What again. Remember the Billy Ray Cyrus photos with his daughter. He thought they looked cool. The pictures were not meant by him. the photographer or his daughter to be sexy, yet there was a big scandal. The explanation that it was not meant to be sexy, fell on deaf ears. The intent was irrelevant.
Try to pay attention. You and I agree on the intent issue.
I can see why folks would consider the poster racist, I can sort of see why folks don’t consider it racist.
What I am having trouble understanding is why people can’t seem to accept that others may see the poster as racist. And demand that those folks give detailed, rational, reasonable explanations why. There may be no ‘reasonable’ explanation, and trying to ‘rationalize’ folks out of that reaction maybe be unreasonable in return.
Seems like everyone here feels they are arguing with a dining room table.
Because the ones that see the poster as racist only do so because they’re trying to fill in gaps that don’t exist. Once someone recognises that every supposedly racist aspect of the poster has a better, non-racist explanation, that should be the end of it.
For many traits of the final product, sure. A work can be beautiful, just like a sunset can be beautiful, without referencing the artist’s intent. A work can be disturbing, just like rotting animal carcasses can be disturbing, without referencing the artist’s intent.
“Racist” is different. Nobody would call a coffeestain on a tablecloth “racist,” even if the stain looked a bit like a minstrel portrait. That’s because “racist” references a belief system. When you’re discussing a work of art and call it “racist,” the only belief system it makes sense to be referencing is the artist’s.
Note that, despite over a week of my asking for it, nobody has been able to offer a definition of “racist” that makes sense within the idea that a work of art can be racist when the artist is not.
You’re kind of missing what I’m arguing. I have no trouble understanding that others may see the poster as racist. I believe such a view is either ignorant or unreasonable. If you’re saying that there’s no reasonable explanation for such a view, then we pretty much agree.
You’re request for such a definition makes no sense. It’s a straw man. No one disagrees with any definition you have supplied. Here’s a question: if I asked a hundred people to create 100 posters and then I showed them to you—without telling you who the artists were—would you be able to discern whether or not some of them were racist? Or would you first have to interview the 100 artists, match them up with their posters, then judge?
Let’s say I’m doing a poster for a rope manufacturer, Acme Ropes, one that makes the point that their ropes are strong. Let’s say I do a series of posters that show close-ups of different types of intricate knots (which can be quite beautiful), some for hauling stuff, some used in sailing, some used in mountain climbing, etc. Let’s say I have twenty posters like this and under each image I place the words: Won’t let you down when you need it. Acme Ropes. Now let’s say one of these images shows a noose. A noose is a beautiful knot, and it takes some skill to fashion a proper one, But don’t you think that a reasonable person might deem that as racist? Particularly if it was the first ad produced and people were unaware of the larger campaign? Even of to a person who loves ropes and knots a noose is a pretty amazing piece of engineering.
The problem with your coffee stain is that intent is completely absent from anything it might loosely convey. People know that even if it kinda might resemble Jesus, a Nike logo, a swastika, or Abraham Lincoln, it is purely accidental. I think you’re confusing “intent being unkown” with “intent being absent”. Even if I spilled my coffee and it made a near-perfect NY Yankees logo, there no questioning of the coffee is biased toward the team. The question of intent on behalf of the coffee is absurd. But when people make things, we can safely assume some intent. With a good piece of art it will be clear. In a poor one it might be difficult to divine. And that leaves aside that some art is intentionally designed to be ambiguous.
As I showed with the little kid using the wheel of life design (swastika) from Native American lore, it is quite possible for a creation to be unintentionally offensive, racist. A creation either is or is not racist. If it is intentionally so, it makes sense to criticize the artist for it. If it is accidental—the little kid, the rope manufacturer—we give them a pass. (Granted the rope manufacturer might be accurately labeled as stupid for not realizing the association.)
A reasonable, ignorant person might deem that ad racist. Once they found out about the ad campaign, it’d be unreasonable to deem it racist. (Foolish, however, is another story).
Same thing with the kid. If you don’t know what the kid’s up to, it might be reasonable to figure the kids being a little Nazi. Once you find out more about what’s going on, it becomes unreasonable to deem it racist.
My point is that racism is all about intent. Yes, we can’t always know the intent of a particular artist–but the more information we have, the better we can guess at the intent of the artist. When there’s clearly no intent, there’s clearly no racism; when the intent is clearly nonracist in origin, there’s clearly no racism.
Again, it is incoherent to claim that a work of art is racist AND that the artist is non-racist. Note that this is different from saying that a work of art is racist and the artist is probably racist, or saying that the artist is nonracist but that a viewer ignorant of the context might incorrectly identify the work as racist. Either of those statements are coherent. But claims that a work is racist and the artist is not (technically,was not racist at the time of artifice) are incoherent claims.
In this case, it’s extremely clear from context that the work is not racist. Claiming that it’s racist if you don’t know the context is reasonable but incorrect. Claiming that it’s racist if you know about the Heath Ledger Joker is unreasonable. That’s because knowing about the Heath Ledger Joker greatly clarifies the artist’s intent.
You and I agree about everything, except that a creation can unintentionally evoke certain feelings. I would agree with you if we were talking about some make believe perfect artist, but we’re not. Artists attempt to evoke certain responses. Sometimes they miss the mark. Sometimes by a lot sometimes by a little. Sometimes they convey only a fraction of what they intended and nothing more. Sometimes their misses touch an unintended nerve.
I agree that that when that happens, information about the artist can, and should, cause him and the art to be evaluated in more complete light. And that this may prevent the creator of, for example a racist piece, from being labeled a racist. That is right and fair. But the piece may still be viewed as racist.
Take this example: an artist is painting a picture after losing the love of his life. He’s trying to capture the feeling of loss and despair he feels. He shows it to a few fellow artists he trusts completely. They tell him that while they see in his painting loss and despair, what they see as a more dominant theme is anger. After being convinced that they are correct, he decides to make some changes to the painting. After doing so, he shows it to his artist friends again. They now all see nothing but loss and despair. He thanks them for their earlier critique, which, he says, allowed him to see some emotions he didn’t wish to painting to convey. And that he agrees that the changes he made allows the painting to be a purer reflection of what he was feeling and trying to capture for others.
Now let’s make believe that instead of the artist changing the painting, he repainted a new one making just those changes that eliminate the anger. The original one, now stuffed in a closest is a painting that unintentionally conveys what he wanted and was trying to convey. One they unintentionally conveyed anger, which he did not feel.
I hope that helps. I don’t know how to make it any clearer that an artist’s creation can unintentionally convey notions or feelings that the artist did not have in mind when creating it. That it can unintentionally evoke undesired or unforeseen feelings.
After figuring out what the hell the poster was, I agree it’s not racist. However, on first account, my immediate visual connection was not with the Joker (I’m not well-versed in Batman), but rather black minstrel shows. That’s the first thing that leapt to my mind (and I don’t think I suffer from any sort of “white guilt” or am particularly conditioned to seeing racism everywhere), and I can see how others could jump to that conclusion. It was baffling trying to figure out what the hell was meant by portraying a black person in white face in some sort of weird subversion of an outdated American entertainment form. After remembering the subject line’s description that the depiction was the Joker, that made somewhat more sense, but not substantially much more.
And this is why I keep harping on the definition of racist. It sounds as though you’re using some definition of racism that involves “evok[ing] certain feelings.” I’m unfamiliar with that definition, and uncomfortable with it. “Racist,” to me, speaks to the beliefs of the creator. It’s different from most other artistic traits in this respect: sadness, beauty, surreality can all exist by virtue of evoking feelings in the viewer, but racist is talking about the artist’s beliefs.