Act Four: Whatever artists do during the Trump years, let it be new

Fine arts and pop culture need to find new responses to changing political circumstances.   Alyssa Rosenberg on culture and politics   A screen grab from “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart” during the Indecision 2000 coverage of the Bush/Gore presidential election. (Comedy Central) Every week, I answer a question from Monday’s Act Four Live chat in the Wednesday edition of this newsletter. You can read the transcript of the Jan. 9 chat here and submit questions for the Jan. 16 chat here. This week, a reader asks about the prospects for the arts as a new president is sworn in. What’s your take on the assertion that better music, art, etc. will arise from the struggles faced during the Trump administration and Republican-led Congress? This is a complicated question to answer, not least because “music, art, etc.” include such a range of things. Punk music could see a resurgence in reaction to Donald Trump, even as classical music suffers because of cuts in public funding. Hollywood’s mainstream responses to the new administration could be didactic and self-righteous even as independent filmmakers move away from partisan politics and find inspiration in life simply as it’s lived. We could get more Macklemores. Or we could see the emergence of Adam McKay as the great political filmmaker he’s always been, even if people were content to ignore it until “The Big Short.” In other words: I don’t know what’s going to happen. But what I hope happens is that fine artists and pop culture search for new ideas and new ways to express them. I don’t really think that Americans reacted to late-night liberalism by electing Trump, but the fact that so many late-night hosts are borrowing from Jon Stewart’s playbook suggests that we need innovation in that space, especially in an era that’s even post-truthiness. It has been 28 years since “Roger & Me” came out; surely, there’s a polemical documentarian out there who can step up and contest Michael Moore in that space. And as Hollywood reckons with the latest round of ire aimed in its direction, I hope the movie business gives more support to movies such as”Hell or High Water” and “Deepwater Horizon,” rather than to the schlock that conservatives so often get served in an attempt to court their business. At the end of the day, the arts and culture can bring us together not by capitulating to the demands of one party or another, but by creating work that upends political boundaries entirely and that brings people together through sheer excellence. At a moment of cultural and political fragmentation, artists should set their ambitions higher, not lower. ADVERTISEMENT   In PG-13 movies, audiences see gunshots — but not the pain that follows PG-13 movies are outstripping R-rated movies in depicting shootings. But the gun violence audiences see is sanitized. By Alyssa Rosenberg  •  Read more »   In 2017, spend less time and energy on jerks and hucksters If someone feeds on your contempt, why not give them nothing at all? By Alyssa Rosenberg  •  Read more »   Artists aren’t here to ‘heal’ the country. They have more important political work to do. The debate over whether artists should accept Trump's invitations is really about whether artists are political actors. By Alyssa Rosenberg  •  Read more »   The Trump team’s embarrassing defense of fraudulence Whether Monica Crowley plagiarized sections of her book is a question of facts, not politics. By Alyssa Rosenberg  •  Read more »   Nat Hentoff’s young adult novel was a guide to arguing about art and politics The real villains in "The Day They Came to Arrest the Book" weren't moralists. They were people who hadn't really read the text. By Alyssa Rosenberg  •  Read more »   ADVERTISEMENT   Recommended for you   Intersect The corner of the Internet and interesting, in your inbox weekly. Sign Up »         Share Act Four:       Twitter      Facebook Trouble reading? Click here to view in your browser. You received this email because you signed up for Act Four. For additional free newsletters or to manage your newsletters, click here. We respect your privacy. If you believe that this email has been sent to you in error or you no longer wish to receive email from The Washington Post, click here. Contact us for help. ©2017 The Washington Post, 1301 K St NW, Washington DC 20071