The Beginning and the End, or "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"
Thesis
When you're sick, it's hard to blog. Fortunately, I care about my readers enough to sacrifice much-needed sleep in favor of some late night writing. This post is going to be worth it, to a greater degree than the past few posts. I admit, there's been a dip in both frequency and quality of #METASWAG output. I had some hella stressful weeks followed by a hella careless week. In both cases, I wasn't much in the mood to blog.
However, now that my schoolwork and energy alike are decreasing, I have few options but blogging and sleeping with Grouper to keep me occupied. I guess picnics and adventures with friends and loved ones spring up from time to time, but for the most part, I have been "chill" lately.
About time. Anyway, let's start talking about Important Stuff.
UPDATE [4:30 PM, 4/14] Or talk about it in totally contradictory and terrible ways. WARNING: Theoretical mess approaching. And this is the revised post.
Maybe I've just been burnt out by tons and tons of feminist theory, but the impact and importance of the always controversial Odd Future is starting to feel a bit forced. What I wanted to talk about here was the way people use the word "challenging" to describe art, and suggest an alternative definition for the word. So, what follows is hopefully a redefinition of the word challenging, and not a misguided ramble about authorial intent and convention.
This wasn't meant to be a post about Odd Future. I only intended to use them as an example of art that is labeled "challenging." I don't mean to hate on OFWGKTA. I love them. Their music sounds good to me. I even made a #GOLFWANG shirt.
It's just that people won't stop writing about them and the meaning of their art. I'm getting sick of the notion that Odd Future is meaningful, or in particular, "challenging." It doesn't help that most of the writing on the subject is horrible (my own included; this post included).
I too wrote a reactionary post on OFWGKTA shortly after watching the "Yonkers" video, and referred to Tyler as some sort of Important and Challenging figure that provoked honestly useful consideration of sexuality and violence in rap.
I was wrong for two reasons.
1) Though the music is sometimes serious and Tyler probably does have daddy issues, Odd Future is straight-up camp that has been done before.
2) My (and most folks') definition of "challenging art" is too limiting.
Odd Future is challenging art in one sense of the word. It's provocative, offensive, and noticeable. Maybe they have gotten white people to write about some contrived notion of innate violence or the artfulness of rapping about rape. It forces you to ask questions like, "Is this okay?" and "Are they serious?" and "Does it matter?" Of course it doesn't. The lyrical content (primarily limited to Tyler and Earl's output) sounds mean and misogynist. This has all been played out countless times. People should not still feel challenged by this kind of rap.
So yes, Odd Future still makes people queasy. But art called challenging should be much more than art that simply provokes a gut-reaction.
Challenging art is a label that would be better applied to work that truly inspires self-confrontation, an examination of the really buried stuff, and potentially results in a new understanding of how to exist with oneself and the world.
I'm not saying that shocking art can't be challenging in this sense, but rather that "challenging art" has been conflated with anything that makes people mad, rather than that which makes people change.
I've been lucky enough to experience a real piece of challenging art over the past few weeks: Neon Genesis Evangelion.
Here is a piece of art (the Greatest Piece Of Art?) that demands us the audience to delve within ourselves. To re-imagine how and why we exist. There were moments in the show that had me asking questions about myself that I didn't want to answer. That were actually painful to answer. This is art that doesn't rely on taboo and shock value, but appeals to some fundamental conflicts brewing within us.
But maybe I'm giving too much credit to the show, and not enough to Odd Future. Maybe I'm placing too much importance on questions of self like, "What makes a good person?" or "Am I alone?" Maybe because of Odd Future people really are asking themselves, "Do I like this music because it talks about violence against women?" Maybe this does inspire people to examine their id or whatever. Maybe the argument I'm trying to make is just as convoluted and ineffectual as the pieces I linked to earlier.
That last maybe is a definite yes.
Okay, let's make this simple (and arrive at a conclusion unearned by the previous hundreds of words, which it turns out were about nothing).
Odd Future is not Important right now because their lyrical content and attitude is shocking in an all new way. Countless other artists have done what they're doing. Odd Future is Important right now because they are hella good at what they do, a group of young rap artists appealing to young rap fans. Their art may "challenge" people to think about the artistic value of violence. But their art does not challenge notions of identity and self. Which is obviously not what they are trying to do, which is why this post is making an unfair comparison between a post-modern cartoon and a group of teen rappers, which is why I would have been better off going to bed.
This is what happens when I really want to talk about Neon Genesis Evangelion, but spend an hour reading articles about Odd Future before I start writing my post.
Conclusions
Sorry about all of this. I promise there is a cohesive statement lurking somewhere within the rambling mess above. Thanks to Ted for pointing out a lot of the inconsistencies and contradictions within the original post - criticism which I used to no good end, and simply further complicated my argument into non-existence. Whatever.
One day I'll compose a perfectly focused argument on this blog. For now, that caliber work will have to be limited to my classwork.
I was also going to write about the Weezy concert and the on-campus feminist coalition I'm trying to help fire up, but I'm just too tired. I'll save it for the next post! Until then, it's been a pleasure. I'm off to be consumed by Grouper.
CUTEST VID EVER
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