Читать книгу Sociology of the Arts - Victoria D. Alexander - Страница 38

In the film It Happened One Night (1934), Clark Gable unbuttoned his shirt to reveal his bare chest directly underneath. It is said that sales of men’s undershirts tumbled as a result. When people suggest that an art object affects society in this way, they are making a “shaping” argument. Shaping approaches suggest that that art can somehow put ideas into people’s heads. The shaping approach encompasses a wide group of theories that share the core belief, or metaphor, that art has an impact on society. As with the reflection approach, the shaping approach presents the relationship between art and society as a simple, straight line. But it reverses the causal arrow (the direction of the effect between art objects and society), so that art is seen as affecting society rather than vice versa.

To a great extent, shaping theorists look at the negative effects of art on society. Throughout the twentieth century, social critics pointed to “evils” that are said to herald the fall of civilization as we know it. For instance, it was said that jazz music leads to a society filled with degenerates drinking in speakeasies (in the 1920s), that pulp fiction corrupts morals (in the 1930s), that the flying of Superman on TV encourages children to jump off rooftops (in the 1960s), that Rap music erodes respect for law and order (in the 1980s), and that contemporary visual art undermines family values (in the 1990s). More recently, concerns have moved to the ill effects of non‐art cultural objects, such as video games and social media.

Art has potential positive effects, as well as negative ones. For instance, “green” art might encourage awareness of climate change and movies about cancer patients might engender sympathy or encourage donations to medical research charities. Effects can also be morally neutral (or ambiguous). For instance, it is said that the Indiana Jones movies dramatically increased the number of university students studying anthropology.