Graffiti / Street Art

If you've ever traveled through a city, you've most likely seen some sort of graffiti.  Whether it be an amateur scribble on a fence, and an incredible work by Banksy on a six story building, the world is covered in street art.  But whether it's graffiti or street art is up for some debate.

Watch it.  It's good.

Having just watched Exit Through the Gift Shop, a Banksy-directed film about graffiti artists, I am a huge fan of street art.  I've always thought it was really interesting to look at, but I never gave it much thought until watching the film.  A quick synopsis:  Theirry Guetta, a French born shop owner turned videographer living in Los Angeles, stumbles into the world of graffiti after filming his cousin, street artist Invador, putting some pieces up in Paris.  He then becomes enraptured in the world of graffiti, meets many prominent artists,  and makes it his goal to find and film Banksy, the most famous-- and elusive-- graffiti artist in the world.  But Guetta's world cyclones from being a filmer following the artists to becoming an artist himself.  Adopting the name Mr. Brainwash, Guetta begins making his own graffiti and becomes a successful artist in the LA area.  Banksy directed the film, which was made almost entirely from Guetta's old film rolls, yet manages to remain completely anonymous.  I found the film to be gripping and incredibly interesting (and so did the Acaemy: it was nominated for Best Documentary at this year's Oscars).  It delved into the to world of street artists, and showed that they have intricate plans for their art, and are more than a 'screw you' to the police.

A Banksy Classic.

As shown in Exit Through the Gift Shop, the world of graffiti and street art (are they one in the same?) is so much more than a hastily scribbled pentagram made by a couple of 14 year olds sneaking out after bed time.  The artists have elaborate plans for their art, and often need weeks of planning to pull off the perfect art.  The pieces often have a distinct meaning, sometimes political, sometimes social commentary, and all are very well put together.  But some people believe that the works of these artists are degrading the structures on which their are being painted.  I am over the opposite opinion.  I think these pieces are true works of art and should be encouraged.  They make an otherwise bland wall into something thought provoking and interesting.  On that note, I an going to leave you with my all time favorite piece by Banksy.  He took a trip to Israel and painted many pieces on the West Bank wall.  This is one of them.

What do you think?

Censorship

Living in the United States of America has a ton of perks to it.  The freedom of speech and of the press is one of them.  Imagine living in a country where your favorite books, movies, and TV shows have all been banned because the government deemed them to be inappropriate or capable of influencing you in ways they think you shouldn't be influenced.  That means that you probably wouldn't be able to read Cosmopolitan or watch Jersey Shore.  The reality is, though, that many countries around the world are struggling with censorship laws.

What is censorship?  It's when the government or organization monitors and controls what media outlets are saying and broadcasting.  The most often seen forms of censorship are banning certain books, 'bleeping' in songs, and broadcast delays of live events.  Countries all over the world use some form of censorship; it even happens in America.  While our censorship laws are not as strict as a country like China's, we still definitely have them.  You can't, for example, go around naked on television shows and be dropping the f-bomb on Sesame Street.  But in the USA we can read books like Animal Farm and The Diary of Anne Frank without having to worry about whether or not they are illegal.

Countries that do have strong censorship laws are often countries with very active political parties, such as China.  China is one of the best examples of censorship, and they censor topics such as the use of democracy, pornography (which is probably a good thing), and religion.  All forms of media are censored in China, and many common American websites are blocked on their servers, YouTube and Flickr being two examples.  International news casts such as CNN or BBC are sometimes 'blacked out' when the Chinese government feels that an issue is too controversial.

If we lived in a country where there was this much censorship, how would we react?  Would we be up in arms about the gross injustice of the situation, or would we be content to sit and watch a blank screen whenever sex or violence comes on the screen?  I believe that everyone should have the ability to watch whatever they want, and that nothing should be off limits to the people.

The Aftermath

So I've reread my last post a couple of times since I put it up, and I came to the realization that I didn't come across the way I had wanted to.  I am not vehemently against cursing at all, and I definitely think that there is an appropriate time to use certain colorful words.  What I was trying to say is that television shows are going a little too far with what they do and say.  The time slots between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m. are generally reserved for those programs in which cursing often takes place.  But more and more often am I seeing profanity in earlier shows.  And most of these cases are just to make a character seem cooler.

Another issue in the topic of profanity is censoring songs on the radio.  While I don't think that the six year old in the back seat should be subjected to certain Lil' Wayne phrases, some radio edits change the entire song.  Take the edited 'Forget You' by Cee-Lo Green.  The song had been seen everywhere, from GLEE to the Grammys to blaring out of the car next to me.  But the meaning in the original version and the radio edit are quite different.  Another example is "You're Beautiful" by James Blunt (a little bit of a throwback, I know).  The original line is 'She could see from my face that I was f**king high,' and the radio edit changed it to 'flying high.'  It makes the line much more vague, and definitely less drug-related.  The artist's lyrics in songs are a way for a reason, and by changing the words to make it more publicly acceptable, it's changing what the artist was trying to say.

I realize that I probably sound like a huge hypocrite, but I feel that television and music are two distinctly separate worlds.  Using profanity in television is most of the time unnecessary, but profanity in music takes on a whole different meaning.  Artist's are always trying to convey a message to their listeners, and if their words are being changed. so is the meaning of their songs.  If that makes no sense to you, it's okay.  It sometimes doesn't even make sense to me.

Cursing: What the #@$*!

It seems as though every where I go, from class to downtown, I hear people dropping bombs.  F-bombs, that is.    I wouldn't kiss my mother with a mouth like that.  After one of my professors dropped the F-bomb in class last week, it got me to thinking: why do people curse the way that they do?  So I did a little research, and got some pretty interesting statistics.  Curse words are used, on average, 85 times a day by an American, and the phrase "Oh my God' is the most common swear among women, being about 24% of all profanity used.  Now, as a disclaimer, I am not a profanity free person; I will let something slip from time to time, but only when the situation really merits it.  I am not a profanity Puritan, but I would also feel out of place among sailors.

Profanity has been on the up in pop culture.  There was once a time when people wouldn't say certain things on television because the were deemed inappropriate, but that time is long gone.  While you still aren't really allowed to say some things on public channels, private channels such as HBO and Starz can show what ever they want.  George Carlin's famous monologue '7 Words You Can Never Say on Television' (if you haven't seen it, look it up) gives the baddest words, but there are plenty of others that can be equally rude or offensive.  But these words have become so commonplace in our culture, that people are no longer surprised if they start being said on television.  I was watching a television show the other day, and someone say 'shit' in it.  It was an 8 o'clock time slot on a major network like CBS.  Was that allowed 15 years ago?  Somehow I doubt it.  I hear younger and younger kids using profanity without even knowing what it means, and some day, someone is going to get in huge trouble with their parents for calling their younger sister a bitch.

Cussing really has no use unless someone is really emotional about their speaking topic.  Dropping the F-bomb because it makes you seem cool is pretty overrated, and gives people around you a bad first impression.  So next time you hear someone cussing up a storm on the street, tell them to 'Kiss your ascot and close the front door.'