Characters in the Arts

Reflecting on my conversation with The Mad Soprano under the "mini-soaps" discussion, I remembered that filmmakers, playwrights, and novelists can make their characters say whatever they want and we grant a certain amount of reality to those people, as if there were an actual individual who said this thing, or at least was "based on a true story." Philip Yancy gave the example of Bishop Myriel showing grace to Jean Valjean, who then repented, not as an expression of the idea that grace works, but as evidence of it. Not the same thing. A second cousin of mine posted a FB story about a young bigot shouting insults at a black man before exiting laughing with squealing tires.  The black man turned out to be a doctor who had spent many extra hours that day working to serve patients of all races and was weary. Of course. I challenged him that had looked fishy to me, and I in fact could not find any source that it had actually happened. My cousin and a few of his commenters were outraged at me for not believing it. I mentioned this to one of the actual black doctors I was working with at the time who smiled wryly that "Yes, we are under more pressure to be saints." (I don't think either of us spoke as clearly and wisely as I imply here.  It's based on a true story.)

So again I say that fiction is dangerous because we give our hearts to stories that another person is crafting, and they may be neither honest nor wise. It wasn't any different around cooking fires 10,000 years ago and may even have been worse then. You were surrounded by others who believed it in the same moment and your band membership may have depended on you believing it too. There were no other allegiances to switch to. I remember a psychologist friend who wore a "Fear No Art" button at the time of the Mapplethorpe exhibit who did laugh and get the point when I said "No, I think art is one of the most dangerous things in our lives." Szoborpark