HIKA✩SHO

Shida !

Personnal suit. Polyurethane resin mask, acrylique paint, gold leaf, fake fur, artificial plants. Fleece glove (with artificial plants too)Curtain ropes and bronze bells.

What separates the people who spend their lives crusading against depictions of homosexuality in art and public life from those who spend theirs railing at independent creators for not perfectly protecting them from anything that might give them a negative emotion? For all that users posit that it’s an artist’s duty to provide trigger warnings as a matter of public safety and responsibility, allowing their audiences “avoid harm,” the very idea that art itself can cause harm either by victimizing someone engaging with it or by “normalizing” antisocial behavior pushes the conversation into reactionary territory. War and rape and interpersonal brutalization have been fixtures of human interaction since before history’s record began; the engines driving them are power, abuse, poverty, and other broad and tangible social forces. Depictions of morality in art offer only a pale reflection of these real-world horrors, and so function for many frustrated and powerless people as a safe arena in which to battle out ideas unrelated to art’s role in society.

Perhaps a movie reminds a viewer of abuse suffered in their childhood. Perhaps that viewer is then triggered, and must leave the theater in a state of severe agitation. Perhaps their day is ruined, their week thrown off, their compulsive behavior thrown into activation. The harm in this situation, the tangible damage to a human life, was done before the viewer ever bought a ticket. It was done between human beings, and no matter how terrible the effects of being brought back to this experience are, responsibility lies with the trauma’s original cause, not with art which coincidentally recalls it.

/standing ovation

This is why I get so angry. The things we warn for, the content that triggers huge groups of people, these are things we can push back against and fight. We can try to reduce abuse and poverty.

But for the people who get up in arms about Problematique Media, its easier to get mad at a piece of art than it is to work on the actual problems, and thus shifts the focus and blame off the problems and onto art that depicts it.