Is Romanticization vs. Truth really the question?

Hallelujah I'm A Bum, one of many films that romanticized the life of the impoverished in the 1930's

I’ve been struggling with the concept of romanticization vs. brutal realism throughout this class and our readings. Which has more power for catalyzing social change? Is one more of a valid work of art than another? Is realism possible and is it possible to ever make a work of art (writing, photography, even journalism) that doesn’t romanticize the subject in some way? These questions seem so much more urgent and vital because of the state of our economy as well as our entire world today. When I think of the trend of budding “photographers” (read: trendy kids who like expensive cameras as accessories) taking “edgy” photographs of graffiti and slums and of course, homeless people, I get goosebumps. But then, who is “allowed” to take those photographs? On the global scale of things, I’m upper-middle class. What am I allowed to write about or take photographs of? And I always conclude the same thing: myself, and my life. What I know. Things that I, personally, want to remember. And here’s where the first of many divides between today’s and the depression era’s photographers comes in. The people who were experiencing homelessness, slums, etcetera, didn’t have the equipment to photograph their own life. Their stories, if they were going to be told by photographs, would need to be told by “higher-ups,” upper class people looking down on them, reporting on them as a population foreign to them. This was not only true with photography: many of the nation’s impoverished were illiterate, too desperate/busy trying to stay alive to have time to write, etcetera, leaving people like Steinbeck to fill in the gaps. To tell their story, from a wealthier, separated, distanced point of view. Occasionally, a pure, from-the-source expression will come out; i.e., Woody Guthrie. But only when someone wealthy happens upon him, happens to record him, etcetera. And so begins the efforts to steer clear of romanticization and its debatably inevitable connection to condescension, to separation, to dishonesty. We give cameras to child prostitutes so that they can photograph their lives. We provide computer access to the impoverished, we try to spread literacy, we sponsor music production classes in prisons, and things start coming out- music, books, political movements, paintings, photographs, exposé’s, and so on. But we can never escape these questions of truth, of sincerity. The art that comes out of the oppressed can be just as romanticized: perhaps it is perceived that a good story will bring more attention and support to the cause. Fame is always a question. The only answer I can come up with is this: artwork that is in complete sincerity, total personal honesty and truth, is art that is created without the knowledge that it will be shared. Anne Frank’s diary. The notebooks and photo albums of an abused teen. Letters between illegal lovers. When it isn’t about the public, the publicity, and so on, when it is intensely and deeply personal, especially when only for oneself, and somehow the world discovers it, this is when truth is revealed. It is a specific truth, the truth of one person, but it is their total and complete honesty. And if total and complete honesty is that specific, I want to drop the debate between romanticized and not romanticized, politically motivated and not. That sort of honesty is reserved for things the public was not meant to find. Anything public has another sort of truth: the truth of exactly what the creator wanted the world to hear, and what it wants back from the world. It is an exchange instead of purely an expression. And I want the conversation to be about that. Transparent issues of condescension, of the fitting of a plot arc, of political motivation, are all simple – it is easy to find them, easy to know they’re there, and the debate is only ever about what quantity. I would rather have the conversation be about what the exchange was. This person created something to give to everyone else. Did they want money, everlasting fame, to change an opinion about their demographic? And how did the rest of the world respond to them? It is not just about what is in the work – it is about what answer the world gave back. And in a way, that’s the motivation for any art – a response.