Often artists write stories without the intention of actively advocating a specific cause. However, no matter the intention, every artist's society, the events occurring during his or her lifetime, and his or her own social situation/life story, inevitably affects the type of work that artist will create. As a result, the work that appears to have been made purely from a desire to create suddenly becomes a social comment. By merely creating and naturally belonging to a society, the artist indirectly submits acts of civic participation, whether he or she accepts this perspective or not.
The reading seems to suggest that due to this fact, an artist must be knowledgeable about the social issues of the time. The reading also demands that the artist be responsible to his or her craft in order to maintain its credibilityt for future artists. This is all well and good, but it seemed to me that the reading chose not to address fiction as a means for social activism. I believe that I noticed this because subtle advocacy seems to resonate more with me than emotionally manipulative (which seems to be a trend in political or social campaigns) advertisements. As a counterexample, Jane Austen's work perpetually satirizes the artificiality of the English upper class and society's unjust treatment of women, but does so in an entertaining and moderately subtle way that allows for the exploration of other topics and themes as well. So, as hippy-ish as this may sound, I believe that an artist's role in society is merely to create. If the artist is passionate about promoting a cause, they will find a way to do so, and even if they aren't, their work will ultimately reflect the issues of the time.
This couple (obviously avid book lovers) decided to make a stop-motion video of books coming to life in the bookstore at night. While this narrative may not blatantly take a stand on a social cause, I believe there are some social implications when this story is analyzed in context with our society. We live in an age where the joy of books can easily be pushed aside and ignored. Many people do not enjoy reading and even more people do not have time to read in this increasingly busy world even if they wanted to. Indeed, with the creation of Nooks and Kindles, physical copies of books could easily become obsolete. This short film serves as a metaphor for the beauty book, reading, and literacy can bring into our lives. So essentially, this couple advocates literacy and takes a stand in this distracted world through a creative and unobtrusive medium. Ah, the joy of subtlety.
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