What distinguishes one book, film or picture as art from another that's merely pornography?
Some friends and i are going to watch the Oscar-nominated movie, Nine, this weekend (my review of Nine will be up on my Heartflicks Film Review Blog on Monday), despite some people's reservations that it's "just soft porn" and "a bit dodgy". These misgivings were countered with comments that it's actually art that inspires and demands serious talent. While you can't really judge much from the previews, in some ways it does seem like a musical excuse to be smutty. But you can't really tell until you've seen it – and if it's been made by some seriously gifted people and has been nominated for awards, it surely can't be just bad?
Which makes me wonder: what determines the difference between art and pornography? What makes one film a cultured flick and another a blue movie? What makes one nude portrait an artwork and another a dirty picture?
Is it the motivation of the producer for creating it? Is it the quality/skill/technique of the execution? Or is it the intentions of the audience in watching it?
So what do you think makes it art or porn?
hmmm...i hav often thought about this.
ReplyDeletei think there is a def difference...otherwise its like sayin ALL nudity is ALWAYS pornographic. which, for obvious reasons its not.
i think it all depends on intent, context and execution. but there are very definite grey areas where a lot of ppl wud argue something is pornographic when to others its art. just last nite i read an article about a photographer from the 70's that dealt with this issue...what the writer saw as art, i saw as vulgar and pornographic.
but this opens a whole other topic..what is art? (dum dum duuuum)
interesting to read how the dictionary defines pornography:
"obscene writings, drawings, photographs, or the like, esp. those having little or no artistic merit." - i like that definition. i guess it then just depends what you define as artistic merit...sigh
That is a great definition! Thanks for the awesome comment, i have to agree with you.
ReplyDeleteOne of my colleagues just quoted Oscar Wilde at Me:
"It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors."
Perhaps an addition to that quote could be, "It is the artist, and not life, that art really mirrors."