a morality that might apply to all art

Am not sure if this is relevant, but, for what it is worth i wanted to say why i as a writer put that rape scene in the last story. originally, and for a few weeks, up until right at the end of drafting, evereything was the same except i had the young man killing the king and being repudiated (rightly, i think) by the Amy for this. then someone (a woman) had the idea that this was too far outside of the main thrust of the story, because the reason the guy was doing this was to "save Amy" in a way--a character who in no way needs saving. the idea then was for him to commit his courageous act in a no way moral manner (thus the haze of alcohol). and, or so the idea went, the rape was also supposed to in a very Ellis way implicate others who might feel saving is what Amy might have needed. She didn't (or I don't think she did).

My point: these were the intentions, but they were not clear enough in the draft to be effective on a broad level (and i guess I sort of knew this). And, more importantly, they bring up the idea of ficitonal morality--or, better, I think, a morality that might apply to all art. I am confused/worried/and fascinated by this. Where would this lie?

I can't help but--in all these sorts of conversations--think back to that other Daniel Day Lewis movie written by his wife Rebecca Miller called "the ballad of jack and rose." it wasn't an excellent film, but really good. it was about environmentalism and communes and incest--the whole works. Lewis, the environmentalist who began a commune 20 or so years earlier, is sick with cancer and frustrated by the end of the movie and goes to a commercial developer's home (our antagonist, up to this point), and comes eventually to this idea (saying this to the developer): "The only difference between you and me is that you like those cookie-cutter suburban houses and i fucking hate them." He thinks, suddenly, that it is all about taste. That morality, to unpack this a little bit, more than a little is built upon aesthetics. Not sure that I agree (I still recycle, reuse as much as I can, carpool, etc), but it sure gave me something to think about when I heard him say it.

Also, and a bit off subject maybe, I was wondering about the border of the real in fiction--such as, how much can you use real world signifiers in a ficitonal story before you are doing something amoral or wrong? Fiction doesn't, of course, give free liscence to this. I am thinking not just about my story, but about another writer recently who published a story online with a real person's name in it. The real person became pissed and asked the writer to change it. The writer, who is a nice guy and good writer, did change it. About half of the stuff in my story (certainly the stuff about King Mswati III) is made up. But I felt, at the time, that it was fine somehow because it was ficiton and because he (and Swazi) are famous/well-known, and sort of signifiers themselves. I mean you can write fictional things about President Bush and get them published in the New Yorker. The line probably comes back to what Elizabeth said about generosity, which I think has something to do with manners or something. Which, though not exactly interesting to me for art (meaning, polite), does seem to hit the nail on the head.

[originally posted by Travis]