Comments | marketchippie: How Seminar Made Me Angry About Art

marketchippie

How Seminar Made Me Angry About Art

Mar 04, 2012 00:19

Tonight I saw Seminar, the play with Alan Rickman as a writing teacher, one-act comedy, fairly tightly paced. And then I stomped home in a fugue of building irritation about what it means to be a writer, which is a topic that writers are obsessed with, and consistently, maddeningly, seem to get wrong.
( In which I am angry about this play as well as the literary world at large. )

cranky writergirl has some feels, words words words, theatrefun

Comments 12

atalanta_mine March 4 2012, 07:21:57 UTC

Amen.

excitedrainbow March 4 2012, 08:13:08 UTC

Oh my god, I cannot believe the line "Writers aren't people" stayed in that play, are you fucking serious? Er, how the hell else do they find the inspiration and material to write?

I sighed at your initial description of Izzy because I knew how her character would play out without even having seen the play, and sure enough, all the problems you were frustrated about were the ones I predicted. East Asian, unashamed of her sexuality, out to get what she wants? Oh, that stereotype, kill me now. They hardly ever really win, and their sexuality is always fetishised, ugh. And, oh, of course the women are sexual enemies before being writing rivals.

Everything else I can't say much about because your feelings are my feelings - I love this, especially: Writing is a mad, vast, powerful thing, but writers are not gods. Frankly, writers aren't the point. (If you are writing a book to make yourself feel like a better person, you're not writing a very good book.) YES. And the sad thing is, as you said, there is such potential for exploring the ( ... )

(The comment has been removed)

marketchippie March 5 2012, 00:08:27 UTC

i love you.

i am so fucking tired of egomaniac artists who think that they have to maintain these old fashioned, unfair, degrading, egotistical structures because to do away with them would be to acquiesce to the world of unartistic people, to sell out or give in to the Man. to maintain these structures is TO BECOME THE MAN, simply to create an institution with your own rules to keep everyone down.

i LOVE you.

did you know the woman who wrote this play also wrote smash?

oltha_heri March 4 2012, 15:13:11 UTC

So I'm kind of glad I'm not in NY cause otherwise I would be compelled to go see this to see how horrified/disappointed I can be.

He says "here is a piece of my soul" meaning that means you can't critique it and NOBODY CRITIQUES IT
LOL.
I always think of crits as just that, CRITIQUES. Your soul will (and should I think) be torn a fucking new one. Your most personal heartfelt piece may be ripped afuckingpart, and any tutor or class mate who doesn't do that makes the ridiculous amount of money you pay for art school fucking pointless.

To drop a Stoppard bomb here
Always a good option.

all artists are narcissists, in that we think our worlds are worth makingSo fucking true. And thank you for having somebody else of my generation saying this, I said this in seminar a few weeks ago and this girl (who is a pretentious fucking pain in the ass anyway) was like, that's wrong and I'm just like "… … what the fuck are you doing here then to say I am going to create my own world, or depict the world like my point of view matters if you're not a ( ... )

marketchippie March 5 2012, 00:14:45 UTC

maybe going to art school was a really bad idea because it is so fucking entrenched in this idea of art and artist and it's ridiculous

That's why I don't want to study creative writing-aside from WHAT WOULD I DO WITH THAT DEGREE, I really hate the discipline, not even necessarily for the discipline itself but for the people it attracts. No one chooses to teach creative writing, and everyone who chooses to become a student of that goes in believing that their art supersedes everything else about them which means ego-jockeying in the name of artistic superiority, and no. No. I love writing! I want to get published! But I like writing stories about girl wizards and wicked queens and shamelessly aesthetically indulgent spy larks and everything under the sun, including young adult fiction, genre, pulp, and I don't want the constraint of being told that X art is better than Y art. I don't think it's worthless to be taught art; tutorial, critique, technique are invaluable things. But only if everyone involved cares and can take their ego ( ... )

penny_lane_42 March 4 2012, 19:58:12 UTC

Their sex is their art, whereas the men's desires don't codify their writing styles. Then they're written as enemies on a sexual level-Kate's jealous because Izzy's fucking Martin, Kate's jealous because Izzy's lauded by Leonard who wants to fuck her, and there's a level of inherent coded disdain for the both of them.

UGH GROSS GROSS GROSS. That sort of thing makes me need a shower it really does.

is in fact a genius beyond criticism. The other shoe doesn't drop for him. Does the opposite: he's been acting like a coward the whole play? No, no, he was just too good for this; his performative rhetoric is-the truth! He says "here is a piece of my soul" meaning that means you can't critique it and NOBODY CRITIQUES IT; he says "that's not what writing is for" meaning I know what writing is for and none of you all are Real Writer and HE IS THE PLAY'S SHINING MODEL OF CRAFT AND IDEALISM. Where everyone else is tossed into the trash heap and digs themself out to make their way to the top, he digs himself into a hole and gets cranelifted ( ... )