One day, a month or two ago, a few friends and I had a conversation that began when somebody referenced the concept of the “ugly Christmas sweater,” and I—albeit with no very clear idea of what exactly I was trying to say—commented that I really don’t “get” this concept, and never have. Early in the ensuing discussion, someone offered the thought that what we were talking about fell into the category of “kitsch,” and from that point, the conversation mostly centered on attempts to define and evaluate what it means to label something as “kitsch.” The exchange, which took place entirely on the level of lighthearted banter, was not especially coherent, and I don’t know that any definite conclusions were reached, or positions staked out, by anyone involved. But it would be fair to say that I came away from the conversation with my initial misgivings, if anything, strengthened. This little cluster of concepts profoundly rubbed me the wrong way. And it’s something that I’ve continued to mull over, off and on, ever since.
A quick google search turns up various definitions of “kitsch,” but the general theme is art and/or design that is “considered to be in poor taste” (by whom, one wonders), and is judged to be cheesy, tacky, “overly sentimental” (whatever that means), or otherwise “lowbrow,” but that may nevertheless be “appreciated in an ironic way.” And even though, when I did an image search just now, the majority of the results that came up did admittedly strike me as ugly, I can’t get past the sense that designating a category or genre that is defined by officially being considered crap (yet is still “appreciated” in a way that explicitly pokes fun at it) is irredeemably elitist, arrogant, and mean-spirited. And, actually, it’s not hard to find opinions on the internet that are in harmony with my reaction—though interestingly, finding anything remotely critical of (or even bothering to try to explain) the concept of the “ugly Christmas sweater” is rather more difficult. It’s as though everyone is expected to know, understand, and agree about what an ugly Christmas sweater is. Also, apart from driving home the inherent snobbishness, it mostly seems like the word “ugly” is pretty superfluous, inasmuch as the category seems to be assumed to include any and all Christmas-themed sweaters. Hmm…
Prior to that conversation with friends, and my subsequent poking around online, I would have struggled to define “kitsch,” and it’s possible that my concept of what people mean by this term is still a little off. But ultimately, it doesn’t really matter; regardless of terminology, and partly (though by no means wholly) with the original Christmas sweater thing in mind, my reflections have centered on items that may or may not be thought “garish” (another term that seems to come up a lot in relation to kitsch), or “sentimental,” but that do generally possess a somewhat folksy, possibly “retro,” and probably amateurish or DIY aesthetic. I’m talking about stuff that would not, even by its makers, be thought (or intended as) “classy” or “high art,” and that may, in some (far from all) cases, even be purposefully somewhat silly or goofy, but that its makers would nevertheless absolutely intend to be appreciated at face value, rather than in some insultingly “ironic” way. Of course, there’s also a category of things that are deliberately intended to be “kitschy”—purposely “tacky” or “so-ugly-it’s-cool” stuff that would be marketed to the sort of people who are into the whole “reveling in it ironically” thing. (Any garment explicitly marketed as an “ugly Christmas sweater” would clearly fall into this category.) I want to distinguish between this type of thing and the more “authentic” (in the sense of “not intended ironically”) category that I’m trying to focus on. Also to be distinguished as not-what-I’m-talking-about would be cheap, low-quality, mass-produced trinkets, which is another category of things that (I think?) sometimes gets the label “kitsch” applied to it. The lines that I’m trying to draw here are probably somewhat blurry, but in theory, at least, the capitalistic cynicism of mass-produced junk seems quite distinct, to me, from the homely unpretentiousness of (for example) a green-and-red hand-knitted sweater. Some examples from my own life of things that might fall into the category that I have in mind include my various silly crocheted hats, and maybe my cookie cake decorating (and I’ll discuss one other example shortly).
If I have a point to make here, I guess you could say that it boils down to wanting to defend the kinds of things that I tried to describe in that last paragraph from the demeaning term “kitsch.” Maybe. In a way, it even feels like a little much to use the word “defend,” though. That anyone’s (let alone many people’s) set of aesthetic categories would be so limited as to exclude anything but, on the one hand, classy/refined/professional/highbrow, and on the other, tacky/risible/embarrassing—with no room in between for things that might be idiosyncratic or amateurish or even possibly goofy, but still worthy of respect and to be taken for what they are (not disingenuously mocked, or damned with faint praise, as so-bad-they’re-good)—just strikes me as so bizarre that I hardly know how to argue with it, beyond merely saying “hey, that’s snobbish nonsense.” I mean, not everything will be, or needs to be, to your personal taste, and that’s fine. But to snarkily label someone’s homemade handiwork as “ugly” or “kitsch,” or to make a show of liking things that strike you as (in your personal, individual opinion) non-highbrow “ironically,” just seems insulting. So say I.
