In an age of shock, what is audacious?
Forgive me while I steal the microphone from Joe for a moment, but I just read something that struck me as particularly poignant.
If you haven’t read Steven Grant’s most recent Permanent Damage column, you should.
In the column, “What’s good about comics today? Audacity.” Grant makes a very Druckerian argument:
Society becomes stagnant, until someone breaks the rules, and moves in a different direction. Then society follows in a rush, until the broken rule now becomes the norm, and everything plateaus again.
For a diversion into the ideas of economist Peter Drucker and his relationship to Red Flag Publishing, read Biff’s entry in Alfalfa Was Right.
But, back to Grant. While he talks about the history and current state of audacity, he makes a good point:
In fact, since the ’80s, largely prompted by the arrival of MTV, faux audacity has pretty much been the cornerstone of marketing in American pop culture, across the board.
Now it’s virtually a necessity.
I think he then slips back into the illusion with which faux audacity provides us: that we are being ground-breaking by doing outlandish things. When in fact the reality is, those in control (while providing faux outrage at our faux audacity) are really quite satisfied that we are breaking the rules they want us to break, because it takes our minds off the rules we SHOULD break.
It’s the old “lapel pin” misdirection. A political candidate points to the universal corruption and cronyism of the ruling party, and they fire back, “Look, he’s not even wearing an American Flag pin on his lapel!!!”
So, while Grant revels at the end of his piece that audacity has given us a playing field with no rules, he is contradicting himself, as in the quote above, he points out that audacity IS the rule, therefore being audacious is no longer truly AUDACIOUS.
After all, would it be audacious for M. Night Shyamalan to write a screenplay with a twist ending? Or would it be audacious for him to write a screenplay that is a sensitive study of human relationships that takes the anti-plot character-based drama to its extreme?
While Grant goes on to say:
But audacity, real or plastic, has its limits and contradictions.
He doesn’t mention the biggest limiting factor of true audaciousness. All of the examples of truly audacious artists he gives were not recognized as great until after their deaths. So then, being truly audacious is to toil your entire life without fame, fortune, or recognition.
While to be faux audacious, such as Andy Warhol, means instant fame, fortune and recognition.
Sort of like Wolfgang Mozart and Antonio Salieri: During their lifetimes, Salieri was hugely successful by practicing faux audacity in his compositions; listeners gasped as he took them just a little out of their comfort zone, and then applauded mightily when he resolved the tension by bringing them back to the familiar.
Mozart, however, wrote what would be the modern equivilent of film noir, music that went off the edge, and never came back to the soothingly familiar. That lack of resolution - the happy ending - left people feeling uncomfortable, and they booed. He died penniless, while I expect Salieri’s progeny are probably still spending his riches.
Salieri himself is said to have recognized Mozart’s greatness, but it took centuries for the rest of us to. Yet now, when Mozart’s audaciousness in composing music is still appreciated, Salieri’s faux audaciousness is seen for what it really was: pop music pap.
I’m not sure what this means, other than that if we wish for fame and fortune, faux audacity (continuing audacity) would seem the course to follow, whilst to be truly audacious in a time where audaciousness was the norm would require INAUDACITY.
But I don’t even know what that would look like …
Although I suspect our story The Copy Editors is closer to it than zombie and vampire stories.
A scene from The Copy Editors
But, the problem is, I fucking love zombies and vampires.
So, maybe the answer is to create comics that couch true audaciousness within its faux equivilent? Stories that are, on the surface, pop-schlock genre comics but within contain the germ of a truly audacious idea?
Something that readers will devour for the blood, guts, and tits.
But then, maybe months later, they see something in the news that reminds them of the story. And makes them start to think.
For that is what our keepers fear most. Captives that can think.
Thanks for listening
James Hitchcock
RFP Editorial Director
