I recently found a promotional catalog of art by a relative of mine. In her biographical blurb, she claims that as a child, her home:
1) Was religious.
2) Was abusive.
3) Art and music were considered Satan’s work, and she therefore was denied art supplies.
4) This denial of art supplies (due to religious abusiveness) spurred her creativity by forcing her to create art on “found” materials.
As I read, I remembered the following:
1) Her dad was a yeller and a hitter.
2) Her dad was a generous, grandiose man who loved to show off his money, and bought his kids everything they wanted.
3) Her dad was a Mexican immigrant doctor who emphasized discipline and achievement.
4) Her dad was a Seventh-Day Adventist, and her mom was Roman Catholic. I never heard a religious-based objection to anything by either of them, except for matters regarding the atheist activist Madalyn Murray O’Hair.
5) We attended her brother’s music recital, to which both parents reacted proudly.
6) By the time she was in her early teens, her mom, the Roman Catholic (the Church has a grand artistic tradition, whatever its other faults), had left her dad and moved the kids far away.
Realizing my memories might have faded, I emailed the blurb to her brother. His memories matched mine. Abusive, yes. Enemy of the arts, no. Religious nut, no.
But I guess if you’re trying to sell your art based upon your personality — and what artist doesn’t? — overcoming a plain old abusive background isn’t enough of a lure. Especially not one where you were materially indulged.
This is the type of thing that bothers me a lot, and bothers my husband not at all. He figures that’s just how it is — people lie to sell things, including themselves. He doesn’t, though. So why doesn’t it make him mad when other people do it?
I hate liars. I especially hate liars who make up lies about things that happen to them. I especially hate liars who make up lies where popular enemies — like religious nuts who hate art — do bad things to them. If a story is too satisfying, it’s probably a lie.
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I had some other relatives who told Satan-related lies that were very satisfying and validating to a large segment of the public. A man spent years in prison because of it. (It’s a big family, but let’s hide from Google just in case.) They got to go on Oprah.
When I read bios like that one, I think part of me always wonders about the accuracy. The thing is, though, that such stories almost never endear me to the artist. They sort of make me feel like I would have trouble relating to them if I ever met them. It’s sort of like when I found out that Alan Moore is a freak. It didn’t make me enjoy his work any less, but it made me less interested in him personally.
Not that being raised in a household as described by your relative would necessarily make them a freak. But it would make them harder to relate to considering my comfy household growing up. And it also suggests baggage. In this case, an axe to grind against religion. Artists with hangups against religion is one thing we have quite enough of.
Comment by trumwill — May 25, 2010 @ 4:39 pm
The whole idea that art sells based on the artist’s up-from-adversity background, rather than on its own merits, doesn’t seem right.
Comment by Peter — May 25, 2010 @ 6:33 pm
“The whole idea that art sells based on the artist’s up-from-adversity background, rather than on its own merits, doesn’t seem right
Yes, but on the other hand art is so subjective. And it’s intended to evoke an emotional response. If you respect the artist for personal reasons, it probably bleeds over into your emotional response.
“The thing is, though, that such stories almost never endear me to the artist. They sort of make me feel like I would have trouble relating to them if I ever met them.”
I suppose what really bothers me isn’t the idea of boosting sales, but the worry that such false stories influence people’s view of the world. Even if you don’t like the person, you would probably record their story in your mind on some level. Then if you heard another similar story, you might find it more credible because of the previous story, and so on. You might be more likely to dislike religious people, or develop a semiconscious belief that they are more likely to be abusive or to be Philistines who hate art.
I’ve heard prominent journalists say they wish to write a novel rather than a true story about a situation because it’s easier to tell the truth in fiction. That’s hogwash. What they mean is it’s easier to be “truthy.” They can avoid all the messy contradictions of reality.
Comment by stone — May 25, 2010 @ 10:46 pm
I suppose what really bothers me isn’t the idea of boosting sales, but the worry that such false stories influence people’s view of the world.
Yeah, I would consider that to be the far more serious issue.
Are you familiar with Stolen Valor? Among other things, it addresses the issue of perceptions of the Vietnam War being shaped in part by people who are lying about having served or having served in the Vietnam War itself. There are apparently more than a few cases of people fabricating war experiences to sell themselves and further their anti-war cause by claiming to have personally seen things they could not have seen because they were not in Vietnam. And other people, like Brian Dennehy, simply trying to draw attention to themselves.
(I have not personally read the book all the way through. It was loaned to me by a friend and I scanned through it. Seemed pretty biased and I found one portion of it to be obviously misleading, but the guy did his legwork on that score.)
Comment by trumwill — May 25, 2010 @ 11:46 pm
Well, on the one hand, I think cynical exploitation of SWPL silliness is kind of awesome. Like when Ward Churchill got a job as a professor by falsely claiming to be an American Indian. And if she’s selling them a story, and they never find out that the story’s not true, is there really any harm?