I’m not writing this to call anyone out or anything like that, but another time that these thoughts came up recently was when a friend was commenting on the label that I use on my bottles of homemade wine. His comments were not unkind, but they still struck me as odd, and it took me a while to pinpoint exactly why. For anyone who doesn’t know, I often go (for obscure reasons reaching back through many years of personal history) by the moniker “Flying Penguin,” and I also tend to use this as a pretend “brand” on various things that I make (like computer programs—or, of course, wine). So, I describe my wine as being a product of “FlyingPenguin Vineyard,” and on the homemade label that I designed, I use a goofy little graphic of a penguin, rotated belly-down to look like it’s flying. (I’ve had this graphic for many years, and I actually use it for other things as well.) It should be noted, too, that (also for obscure in-joke reasons) the penguin appears to be carrying a large green rock in its beak. So anyway, I had my friends over for our annual Friends Thanksgiving dinner a few weeks ago, and as usual, I’d opened a bottle of my wine for the occasion, and during dinner, my friend, upon seeing and being reminded of the self-designed label that I use, was laughing about the cheesiness of the FlyingPenguin graphic on it. Again, this wasn’t meant unkindly; he specifically emphasized that he actually thought it was pretty great, even. But two things (which I only fully identified later) still felt off about his reaction, to me. One was that, much more than the general silliness of the FlyingPenguin “branding,” what seemed especially to tickle him was the poor quality of the graphic: a bit pixelated, the green rock obviously photoshopped in, etc. The other was a sense that, in saying that he “thought it was great,” what he meant involved, to some degree, that whole notion of “appreciating it ironically.” In the moment, I couldn’t quite articulate what felt wrong to me about these things; after all, the goofiness of the whole FlyingPenguin schtick is intentional (so why shouldn’t he chuckle at it?), and I certainly don’t imagine that my FlyingPenguin graphic, in particular, could ever be mistaken for professional work (!). But here’s the thing: it’s also not intended as purposely lame, or “so corny it’s cool,” or whatever. Part of the issue here may simply be that my brain is not wired in such a way as to take much notice, most of the time, of things like a digital image being of poor quality; I can see, when it’s pointed out to me, that this is true, but it just doesn’t consciously register with me very easily most of the time. But more fundamental is this: my FlyingPenguin logo graphic is nothing more than a fun/goofy little image that I, a person not remotely skilled at graphic design, use to adorn and place a “signature” upon various things that I make for myself and/or to share with friends and family. As such, why would it look like anything other than the work of a total amateur? I mean, if instead of using my familiar old dorky graphic, I had gone to the trouble of trying to make (or more likely, getting someone else to make) a high-quality, professional-looking logo for the labels that I stick on my bottles of homemade wine…well, how pretentious would that seem? (As an aside, I actually didn’t create the graphic myself; another friend, who does happen to be good at graphic design, slapped it together for me years ago. It hardly represents his best work, even if I myself probably could not have done better—but the point remains: he was just slapping something silly together for fun, not setting out to create a professional logo.) So, while I expect and welcome people rolling their eyes a bit, appreciatively, at my consciously cornball FlyingPenguin Vineyard schtick…focusing on the poor quality of the graphic just seemed like expecting it to be something that it’s not and was never intended to be. In my eyes, my FlyingPenguin graphic is neither a quality piece of graphic design, nor some kind of tongue-in-cheek, so-cheesy-it’s-cool, ironic statement; it just is what it is. Sort of like a Christmasy sweater, actually.
This is going to seem like a big switch of gears, and in some ways it is, but: I recently re-watched the entirety of what is probably my favorite comedy show of all time, The Office. And along the way, I also read many of the episode-by-episode reviews by the A.V. Club—though I quit them eventually out of frustration and exhaustion. I turn to such reviews hoping for insights that I haven’t had myself, and perspectives that might further enrich my appreciation of things that I enjoy—and, to be fair, sometimes I find these things. But (at the considerable risk of sounding like I think I’m smarter than everyone else) too often I just get frustrated with what strikes me as other people totally missing the most essential points. I especially felt that way when reading the review (and people’s comments on it) of “Niagara,” the big two-part Jim-and-Pam wedding episode in season 6 of The Office. Why am I writing about this here? Well, if you’re already thinking to yourself that both actual weddings, and TV-show episodes that focus on weddings, are things replete with elements that are likely to be labeled “kitschy” by many, you’re not totally on the wrong track. There’s a much more specific reason, though, which I’ll get to in a minute—and one thing that will come out of what I have to say here is another perspective on the whole topic of “kitsch.” But also, just to lay this out transparently: in part, I’m writing about this here just because it’s something that I’ve wanted to write about, and parts of it are sort of related to the larger topic of this post, so I decided to go for it. 🙂 (Note that, if you aren’t familiar with The Office, some of this may be a bit lost on you.)
