Emotional Art and the Death of Nuance

One of the greatest gifts that one can take away from therapy is the insight that what we feel is very different from what we believe or what we do.  Indeed, much of the work done there is dedicated to separating the three.  More profoundly, a good deal of art, specially humor, but also including poetry, prose, movies, music and plays,,…is based on this conflict within the self.

I find it interesting and sad that this rich store of humanity is under constant attack in our hyper, ADHD,-emotionally immature culture.  It is noteworthy that this beat down of truth is one of the few things that the right and left sides of the culture wars can agree on, if for different reasons.

I was listening to a Liberal radio show a few weeks ago when the female host used the Honeymooners, the iconic 1950’s sitcom starring Jackie Gleason, as an example of misogyny, and of a culture that bred violence against women.  Such an attitude makes me wonder why my ostensibly well-read, liberal friends question the broader dislike of political correctness.  The whole point of Ralph Kramden is that he would not hurt a fly.  When he rages at Alice with the “bang zoom” fist, he is using visual art to convey a feeling we all have from time to time.  It tickles us because we relate to the feeling, as well as the irony that he loves his wife and has a soft soul.

All of us have felt like putting our children on a bus to nowhere from time to time, or in the trash.  I still remember the time when my precious daughter was a colicky infant, how I fantasized about throwing the best and most lovable human being that this life has given me out the window.  The wishful daydream ends with her little pinky twitching in death throws as I close the window, light a cigarette and gleefully wait for the cops.  I still laugh at the irony and the ability of my selfish emotions to generate such paradox.  It is such raw emotion and the juxtaposition of our intellectual and better selves that much humor, forgiveness and love is born.

More recently, when James Gandolfini died, there was much criticism of his character, Tony Soprano, and the way in which Italian Americans were portrayed. A closer look at the character, and the series, though, tells the story of duality and how good people do bad things, bad people do good things, and the conflict between work and family.  There are more metaphors in this wonderful work of fiction than in many novels.  More enjoyable, still, was the use of humor.  Those of us who grew up in mobbed-up neighborhoods got a kick out of the characters in the show because we know them.  It was always interesting how such powerful people could say such ignorant things, and also be such brilliant bookmakers and street businessmen.  Equally compelling was their apparent love for their families and adherence to church dogma as they visited their girlfriends on Friday nights, and used violence as a means of corporate discipline.  By the way, the similarity to government officials and corporate executives was also never lost me.

I get it. Italian gangsters are no more representative of the Italian American community than the gang bangers and rap stars are to the African American community.  But their life styles and the paradoxes inherent in them are fertile ground for art and exploration of the human condition; a condition, I hasten to add, is better coped with through the use of humor and insight.

Life is hard.  Life is gray.  The need for absolutes leads to an unhappy existence, and a denial of the truth of what it means to be human.