The show I’m referring to has been throwing around these words and phrases in the last few episodes: “deregulation of the banks,” “debt,” “infrastructure,” “health care,” and a few others that clearly demonstrate that the show’s writers are paying attention to modern American politics. The West Wing is off the air, so what show could it be? None other than Cartoon Central’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Don’t let the fact that it’s a cartoon or on Cartoon Network fool you, this isn’t exactly a kids’ show. But it’s not really an adults’ show either. It’s caught somewhere in the middle and that may be indicative of the meandering focus of the series. Really the only word that characterizes this season so far is political and that has proved more than a little divisive among the show’s fans as expressed by what I’m hearing on the Clone Wars Roundtable podcasts produced by the excellent ForceCast. The inspiration for this post came from the latest podcast discussing the episode “Pursuit of Peace.” Jason, the host, voiced a considerable amount of frustration with the show, not because of the politics, but because of the way they are presented: the good guys eschew these policies and the bad guys twirl mustaches and espouse other policies. But also on the podcast were two Star Wars artists who were much more ambivalent towards the politics because, as one of them put it, he agreed with the opinions of the show and the job of an artist is to express opinions. Clearly he is of the same mind as TCW’s writers, but divisiveness isn’t a quality of the Star Wars films that I have loved my whole life. In fact, it’s just the opposite: those 6 films represent an amazing span of common ground that I share with Lisa’s first graders, the middle and high school youth I work with, most of my friends, the parents of those kids and children, and even my own parents. So, if the movies did something very right to be loved by so many, what is the show doing wrong to gaining some fans and alienating others?
To explore this idea I want to return to the thought that it’s the job of the artist to express an opinion. Is it? I’m not so sure. I think classically the job of the artist is to show us the world around us in a new light or from a fresh perspective. To reflect back truth. However, truth and opinion are different things. We all learned the difference between objective and subjective and even though those two words share 90% of the same letters, the 2 or 3 that are different carry a lot of weight. Truth and opinion are different things. So, is it the job of the artist to reflect the subjective or the objective? It has to be both, but it’s clearly not just one or the other. In fact, I’d say that art as expression of opinion and not truth is propaganda. Art without subjectivity though isn’t art either, it’s reproduction, facsimile. Art is an aesthetic exercise and the heart of aesthetics is beauty and, as the poet said, truth is beauty and beauty truth. So it’s really not possible to have one without the other.
But the flip side of that is that we can’t escape our subjectivity. We just can’t. We carry around several lenses through which the world. Theologians call that hermeneutics. Sociologists might refer to these lenses as our separate identities: religious, political, ethnic, gender, and so on. None of these individual identities define us, but they are a part of us. So any objectivity we represent through art is going to carry subjectivity. Does that make objectivity a necessary evil? Absolutely not. None of us share the same opinions on much of anything, but we can agree that 2+2=4. We can agree that green is the color of the grass and blue is the color of a clear sky. Truth is common ground. Truth is where we can come together and then enjoy a starting point to explore the subjective.
But sometimes the lines between subjective and objective are a little bit blurred and that’s a fascinating place to me. That blurring happens in the real stories. The ones that endure. The ones that aren’t just cool or interesting, the ones that have an atomic effect on our society. These are the stories that become cultural touchstones. But no matter who the characters are or where or when the story is set, they rely on archetypes and tropes and values and mores that are universal through human space and time. A modern American with enough imagination can get into The Odyssey just as much as an ancient Greek could be enthralled by Star Wars. These stories are the ones that transcend generations and resonate within us because they’re so universal. They live and breathe in the common ground. These stories root through the already created plotlines and characters and find the ones that speak to the core of what it means to be human, not just one or two of our ephemeral identities. Think about the last 50-60 years and the stories that have endured: The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and a whole slew of superheroes. That doesn’t happen by accident, nor does it happen by clever marketing. These stories tap into a well that all of humanity drinks from: values that we universally acknowledge and seek to uphold and desire to pass on to the next generation. And that’s the thing that’s quite odd about their values that act as common ground: are these values objective or subjective? You’ll probably get as many different answers as people you ask and solving that riddle isn’t the aim of this post. I bring this up to point out the rich pedigree that The Clone Wars comes from and why it is all the more disappointing that it is so busy sawing off the limb that connects it to its family tree.
Instead of trading on those items that build common ground between creator and audience, TCW is trading on political hot potatoes. The political ideas behind the words and phrases that start this post have very clear and partisan positions. Assigning one set of positions to Senator Amidala and the good guys and the opposite view to the Trade Federation and the bad guys will draw cheers from one side of the aisle and jeers from the other side. And more than jeers, shut down communication. It’s the exact opposite of common ground and, to be frank, Star Wars has no business there. These are not the universally acknowledged values and mores of the films, these are divisive reminders of the complexity of the issues we face and no one has yet to get it completely 100% right.
Now all of this is not to say that fiction has to stay entirely within the realm of the universally accepted. Not at all. But do the hard work of being creative enough to find that common ground before you start building your case for your perspective. I railed against District 9 and Avatar for being so shallow in the creativity of their stories. By not going far enough creatively to create distance and common ground they alienated (pun!) huge chunks of their audience who kept up their guard. On the opposite side of that is How to Train Your Dragon. I haven’t made it a secret that I love this film and its reviews (98% on Rotten Tomatoes!) are a testament to its quality. But what I really love about this film is how quietly subversive it is. On the surface this is a movie about being unique and an individual and finding your place in the world. Below the surface it is an incredibly subversive movie about breaking cycles of violence through non-violence. No one talks about that though. Why? Because the film built common ground based on adolescent trials and friendship and first love and finding purpose and meaning. The audience related and then the audience never even noticed they were receiving a profound message of how we are to love our enemies. That’s art, folks. That’s the total package.
The text for my freshman English course in college was Everything’s an Argument and I think that’s incredibly true and profound. The difference then is in the quality of the argument and the key to a quality argument is the packaging in many ways. We live in a time with enough division in the public sector, it shouldn’t have to extend to arts and entertainment. And it doesn’t need to if we’re willing to hold ourselves to a standard of creativity that isn’t okay with the quick and easy and instead values understanding and seeking of common ground. After all this it shouldn’t be any surprise that last bit sounds a bit like the light and dark side of the Force. There’s a reason for that.
