Bruce Willis, Art, & Self Exploration

When I was 12 years old someone asked me my favorite movie and the answer was easy.

Die Hard 2.

“What do you like about it?”

Uhhhhhh….

Answering “Why?” Was a whole lot more difficult. I found myself pondering this question for weeks before finally asking the question: “Do I really like Die Hard 2?”

I can see now that I didn’t have a sophisticated appreciation for much of anything. Most of my tastes came from merely a repeated exposure and the influence of other people. That’s not to say I didn’t really like what I liked but I didn’t know myself well enough to really be sure what I liked and why I liked it.

I didn’t understand or appreciate all that can be gained from art in any of it’s form. You could say that it was all just entertainment for me, an escape, a drug to feel better because simply existing can be painful, let along all the dramas we face in our lives.

Looking back I can tell you that I probably liked it because Bruce Willlis as John McClane was a badass with that nonchalant “no fucks given” attitude.

“Yippie kay yay mother fucker”.

In the given setting, Mcclane was a positive image of masculinity. In a different setting maybe not, but in the face of danger and adversity he was brave and resourceful, something I aspired to be.

I don’t really watch or listen to much mainstream media these days because I think it’s made to appeal to as many people as possible and this includes people like my former self, who aren’t really into digging into the deep…

Buuuuuuuuut…. If I were to watch the original Die Hard trilogy now I would be curious about the series inspirations. How much did it draw from classic western films, and were there artistic decisions that were made to make it more or less like a western? What kinds of changes does McClane go through between films, if any?

Even movies that are made with minimal artistic vision can have interesting creative choices, and sometimes you discover that something you thought was just bubblegum addictive garbage is actually a brilliant work of art.

I recently came to the realization that One Piece is far deeper and more interesting than I ever would have imagined, drawing on themes from different religious traditions, literature and history, it’s a beautiful expression on the importance freedom. It uses tropes that are pretty cookie-cutter for shonen manga/anime, but it really really hits hard with the themes of liberation, both self liberation and cooperating to create a more free world, and uses powerful archetypes very successfully.

I couldn’t describe any of my favorite things like that as a kid though, and you could say that’s because I was a kid, and I am older and know more now, but I see many people my age and older, my parents and grandparents even, who cannot tell you why they like what they like.

I don’t believe it’s necessary or even desirable to overanalyze something as you are watching it. Just enjoy it while it’s on. But then when it’s done, if you don’t think about it a little bit, and you have that simplistic “i like what i like” attitude towards everything, you’ll find that you don’t evolve much as a person, or that change is much more challenging for you.

I later learned that there were other themes that were much more powerful for me than badass city cowboy attitudes, and that there were many dimensions to me that I had to explore.

Certain things help support me and challenge me to the point where I could start actively challenging myself.

Watching American Beauty made me feel like I was not alone. Characters who could appreciate the small things in life like a paper bag blowing in the wind (….or the thrill of blackmailing their boss 😂) helped me learn to value this part of myself, nevermind that we later learned one of the actors was a scumbag, it was a brilliant film with brilliant characters and acting.

On another front, I was stuck in a line of thinking that only music with live instruments required any talent and that rock (particularly punk) expressed the feelings that I could relate to.

Then I heard Bjork for the first time and 🤯. Joga absolutely floored me and Hunter filled me with feelings of exploring hidden mysteries. Then hearing her repeat “All is Full of Love” as a mantra…wasn’t that exactly what American Beauty was trying to say?

As I dug deeper and deeper into the how and why of what moved me, I began to see the difference between true art and products that were just meant to extract my money, and the difference between a true statement and someone trying to tap into a trend simply for the sake of their own popularity.

That’s not to say that art can’t be a product and that products can’t be art, but they have to work at being both if they want to be both and it’s a diffiuclt balance sometimes.

This desire to challenge myself went very well with the indie-rock and indie-pop music I was starting to explore in college. Much of it was challenging, from Blonde Redhead to Broken Social Scene to Xiu Xiu.

A massive challenge for me was Tom Waits. When I first heard him, I felt like it was the most pretentious thing in the world. Who would want to listen to this croaky pirate voice singing in abstract metaphors.

But i pushed myself to listen until I was certain there was no meaning….and it turns out there was meaning.

After listening to Rain Dogs anout 6 times, I discovered that some of the songs started to get stuck in my head. “It might just be brainwash” I thought, but then I started to look at the lyrics more closely and I realized that it was all playful poetry. He wrote in a way that was just as impactful as it was experimental.

“The Piano has been drinking” where he playful anthropomorphizes every object in the room in order to justify his own sorry state of drunken stupor is fun and silly but has a subtle air of bleak desperation to it.

The piano has been drinking
my neck tie is asleep
and the combo went back to New York
the jukebox has to take a leak
and the carpet needs a haircut
and the spotlight looks like a prison break
cause the telephone is out of cigarettes
and the balcony is on the make

“Chocolate Jesus” isn’t nonsense, it’s a statement on how people substitute true faith with tradition and blindly follow ritual without.

How voice may be hard to get used to at first if you think singing has to be smooth and clear and follow certain rules, but if we are just talking about the ability to convey emotion, it’s spot on.

I don’t think I could have appreciated something like Tom Waits as a kid because I had too many strict ideas about what music was supposed to be, and I felt like I had already defined myself a certain way, what I liked and what I disliked, but actually I hadn’t really given many things a chance.

Even a few years ago I dismissed Trap music as “too easy” for rap, but aftwr giving it a chance, I feel it’s just a different mode of expression that can be meaningful in it’s own right if done well.

As a kid I never would have been able to truly appreciate the film Children of the Sea, which I recently watched, which towards the end abandons all plot. I would have been frustrated by the fact that there’s very little dialogue so much is obscure and unanswered. But with what I know now, I realize that the creators were trying to convey an emotion that is very difficult to express with words, a longing for something that doesn’t exist, a feeling of connection with everything, and a bittersweet appreciation for the temporary nature of life.

Had I watched it without previously trying to understand myself and what kinds of things inspired me, I would have probably hated it. I would have accused it of being flashy eye candy with no thought put into the plot but because I’ve spent lots of time trying to understand myself, I could see all kinds of nuance and different levels of meaning. As it stands, it may be my favorite piece of animated fiction.

Not all art is easy and not all art is straightforward

Not everything is about what the reviews say it's about. Not everything has to fall into a specific pattern or follow certain rules. At the same time breaking rules arbitrarily and without a specific purpose is difficult to connect with and may be too self indulgent to really resonate with anyone.

Many people out there still use other people’s opinions as a compass for what is good and what’s not, and it’s a shame because there are so many colors and textures to enjoy and sometimes I feel as if many people only have a chance to appreciate just a very limited scope.

Meanwhile some things get credit for being more creative than they are just because they are different. They think shock value is an artform in itself, and use it as a substitute for any true kind of exploration. The question I would ask is “what can this convey that other art can not.”

As I said above, I don’t think we need to do this much thinking when we are watching a film or listening to music, or playing a game, but we can let ourselves marinate in the art longer and think these thoughts after we first experience them.

This way instead of just using art as a way to escape, instead of letting others decide what is good and bad, we can use art as a way to explore ourselves and find a deeper appreciation for the subtleties of life.

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