Blog #6, Kurt Russell’s view of craft, the role of the artist in society, the American literary scene

 

Recently, the actor Kurt Russell spoke out about his fellow actors and creative artists who are stridently vocal about their political views.  The veteran actor spoke about the craft of acting and how political grandstanding of creative artists diminishes what they create.  It comes down to, in this case, the actor’s role in society, and in the world of the arts and of cultivating our understanding of the human condition in an authentic way.

He makes a good point about the effect of an actor’s words off the soundstage, where in interviews and public comments, entertainment artists make statements that interfere with their craft.   Kurt Russell portrays characters, characters from various political and social backgrounds.   All actors should have such freedom.  That is part of what attracted me to writing.   I could explore characters very different from my own basic identity and portray them in a believable way.   Kurt Russell would be getting in the way of the success of his performances as a professional if he say, became a vocal liberal, or a strident conservative for that matter, in the public eye.  

In the arts, success depends on believable portrayals.  The artist concerned with creating the best, most moving art he or she can, cannot afford to be seen through a narrow political lens.  Society, and American society in particular, is the poorer artistically when creative people limit their public image to left or right and all the stereotypes they entail.  Better to focus on the act of creating.

I’ll give a case in point from my own life.  A man I know is perhaps one of the most talented fiction writers of his generation.   He has been widely published, and better still, he has written with heart and gusto.   But I find it hard to buy or read one of his books lately.   He was a mentor of mine at the writers’ conference at Bread Loaf.   He befriended me, embraced my prose, was mirthful and wise and quick to dispense practical advice to his students.   He was a very encouraging writer, and man.   I would frequent his Facebook site to see the latest inspiration he would dispense.   There were times when my very confidence in my abilities depended in large part on his words.

With the election of 2016, and maybe before, he began to write less encouragement to younger writers, and started writing political screeds that were obnoxious at best, insulting at worst.  If I didn’t agree with everything he said, like some “ditto head” of the 1980s, he told me to unfriend him.   He wanted nothing to do with anyone who didn’t exactly believe all the many things that he believed politically.   I was shocked, and hurt.  He was my mentor, and I looked up to him as a decent man in an industry known for its “me too” style of decadence.  Worse, I was deeply hurt and felt betrayed.  As a result of his many vitriolic Facebook posts, I have a very hard time appreciating his literary work.  I would rather have only known him as a writer, not a political activist.

And the literary world is now filled with “ditto heads” of the same stripe.   Now the trend of the industry runs decidedly stridently political and it is hard for me to find a good contemporary literary novel to catch my attention.   Standards of quality and literary achievement are hard to find.  I have to go to Elizabeth Bowen’s novels of the 60s or St. Euxpery’s novellas about flying.   If anyone has a good book to recommend, please let me know…