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Aestheticism, Evil, Homosexuality, and Hannibal: If Oscar Wilde Ate People

By (author) Geoff Klock

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In late 19th century England, Oscar Wilde popularized aestheticism, also known as art-for-artâ€™s-sake â€“ the idea that art, that beauty, should not be a vehicle for morality or truth, but an end in-and-of-itself. Rothko and Jackson Pollock enthroned the idea, creating paintings that are barely graded panels of color or wild splashes. Today, pop culture is aestheticismâ€™s true heir, from the perfect charismatic emptiness of Oceanâ€™s Eleven to the hyper-choreographed essentially balletic movements in the best martial arts movies. But aestheticism has a dark core, one that Social Justice Activists are now gathering to combat, revealing the damaging ideology reflected in or concealed by our most beloved pop culture icons. Taking Bryan Fullerâ€™s television version of Hannibal â€œThe Cannibalâ€ Lecter as its main text â€“ and taking Å½iÅ¾ek-style illustrative detours into Malcolm in the Middle, Dark Knight Rises, Harry Potter, Interview with a Vampire, Dexter and more â€“ this book marshals Walter Pater, Camille Paglia, Nietzsche, the Marquis de Sade, Kant and Plato, as well as Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, Blake, Baudelaire, Beckett, Wallace Stevens and David Mamet to argue that Fullerâ€™s show is a deceptively brilliant advance of aestheticism, both in form and content â€“ one that investigates how deeply art-for-artâ€™s-sake, and those of us who consciously or unconsciously worship at its teat, are necessarily entwined with evil.