The review that I read was neither entirely positive nor entirely negative, and the views expressed in the comments beneath the main review were pretty divided, too; many people loved this episode, and a substantial number of others hated it. Unsurprisingly, some slammed it for resorting, in places, to tired wedding-episode cliches, for being too sappy, for being too “sitcom-y,” and for borrowing from an “already embarrassingly dated YouTube meme” for its climax. (Whatever else you thought of that last element, let me just say here that if it’s having been “embarrassingly dated” factored significantly in your dislike of it, then you and I are just not likely to understand one another.) The setting of the wedding at Niagara Falls, of course, was one of the criticized-as-cliche elements, which I call out because it’ll be important momentarily. On the other hand were the episode’s defenders, who either saw some of these elements differently, or were just willing, in the end, to overlook them, because the episode won them over emotionally. But for me, the episode succeeds partly because of some of its cornier moments. The key to the whole episode, in my view, is a line given in voice-over by Jim early on, which received not a single mention by anyone on the review site (and which also provides the link between my thoughts on this episode and the stuff that I was talking about earlier in this post):
“Niagra Falls used to be like a spiritual experience to people. They stayed in tents, and it blew their minds. But it’s really kitschy now, which…is a lot of fun.”
I saw this as essentially the episode’s thesis statement. Of course, by its very use of the word “kitschy,” the episode might seem to be embracing notions that I have been criticizing. Also, in its immediate context, “kitschy” here seems to refer to the crass commodification and commercialization of awe-inspiring “natural” beauty and grandeur—which is not something that I am inclined to defend, and indeed more closely resembles the “cheap mass-produced garbage” meaning of kitsch that I referred to earlier than the humble and authentic, if sometimes a tad corny, DIY aesthetic that I tried to differentiate therefrom. But I’m going to put these caveats aside for the moment, allow for some artistic license, and talk about how I see the meaning of these lines in the larger context of the episode as a whole.
So, Pam and Jim—who have functioned as audience surrogates and as the emotional heart of the show since its first episode—are finally getting married, and on top of the expected craziness arising from the mix of routinely dysfunctional family dynamics and the heightened emotions and expectations that come with a big event like a wedding, they have, of course, also inexplicably invited all their nutty, insufferable coworkers (i.e. the rest of the show’s main cast). Naturally, wackiness ensues, testing the patience and sanity of the bride and groom at the center of the storm. (And yes, some of this takes the form of wedding-episode cliches, and things going wrong in ways that, even for a comedy show, stretch plausibility.) During the eventual, inevitable, bride-has-a-tearful-breakdown scene, Pam says: “Everyone’s driving me crazy. . . . This is supposed to be our wedding day. Why did we invite all these people?” And she and Jim laugh, of course, because she’s half-joking, even though she really is upset. But arguably, the scene functions as an other-side-of-the-coin to a scene in an episode toward the end of the previous season. In that one, Jim and Pam have impulsively decided that they’re going to forgo the whole big wedding thing and just run off and elope by themselves. Meanwhile, Michael has spent the episode trying to convince everyone to join him for an improvised dance club in a spare room in the office building. So Jim and Pam are sneaking out of the office, Pam in a fancy dress and holding flowers, when they hear the music and decide to “stop by” briefly for Michael’s sake before heading off to get married, and while dancing to “YMCA,” Pam comments on how cheesy the moment is, then adds “I like cheesy,” and then goes on to realize that she wants a real wedding (so they cancel their planned trip to the courthouse to elope that afternoon). So, even though, right before their eventual real wedding is supposed to begin, Pam voices half-serious regret about their choices, this earlier-episode scene helps to answer her question about why they did “invite all these people.” Pam and Jim are eternally pushed to the limits of their tolerance by the antics of their nutty office-mates, but they also have a huge soft spot for them. Sometimes they want to strangle them, but over the course of the show, they’ve also become attached, and begun to see value in their crazy office family.
And so we get the climax of the wedding episode, wherein, to reclaim the romance and specialness (and a degree of agency) that they’d wanted from their day, Jim and Pam sneak off (leaving all the wedding guests waiting confused in the church) to take a ferryboat ride to the foot of the falls (using tickets that Jim bought in advance as a backup plan, because he knows his coworkers) and have the boat captain marry them there. It’s beautiful and romantic and their own little secret adventure; even we, the audience, only see it in flashbacks, with music playing over them, interspersed among scenes of the regular wedding finally happening when they come back to the church afterwards, all smiles and shared loving glances, utterly unfazed as the wedding guests commandeer the ceremony, turn it into a reenactment of the aforementioned YouTube meme in contravention of their express wishes, and generally make a total mockery of it. They ran off on their own to have their “spiritual experience” beneath the natural beauty of Niagara Falls—and it fortified them, renewed their patience, and made them once again able to let go and see the fun in the zany, inappropriate antics and kitschy excesses of their families and coworkers. To me, that was the whole point of the episode.
