Art and Culture # 76
Lovecraft, the Blind Idiot God, and how Society Needs to Sleep
-For the Uncensored!
After 2022’s Oscars moment where Will Smith, who won for his role in King Richard, slapped Chris Rock, a comedian making a joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett’s hair, it created that deep suspicion that people already know. Like it or not, we need the foibles of celebrities, or even internet celebrities, to help ease the pain of reality. I didn’t have to think about taking a stand all the time. It gets old and frustrating. And sometimes, it becomes hard not to.
But there’s something at play here. Art is supposed to allow you to escape a painful reality. And since 2021, America has entered a painful place. No one wants to work if they are going to get fired all the time, always scared of being held accountable for an innocuous tweet, or something stupid said on the Internet. And for America freedom of speech is the bedrock of all its natural citizens, and legal immigrants. We are allowed to discuss and joke even when we’re not supposed to. And only make fun of a list of enemies, and not the people who are our friends. And freedom of expression is on trial. And it’s the America vs. Comedy. And for a time, Art used to cross all party lines. It used to bring people together.[i]
Humor is a pressure valve in your brain. It allows you to laugh about your horrible situation. There’s a reason why someone at a job must be a minstrel or at least someone willing to make people laugh in order to help the rest of a work place function. It’s hard for me to consider this as a hardship. Because what Will Smith did was a problem. Will Smith, whose list of movies include Independence Day, The Bad Boy trilogy, Men in Black Trilogy, I am Legend, Ali, and failures, like Suicide Squad, Aladdin, being the only two I can think of that I have personally felt dissatisfied with.[ii]
Overall, Will Smith is a good actor, but actors are not infallible from mistakes. In some ways, Tom Cruise probably took a sigh of relief and said, “At least they aren’t looking at me.” As the debate of what the media will tell you, the overall message is clear. All in all, Will Smith failed, and he was awarded for it.
Art itself needs to be able to attack the establishment, high and low. What I can’t pretend is that much of the debate is lost on most people. Can freedom of speech exist if celebrities are allowed to slap comedians? How does this relate to Lovecraft?
Lovecraft understood that humans in there soft small brains need to be able to be sung back to sleep, or annihilated, either one is preferrable. Because since 2016 all of this feels like Azethoth awakened and destroyed what we knew before. And somehow we’re all still here. If minstrels aren’t allowed to play lutes and sing the world crushing God, who is blind and the planet itself, it would erase all of existence together.
Lovecraft knew that horror is where people went to when they didn’t have art or entertainment to try and figure out vast complex issues. It’s why our ancestors used cave drawings to help communicate deep seeded fears or at least tell a journey. And from 2016 to 2022 has felt deeply saturated with fear mongering films that replaced substance with ideology. And Lovecraft would have been distraught to realize that true art was replaced with ideology.
Ideology is what religion offers. If religion also isn’t allowed to exist, then the media will become the state of fear, the fear police, big brother. What artists used to do was to be able to use there art as medicine or help people make sense of the world. To help expel demons they might have felt at the time. To be able to change and get rid of any distressing emotions they might feel. And try telling this to creatively bankrupt people who can’t tell a good joke and/or tell a story that allows people to escape or at least deal with the horror reality gives us. Lovecraft is probably laughing at this idea, because if ideology is the only substance a person is able to feel, then it must be equivalent to the way an Old One must feel. A mindless alien that will subsume anyone it will find, just because it can.
But if artists aren’t allowed to be themselves, shine a light on what makes them afraid, or even make a joke, then we have truly entered a Lovecraftian nightmare. Where all who wish to speak are now silenced. But somehow, the world ended in some way.[iii]
And people weren’t scared anymore. Because our minds drifted away and helped the people who aren’t observant about politics have a break. And maybe Will Smith helped people, for a brief moment, with his stupidity. The Song of war drifted away for but a moment. And humans could then be themselves, for once. And Tom Cruise can still keep his sexuality under wraps for the brief time.[iv]
[i] And I still hold out hope that it does, and maybe looking to the past might yet bring more people together than the future. I don’t know. Life is just one big Beta test mode without the final Alpha product being released.
[ii] I never saw After Earth and I am a M. Night Shamalayn fan. So I might like it. I have yet to say whether it is a failure or not. And what I saw of Gemini Man I did enjoy, but I never went back to it, so that’s one minor thing to address.
[iii] For me it was my blood clot over fifteen years ago. I never really admitted it until now. Long before Covid 19 and that bullshit.
[iv] Again, I like Tom Cruise, but even he can’t take a joke. If you want hilarity at its peak, watch “Trapped in the Closet” because it’s probably in every South Park fans top five favorite episodes.
-Louis Bruno is the author of more than 19 books, including, The Michael Project, The Michael Project: Book 2: The Lost Children of Eve, Thy Kingdom Come, The Disintegrating Bloodline Part 2: Chaos, The Data Chase, The Disintegrating Bloodline part 3: Solvè, The Disintegrating Bloodline (and the original text re-released in 2019), Apocalypse Soldier, The Data Chase, Selection: The First Book of the Life and Death Saga, and Blinking Eyes: The Second Book of the Life and Death Saga, Hierarchy of Dwindling Sheep, The City of Sand, The God of Curiosity, To the Moon and Back, The Villain Lives and The Villain Lives: The Divided Pinpoint, Come Home, Young One. He has a Bachelor of Arts in English from University of Phoenix. His books can be found on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Lulu. He can be found on Gab, https://gab.com/thereallouistbruno, Minds https://www.minds.com/lbruno8063/. Instagram @lbrruno8063 and @louisbrunoofficialbook. Our Freedom Book https://www.ourfreedombook.com/thereallouistbruno17. He has written for the Intellectual Conservative and Ephemere. His next series, City of Sand is out now:https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/louis-bruno/city-of-sand/hardcover/product-rke9jz.html?page=1&pageSize=4. Also, if you can’t subscribe so that you can get members only content, please be sure to share the articles, as well. If you do Subscribe and pay, as well so you can get my articles in your inbox every time, and access to the paid articles that some readers won’t get to see. Every little bit helps in the war against Big Tech. Thanks for reading.
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