On the other hand, unfairly casting religious people in a negative light is not awesome.
Legally, is this fraud? I mean, she’s lying, but she’s not really misrepresenting her product in any material way.
Comment by Brandon Berg — May 26, 2010 @ 1:16 am
Reminds me of something I blogged about recently. Sherrie Rene Scott is a Broadway star who’s originally from Kansas (she’s been in Aida, The Little Mermaid, etc.). There’s a clip of her on YouTube singing an Elton John song at some benefit concert, and before she sings it, she tells this story about her gay cousin who introduced her to show tunes, and how her family disowned him when he came out, and they wouldn’t even let her say his name. I can’t say she’s embellishing, because obviously I don’t know. But the cynic in me wonder whether she was just playing to her Manhattan audience’s prejudices about they hayseeds in flyover country.
Comment by DaveinHackensack — May 26, 2010 @ 2:52 am
I’ve heard prominent journalists say they wish to write a novel rather than a true story about a situation because it’s easier to tell the truth in fiction. That’s hogwash. What they mean is it’s easier to be “truthy.” They can avoid all the messy contradictions of reality.
And then you have James Frey and the Million Little Pieces fiasco. Writing a novel based on his experiences would have been a terrific idea. Instead, he wrote a non-fiction book, based on a huge exaggeration of what he really went through, and got caught.
Comment by Peter — May 26, 2010 @ 9:38 am
“And then you have James Frey and the Million Little Pieces fiasco. Writing a novel based on his experiences would have been a terrific idea. ”
No, no, it would not have. (Uh-oh, you got me started on James Frey) Wouldn’t even have been published. He was just a privileged dude who went through minor rehab. They’re a dime a dozen. And they weren’t just exaggerations — he made most of it up out of whole cloth.
What made his book sell was the maudlin sentiment and melodramatic, redemptive scenes that didn’t really happen. People — especially of the type who watch Oprah — WANT to believe that’s how life works. If he’d tried to sell it as fiction, it would have been dismissed as hack work. But people love stories that provide factual support for popular memes. They’ll turn off their BS detectors.
This writer, John Dolan, hates Frey as bad as I do. He does a good job of explaining why his writing reeks of bull: here, and here for his second book, and here where he responds to his hate mail:
“At first I was puzzled by the fact that most of Frey’s fans were women. Once again, I was deluded by all that Berkeley nonsense, assuming that women would object to the gross misogyny in Frey’s novels, his habit of killing off women characters for cheap tears, his atavistic Hemingway swagger, his inevitable conclusion (in My Friend Leonard) that chicks are chapters while men are books-that only homoerotic friendships between Manly Men are truly worthy.
Nope. I learned the same dismal lesson for the millionth time: the bad old world is alive and well, reclaiming the few pockets of territory it lost in the hippie days. The world remains the sadistic scrubland it’s always been, and women are its most fervent, desperate soldiers. They’ve clearly been dying for a Frey to come along and tell them it’s still the 1930s, when white guys got in bar brawls, when steelworkers cried, mafia killers just needed love, and walking oxymorons like Frey came in from the cold with cool scars and great stories, eager to settle down and swap tears, if not spit.”
It’s the same reason the Roissy blog has gotten so popular around here. He doesn’t have anything to say that a thousand misogynist Internerds weren’t rambling about before, but he claims to be a successful example of their beliefs in practice. So they can believe their false memes (chicks dig jerks; only assholes succeed in romance; the loser guys are the good ones) have factual support. That’s why I care that he’s making crap up.
Comment by stone — May 26, 2010 @ 11:07 am
“I can’t say she’s embellishing, because obviously I don’t know. But the cynic in me wonder whether she was just playing to her Manhattan audience’s prejudices about they hayseeds in flyover country. ”
The sensitive gay dude who taught the singer about show tunes was disowned by his family? Show tunes? Sheez, did he teach her about decorating, too?
You’re right — sounds a little too perfectly TV to be all true. Like, maybe she really did have a gay relative who got disowned, but he listened to show tunes with her once and it was her idea. And he got disowned for stealing the family jewelry to sell to buy coke for his boyfriend.
Comment by stone — May 26, 2010 @ 11:12 am
“Legally, is this fraud? I mean, she’s lying, but she’s not really misrepresenting her product in any material way.”
Nah, if spiking one’s bio with fake hardships were fraud, I’d have a suit against two-thirds of Hollywood.
“On the other hand, unfairly casting religious people in a negative light is not awesome.”
Andit’s not just what it does to religious people. It’s the fact that her false story supports the false “up-from-adversity” meme, to use Peter’s phrasing. It’s gotten almost so anyone in the public eye is expected to tell stories about what they overcame, and most of them have to invent things.
Comment by stone — May 26, 2010 @ 11:17 am
Even more disturbing is that, according to her brother, she may actually have come to believe the story she’s telling. This is not so uncommon. People hear a certain narrative over and over, and end up feeling the need to make it fit their own lives.
