Queer Artists and the Oppressive Demands of their Community
Dear LGBTIAQ community who do not create but patron or exploit the arts,
If, through my career, I depended SOLELY on ya’ll for my income I’d be broke AF. I’de certainly be unhappy, resentful and emotionally imprisoned by my own community.
Our community has produced incredible artists both mainstream and underground. We have impacted a world that mindlessly co-opts us at every turn.
BUT BUT BUT… we have also produced, more so in this most recent generation, a greater number of the following:
- A high turnover of coddled green artists who stay green due to a lack of honest critique.
- Highly tolerable but unfulfilled and distrustful artists.
- Exhausted and depleted artists without a means to replenish themselves.
- A culture of beggin’ artists, who are relegated to beg to a fairly underprivileged fanbase.
- Our artists are often stifled by queer embargoes, I mean boycotts (punishment for not saying the right thing the right way).
- And finally, what comes out on the other end is an obsessively delusional, mostly art illiterate, and destructively decisive audience. An audience, that will organize or pressure every other queer person/org to crush you out of existence if you don’t follow the rules that change every time we pass gas.
The queer zed, millennial, gen-x and baby boomer artists that have inspired me are not in it for your praise or disapproval. Though we do love some acknowledgement and appreciation. The perceived “end product” is just a mere splinter of God’s (or whatever you may call it) expression through us; always transforming and never ever done. We are in it for the acutely spiritual, intoxicating, captivating and demanding experience simply called, but rarely understood, creative process. Going all-in is our default. And this process needs to be respected for the work it is.
Trust. By the time our art is released, we are beat the fuck up, depleted, renewed, and at times delirious with anxiety when moving from our cocoon to presenting our butterflies to you ungrateful mofos. We continually pay our dues by creating the damn art. We are compelled to do little else. And here you go daring to take not just our lively hood but reason for living away if we step out of line.
So here’s the thing.
We know the creative process is separate from the world constructed around what it is to be queer. The meaningless constructs of what it is to be right or wrong. ie. Art, any art, is ALWAYS right AND wrong.
Art is to be taken in, interpreted and transformed. Your criticisms will always fall on what essentially is an incomplete work of art.
Our art doesn’t have to be the final word on a damn thing. Its just informs dialogue, not oppresses it. Only ya’ll do that.
Creating art is our part in creating our world. We are the check and balances you try to create by checking us. You will never see the world as we do. You need us to see other viewpoints that your merry-go-round of a political mind has impaired you from doing.
We are the humanity necessary for any credible analysis. It doesn’t have to be pretty, perfect, CRITIQUED or fall in line.
It should just be received. Instead of saying what you loved or hated about it. Both scenarios either bore or annoy the fuck out of us. Tell us what you experienced. What did you see? Feel? We need your reflection on the art, not your demands or your praise.
Ok, maybe a little praise.
Art is not here to affirm you, your friends, or the most popular political thread of thought.
Art is not here just to make you FEEL GOOD BISHES! FEEL GOOD art is not the marker of good art. GOOD ART is relative to the time and set of eyes.
In fact, if you call something GOOD ART, you may be damning that poor artist to an eternity of impermeable expectations. You may be unconsciously closing the pathway we need to create more of what we all need to survive. Ya messing with our superpowers, the ability to be fearless.
And I take with great pleasure to inform you that there is a question that most artist take great offense to. So don’t fucking ask it.
“Well why didn’t you address this or account for that? Why did you leave out or ignore…”
Sit down. The rally is next week, not immediately after the film screening or open studio. As we gently smile and attempt to answer ridiculous questions, trust, we are cursing your existence, questioning who gave picket sign Pete a ticket and thinking one of 3 things:
’Why don’t YOU can kindly pick up a camera, a mic, a paint brush and do all that I do ya damn self to add, not take away from the queer catalog of art… (crickets) hmph, that’s what I thought, ya bish.’
‘I don’t remember taking your order before I dived into the creative kitchen motherfucker’
and lastly, ‘if it ain’t in my art already, maybe I’m not the artist to create whatever the fuck it is that matters to you’
Now, I would be remiss to address the queer ancestral pimping by non-artists. You know the one that thinks quoting a queer ancestor will shut an artist down, thats not to their liking. Because the ancestors words, of course, are eternal and above all approach.
Ex. “well Audre Lorde said..” or “You’re wrong because Baldwin shown us that…” or the ever condescending, “May I remind you what dead person #5 said…”
First off, ya’ll always quoting the same 3–5 writers/artists/political artist-leaning figures. Find some quotes from other great artists. Mix it up a bit, shit. Try to be original, even though quotes, inherently aren’t.
So you gleefully and arrogantly recontexualize their words to your own convenience. You use them to make an award-winning point. Wait for it, gotta hear those finger snaps after you drop your quote bomb. (snap snap snap) The sound of an audience slowly turning on the artist.
Perhaps you forgot, that they, Audre, James, too were artists and had to contend with critics as well. And with all the freedoms carved out by their words, here you go trying to reprimand their cultural descendants?
Do you not catch the two fucks of a look I’m giving you while you ask your stupid and condescending question. I got that from Uncle Baldwin. Those are the only nonverbal quotes I need.
Ya’ll trippin. Sit down. FOH. Your only job is to see and uphold our greatness before we too die of critique, cancers, obscurity and rejection.
Bottomline: Before judging. Try taking art in. Sit with it. Discard it (if you can). Build upon it. Share it. Unpack it. Leave it so it can be experienced by others. Your opinions around whether it should exist is not up for debate. Just like taking your next breathe. Art is breathe. You inhale, then exhale. (period).
Just leave it be. Art never intentionally hurts anyone. Art cannot offend, you are just choosing to be offended by it. And if it does, well honestly, Life is offensive and art is a part of the interconnected life we all share. Same rules for everyone. Sorry your queerness does not make your life more special.
Thicker skin protects you from thin reactions.
So what, you don’t like that ONE line in my play? What, tear me down and the theater that hosted me? Demand that from this day forth, nothing like my play shall be seen again in any queer venue (if there are any left after you petty mofos get done with our hard fought resources).
And there you have it. My rant, pretty much.
I will always fight for the rights and sustainability of working artists and the freedoms and viability of art within our culture. And that sometimes means correcting well meaning, though arrogant and ign’ant political voices who know nothing of what they speak in the context of what we do and why we are here.
As we hustle into 2018, lets begin to think about the resource that is art and the queer artists that need better support, tolerance and balanced communication from their own community.
At the end of the day you will need us to communicate where you have failed. We simply fight a different fight that compliments whatever it is ya’ll doing over there. At the end of the day, the masses (which kinda matters) listens, reads and is captivated by us. We attract and HOLD their attention.
They call you (non-artists) sensitive, ‘brittle’, bleeding hearts for a reason. Your emotional cadence is monotone and grating. An artist could teach you a little something about dynamics and emotive communication. Just sayin. You need us, so keep us healthy and fed bishes.
Please, share with an artist or some easily offended individuals who need to read it.
