” is. Pretty soon we’d have to say that everything we do is political. Is that really a reasonable definition of politics? If everything is political, is anything political?
The New Oxford American Dictionary defines “politics” as “the activities associated with the governance of a country or other area, especially the debate or conflict among individuals or parties having or hoping to achieve power.” I think that’s a reasonable definition, and it puts some clear boundaries on what is necessarily political. Politics may influence many areas of life, but I think to say that every work of art is bound up in politics really stretches the definition of politics to the point where it becomes meaningless.
2. It implies that all art “sends a message.”
When someone claims that “all art is political,” it implies that all art is sending political messages (whether you notice them or not). The subtle corollary is that some of the art you think you love actually has a political stance that you wouldn’t agree with if you realized what it was. It covertly undermines your trust in art you assumed was simply beautiful and suggests that it may actually be glorified propaganda.
Of course, there are many things in life that are designed to send a clear message: marketing copy, blog entries (like this one), news, sermons, political speeches, and much of our everyday communication. It’s tempting, then, to project that assumption onto art as well. Christians in particular have always been wary of the “messages” that art sends. To be sure, some art does send a clear message, just as some art is clearly political. And some artistic genres and mediums lend themselves well to messages (hip-hop music, children’s books, documentaries, etc). But I believe most forms of art ought to rise above the simple delivery of messages.
The chief function of art is to awaken our awareness of and desire for that which is transcendent. Art isn’t supposed to simply tell us to “build a wall” or “create a path to citizenship.” That’s not its job. Art deals with themes, with feeling, with beauty — things far deeper than politics.
The difference between art and a sermon or speech is akin to the difference between nature (God’s art) and the Bible (God’s word). In Romans 1:20, Paul claims that God’s “eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made” — so we can learn some things from nature, just as we can learn things from art. But later Paul says, “How are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?” (Romans 10:14). So it’s not as if nature is a megaphone proclaiming explicit truths — we need preaching for that. Nature gives us a sense of reality and draws our eyes to the heavens, but we need God’s word to tell us what to do about it. Similarly, art isn’t designed to tell us precisely how to live or how to vote. It’s designed to remind us about the nature of reality, the beauty of life, the value of our fellow man, and the existence of something beyond ourselves. These truths may lead us to make political choices down the road, but that will happen in different ways for different people — those connections are rarely explicit, direct, or universal. Art affects us at a deep level, more powerful but less specific than a message. To see art as fundamentally a vehicle for political messages is to turn the grand function of art into something much more shallow.
3. It implies that all art, properly understood, is polarizing.
It’s no secret that we live in a deeply polarized political climate in America. A Pew Research study last year found that “Across 10 measures that Pew Research Center has tracked on the same surveys since 1994 [government aid, racial discrimination, immigration, etc], the average partisan gap has increased from 15 percentage points to 36 points.” In other words, disagreements between Republicans and Democrats are increasing in magnitude.
Pew also found that partisan separation even extends to areas of life that are ostensibly not political — for example, most Republicans prefer to live in rural, spread out areas while most Democrats prefer to live in urban, tightly connected areas. So increasingly, we’re not only mentally divided, we’re physically divided. In this era of widespread polarization, we’re in desperate need of things that unite us.
But when we say that “all art is political,” we imply that political divides will naturally run straight through all the seemingly innocuous movies, music, performances, and visual art we consume. I believe this assumption leads to some faulty (and ultimately unhelpful) conclusions.
Let’s take a beloved, family-friendly movie as an example: Pixar’s 2001 film Monsters, Inc. It’s about a world of monsters who harness children’s screams for energy. But the monsters believe that humans are deadly to touch, so they’re careful to never let humans into their world. One day, a human child (later named “Boo”) finds her way into the monster world, and protagonists Sully and Mike spend the rest of the film trying to get her out and back to her home. But along the way, they start to care about her, and in the end, they miss her.
If you’re of the opinion that all art is political, you might see this as fundamentally a movie about immigration. It’s about how we initially distrust people from other nations, but if we really got to know them, we’d want them around. We should have more open borders.
Now, you’re free to believe that, and if watching Monsters, Inc leads you to change your stance on immigration, I won’t judge you for that. But let’s be clear: Monsters, Inc is not fundamentally about immigration.* If you read Pixar co-founder Ed Catmull’s book Creativity, Inc, you’ll find a passage about director Pete Docter’s inspiration for Monsters, Inc. Docter says it’s about how when you’re facing a problem, you want to solve it right away — you can’t wait to be free of the problem. But once you solve it, there’s a part of you that misses it. There’s something important about trials in our lives, a deep part of us that yearns to do meaningful work. What if problems weren’t simply nuisances to be stamped out, but an important part of our personal growth? That is the question at the heart of Monsters, Inc.
Notice the difference between these two interpretations. If Monsters, Inc is truly about immigration, a typical Democrat should be vindicated by the movie while a typical Republican should be provoked. The movie is fundamentally divisive. But if the movie is really about how problems can be a blessing and not a curse, then anyone who sees this movie and understands it can be both challenged and uplifted. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican — Monsters, Inc connects you to a God-given truth about humanity. It’s fundamentally unifying.
