"Realism" in a Misanthropic Era

There is some disagreement about exactly when literary realism as we know it began, and what it includes, but it is safe to say that it at least refers to a modern literary and broader artistic movement premised on a scientific view of life that bases its writing on a rigorous and copious usage of observable fact, rather than writing from supposedly transcendent truths, romanticism, myth, artificial conventions.

These days, however, the term has taken on a particular baggage, with as is often the case film critic David Walsh worth citing. Writing of one film that had been described as "realistic" he observed that it had become common to simply use the term to mean "presenting humanity in the dimmest possible light." Thus "[f]ilm writers and directors seek to outdo each other . . . in their depictions of people's depravity and sadism"--while displaying an "almost grateful acceptance of the filthiness." One can add to what Walsh says that they delight in the display, in rubbing what they present in the viewer's face with a "Welcome to the real world!" swagger as they endeavor to destroy any hope the reader, the viewer, may have of there ever being anything better, not least by implicating them in the evil they see. (Presenting, for example, the horrors of war, and what some think some must be done to prepare for them, they say "You want me on that wall." Presenting horrific forms of economic exploitation they say "You are a beneficiary of this, too, and so forfeit your right to say anything about it.")

There are certain political assumptions there--very dark assumptions about human beings and society and the universe in which they live (which, past a certain point, may actually be quite contrary to the scientific, rationalist character of realism), and one might suggest, at least grounds for accusation of political manipulation (with such manipulation, again, at odds with any genuine realism).

In an era in which a modicum of comprehension of political ideology (and political rhetoric) could be taken for granted among mainstream cultural commentators, and a meaningful range of views existed among them, those assumptions would be recognized and acknowledged and challenged, certainly by critics not necessarily sharing those assumptions. (Just read Roger Ebert's old reviews and you will see what we used to get in even a publication like the Chicago Tribune.) However, as we are reminded again and again, this is not such an era, but the extreme opposite of one--as Walsh makes clear in the rest of a review with an importance extending far beyond the appraisal of one movie.