Broken heart most often not enough to make art
Take “your broken heart, make it into art”. Thus, in a voice croaking with emotion (and, as she put it, after too much “screaming and lamentation” at the weekend), Meryl Streep closed her speech accepting the Cecil B De Mille Award at the Golden Globes earlier this week. She was quoting her late friend Carrie Fisher, who could attest both to the broken heart – after a lifetime of battling bipolar disorder and drug addiction – and to the art: Fisher was more than just Princess Leia of Star Wars fame, and had a substantial repertoire not only as an actress but also as a screenwriter.
There are risks attached to this advice, however, and it should be accompanied by the caveat that a broken heart is not enough in itself to make art. As those of us who channelled our adolescent angst into bad poetry, clunky musical compositions or paltry paintings can confirm, while the alchemical process described by Fisher is immensely valuable to aspirant artists, the final product is rarely golden.
Perhaps one should say, instead: “Take your broken heart, make it into art, unmake it, remake it, refine it again and again, then submit it for evaluation by people who aren’t your friends or family, brace yourself for rejection and ridicule, and should you pass this test, be prepared to offer your work as a sacrifice on the altar of public opinion, where it will be critiqued, mocked or simply ignored.”
In the context of Streep’s speech, Fisher’s words became an injunction to Hollywood at large — you might feel “vilified” for your liberal views, you might feel distraught at the prospect of Donald Trump’s America, but don’t despair; instead, keep on making movies and TV shows that encourage viewers to exercise empathy, and in doing so, you will be serving a progressive political purpose.
That, anyway, is the generous interpretation of her speech. There have been some far less charitable responses, most of which have pointed out that those gathered in tuxes and ball-gowns at the Beverly Hilton hotel were not exactly a disenfranchised lot – and that, celebrity gossip aside, they could hardly claim to be under “attack”.
The last time some of the denizens of Hollywood were actually vilified was the 1950s, with Joe McCarthy’s communist witch-hunt in full swing. Then, as now, the entertainment establishment was as full of bigots and reactionaries as it was of visionaries and equal rights advocates. This is, after all, an industry that continues to hold in its cheerful embrace Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone and Clint Eastwood (among others).
In her defence, Streep — acknowledging that the “wellheeled” members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association don’t experience the kind of persecution faced by journalists in various parts of the world — also stressed the importance of the “free press” and appealed for support for the Committee to Protect Journalists. But her rather sweeping claim about “truth” in reporting glossed over the role of many media houses in enabling Trump’s presidency.
It is unfair to expect a short speech on a celebratory occasion to be rigorous in its analysis of the historical moment. Compared to most acceptance speeches, Streep’s was astute, eloquent and bold. But, as the novelist Marlon James recently observed on the topic of racial diversity in contemporary fiction, to speak about a problem is not the same as acting to help solve it. The only practical purpose that a public speech can serve is what linguists call a perlocutionary effect: when spoken words bring about changes in the behaviour of a listener.
At his oratorical best, Barack Obama moved the hearts and minds of a global audience (even those who have a jaundiced view of the US). He did it again during his farewell address just a few nights after Streep’s homily.
But such effects are temporary; and, as shown by Trump’s election, Obama failed to bring enough Americans with him into the country he spoke about, one that has never really existed except in the rhetoric of its greatest citizens. It remains to be seen if the limited gains of his presidency — healthcare, economic growth and US environmental policy, mixed success in diplomacy — will be short-lived too.