Deep down, isn’t that what we want our art to be? When we walk into a cinema or a concert hall, don’t we want to share a common experience with the diverse people around us? Don’t we all want to be challenged and uplifted? If all art is political, it will always be polarizing. But if art connects us with our humanity, it can be unifying. For a moment we could set aside our politics to laugh and cry together.
*There’s a larger debate here about how art derives its meaning, whether from the creator or the observer. I believe there’s a middle ground, but whichever way you fall on this issue, it still proves my point. If you think the creator’s intention bears the most weight, my account of Pete Docter’s intentions demonstrates that Monsters, Inc is not fundamentally political. If you think that beauty is primarily in the eye of the beholder, then art being political is subjective. How could all art possibly be political if not everyone perceives it as such? It would only always be political from the perspective of the most politically-minded people.
4. It’s exhausting.
When America was founded, newspapers ran on a monthly or sometimes weekly basis. Getting papers printed and distributed daily would have been challenging, and besides, things that were considered newsworthy simply didn’t happen every day. Starting in 1784, the first daily newspaper was published, the Pennsylvania Packet and Daily Advertiser. Ever since then, our news cycle has continued to shorten. Now we expect to hear about things the moment they happen, regardless of where in the world they’re occurring or whether they have any relevance to our daily life. News tweets and push notifications give us “breaking news” multiple times a day if we let them. We’re addicted to knowing everything, everywhere, all the time.
If this weren’t exhausting enough, much of the “news” we receive is political in nature: some politician did this or that, the president said this or that, some other country is considering reacting this way or that way. A partisan slant is often embedded in the reporting, and even if it’s not, we apply a partisan slant ourselves. So our phones, computers, TVs, newspapers and magazines give us a never-ending stream of “news” about which we are supposed to care and develop an opinion. I expect we have more opinions about more random things than anyone in American history ever thought necessary.
All this to say, I have enough politics in my life already. I have politics delivered to me from all sides all the time. If there’s one thing I’m not seeking when I open a novel, visit an art gallery, or put on a movie, it’s politics. When I experience art, I want to be refreshed. I want to gain perspective. I want to connect to my deepest desires, and share that experience with my fellow man. If you’re telling me art is just another vehicle for telling me about politics, that’s not enlightening. Quite frankly, it’s exhausting.
5. It implies that politics is the most foundational aspect of our lives.
When you read Vallen and Stone’s arguments from point #1, you get the sense that they see politics as being at the core of everything we do. When you go to work, you’re living out your politics. When you get married, you’re living out your politics. When you create art, you’re living out your politics. If true, I believe this would be tragic. It would mean our political divisions are built into our lives in a fundamental way. At no point could we really lay aside our policy preferences and power dynamics to be in deep, loving community with one another. We couldn’t really go to church or a cinema or a bar together without feeling the strain of differing political affiliations.
Senator Ben Sasse is helpful here in his talk titled What Does Washington Have to Do with Jerusalem?:
“I think we are having a crisis of people deciding to project grand meaning onto politics. And politics can’t bear that weight… our entire structure of government was kind of based on the idea that statism can be dangerous and politics has necessary purposes but not ultimate purposes. That’s a pretty special gift that we’ve failed to pass on to the next generation. There’s a ton of data which shows our young people don’t really understand the American experiment and the American idea… I’m in public life because I want to recover a sense that politics can only work well if it’s a framework but not the center. Politics can only work well in America if you’re not trying to find your greatest hopes and find the greatest enemies that you want to demonize in politics. It’s not made for that.”
As Ben says (exemplified by the arguments from Vallen, Stone and others), people are increasingly viewing politics as fundamental to our lives, and therefore inextricable from everything we do — including our art. To the extent that this view is adopted, I believe art will become more and more politically charged, and you may find yourself seeing more politics in the cinema, on the music stage, and in the bookstore. But it’s not because politics is truly at the core of our being — it’s because people, including artists, are starting to think it is.
Meanwhile, the truth has been staring at us all along: politics is not the core of everything we do. Our worldview is! Our beliefs about the world are foundational to everything we do and say and create. Our politics don’t form our worldview, our worldview informs our politics. Out of our worldview comes our political positions, our view of history, our manner of social interactions, and yes, our artwork.
So politics can influence our art, just as any other areas of life can. But politics is not necessarily behind artistic decisions — it often may not (and should not) be. Worldview, on the other hand, is very much behind our art. Some elements of our worldview will naturally find their way into our artwork. That’s one reason it’s vital for us as artists to form a worldview built on truth. As we learn more about our Creator and develop a mature theology, our art can actually become more truthful, more meaningful, and more grounded.
And so can our politics.
Forefront is committed to fostering a robust conversation on the intersection of Christian faith and the arts by publishing a wide range of voices and opinions. The views expressed here reflect those of the author.
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