What’s more, understanding the thematic thrust of the episode in this way makes it fit nicely into (while at the same time providing a unique take on) what I see as the larger themes of The Office as a show. Because to me, at it’s core, The Office is about the challenge of coping with existential absurdity—usually, of course, illustrated in the context of the imperative of earning a living. For better or worse, most of us spend the majority of our waking hours, as adults, at work, performing what many of us will likely experience as largely meaningless tasks, and being subject to what often seem like insane and/or arbitrary rules and procedures and authority figures, all in exchange for money. Thus, The Office’s regular setting is a paper company, to which our “heroes” report, day after day, to devote themselves to the thrill-a-minute pursuit of trying to convince various local businesses to buy paper from Dunder Mifflin instead of from one of its competitors. Whatever hopes or dreams they may (or may not!) have, however they may have imagined their lives turning out when they were younger, this is where they are, and where many of them feel stuck. Hopes and dreams are hard—really hard—and we all need to eat and pay the mortgage/rent. The tragedy of most of our lives is their banality, and the fact that, at the end of the work day, we’re usually too tired to do anything about it, even if we do have concrete ideas about what that might be. So: How do we make our peace with this reality? The Office illustrates various ways that people try to cope with it. Some try to make their work—however banal and empty it might be—their everything, take it utterly seriously, become obsessed with titles and authority and externally defined “success,” and, in so doing, make themselves ridiculous and insufferable to everyone else, without actually achieving any real peace for themselves. Michael and Dwight each represent versions of this path. Jim, especially at first, represents the opposite extreme; selling paper is nothing more than a job to him, and a pretty suffocating one at that. He’s aloof, above the ridiculousness that surrounds him, in the office but not of it; his main role is to smirk at the camera in exasperated bemusement whenever his coworkers are being particularly whacko. But he’s also profoundly unhappy, adrift, and has no clue what to do about it, other than to pine for Pam, the receptionist who obviously (to the audience) belongs with him but is engaged to someone else. Jim understands that your job is not your identity; what he doesn’t initially understand is that, nevertheless, you spend way too much of your life doing it for remaining aloof, never engaging, never making any kind of peace with it, to be a viable strategy. And over the course of nine seasons, again and again the show illustrates that although, if we have dreams, and can envision a more fulfilling life, it’s important to be true to that, to honor it, and to work toward it in whatever ways we can, it’s equally important to find a way to be “checked in” and engaged with where we’re actually at—with the life that we’re living day to day, like it or no. Because, after all, life doesn’t last forever, and we won’t get a do-over if we don’t like the way ours turned out in the end. So, sure, maybe our job is sort of soul-sucking, and our coworkers seem like lunatics—but if we try, we can probably find the humanity in the latter, and bond over our commonalities, and choose to engage in our work and take (sanely moderate) pride in doing it well, even if it isn’t, inherently, super-meaningful. And—not incidentally—the more we do these things, the more we’ll stay energized enough to keep plugging away at those larger goals and dreams, too. So, to come back to the wedding episode: a moment like ditching the crowd to run out and marry the person you love on a boat in the spray at the foot of a waterfall represents the realization of our hopes and dreams—but being able to come back afterward and endure, with a smile, the absurdity of life in the real world, with the other people (family, coworkers) to whom we’re (like it or not) yoked, is equally important, if we’re to achieve any kind of peace with the realities of life.
So if all of this offers any additional perspective concerning my thoughts on “kitsch,” maybe it’s that, you know, it’s wildly unrealistic to expect everything with which we engage (or the products of our every endeavor) to be replete with deep meaning, or exquisite works of art—but with respect to the things that aren’t, we have more choices than merely to either despise them as trash or wink and interact with them “ironically” (while congratulating ourselves on how cool we are for doing so). I’m reminded here of Paul McCartney’s observation that “it’s a fool who plays it cool by making his world a little colder.” Engaging with, and finding the beauty and meaning in, ordinary (or dorky, or amateurish, or sometimes even insufferable) things, is not only more decent and respectful than being aloof and snobbish—it’s also, probably, an essential element for happiness.
*Note: If, after reading the title of this post, you guessed that the “beloved TV show” that I was going to talk about was Star Trek, don’t feel too bad about having missed the mark. 99% of the time, you would have been right. I’m a little surprised at the exception here myself. 🙂