Comment by stone — May 26, 2010 @ 12:31 pm
This sounds like it’s a plot development on “Glee.”
Bingo.
She’s full of it. It’s Jehovah’s Witnesses, and not Seventh-Day-Adventists, who consider religious imagery wrong. And that’s only religious imagery — they don’t care about other types of images.
Comment by Maria — May 26, 2010 @ 1:33 pm
“This sounds like it’s a plot development on “Glee.””
Sounds like the opposite of Glee, in which the salt-of-the-earth Midwestern dad loves and accepts his flamingly gay son.
BTW, here’s the blog post, Everyday Rapture. The second video clip is the one where Scott tells the story about her gay cousin.
Comment by DaveinHackensack — May 26, 2010 @ 6:07 pm
Dave,
I see that the showtune-loving gay cousin “got sick” and died with no family around. Her career is a tribute to him, she says. Bathos, bathos.
Comment by stone — May 26, 2010 @ 7:27 pm
Maybe, Sheila,
But she’s got that audience eating out of the palm of her hand, whether the story is true or not.
BTW, the guy singing back up for her, in the shadows, is arguably a bigger star than she is. The first time I saw that clip, I expected her to bring him into the spotlight for a quick bow or acknowledge him somehow; instead, it looks like she just gestures for him to grab the stool.
Comment by DaveinHackensack — May 26, 2010 @ 8:07 pm
Stone, it’s awesome that you mentioned satanic ritual abuse. I mentioned it in a long tangent in an old comment thread. It’s hard to believe that lots of people thought there was a huge conspiracy of socially prominent Satanists murdering their children. Everyone expects the occasional loon to have a bizarre conspiracy theory. But so many people thinking “yeah, that looks like an appendectomy scar, but she says its a cesaerian section scar from when her father ripped her baby out to torture to death for Satan. That’s way more likely than lying or delusion.”
Hard to beleive, which is why it needs to be easy to remember. That mass hysteria, which was especially prominent in amongst (fringe-ish) therapists makes me wonder about claimed etiologies for things like borderline personality disorder. The en vogue hypothesis is that neglect and/or abuse, particularly sexual abuse, causes BPD in women. I don’t have evidence that it doesn’t, but I’m skeptical when therapists and psychologists talk about widespread abuse.
Comment by rob — May 27, 2010 @ 6:19 am
“Stone, it’s awesome that you mentioned satanic ritual abuse. I mentioned it in a long tangent in an old comment thread.”
Yes, that jogged my repressed memory (lol). Mainstream people, including judges, still seem to find it credible that people can repress, and then suddenly recover, memories of horrible sexual abuse.
“The en vogue hypothesis is that neglect and/or abuse, particularly sexual abuse, causes BPD in women. I don’t have evidence that it doesn’t, but I’m skeptical when therapists and psychologists talk about widespread abuse.”
Well, as I understand BPD, there’s gotta be something bad that happens to cause it. But not necessarily sexual abuse. “Neglect” is a pretty broad term. The sex stuff seems to be the first thing some therapists look to as the answer for whatever ails a person, though. And they’re in the business of believing whatever their patients tell them.
Comment by stone — May 27, 2010 @ 2:14 pm
Yeah, but everybody else hates him. He’s kind of a very nasty gay kid when you come right down to it. This week’s episode portrayed him as some sort of victim when in fact he was totally in the wrong.
Comment by Maria — May 27, 2010 @ 8:23 pm
That’s a good point about how the gay kid is kind of a dick. That’s a cool thing about Glee, that they’re not afraid to make him an unsympathetic character.
Comment by DaveinHackensack — May 28, 2010 @ 10:35 pm
Yeah, but they are constantly moralizing about how everyone should love the gay kid no matter what, even though he IS a dick and an annoying drama queen. Most people would probably just leave him alone if he wasn’t such a dick.
Comment by Maria — June 2, 2010 @ 10:30 am
Most of my earlier experiences with homosexuals was pretty negative. It’s like a lot of things, I guess, where those that are the loudest about something are the attention-seekers and often obnoxiously so. There was a gay couple at my junior high and later high school that basically got to be well known for amplifying every known homosexual and female stereotype (I thought them more female stereotypes at the time, though now I recognize them as more gay stereotypes).
What’s funny is that prior to their coming out, they were both extremely unpopular. But they became popular when they came out. This is despite the fact that I went to school in a rather conservative place and in our “student election” George H. Bush and Ross Perot absolutely dominated. It probably helped that the kids were bloody rich, though that didn’t help them any pre-homosexual.
I had a gay acquaintance in high school. He was not rich and was very unpopular, though. Beat up with regularity. Why that kid was in ROTC I will never know. A friend of mine from back in the day apparently came out at some point after high school. Since he was either in the closet or was not yet aware of his sexuality at the time, I suppose his middling popularity is not particularly relevant.
Comment by trumwill — June 2, 2010 @ 10:57 am