An interesting element in the uproar over the movie Cuties is the sudden respect for the idea that art can make people uncomfortable and still be art. While I think it's silly—and reductionist—to say discomfort is the primary purpose of art,… /1

I'm willing to see artistry in art I hate. Which means that, not having seen Cuties, I can't judge if it's uncomfortable art. I suspect it fits in the low-artistry genre of "Ain't-this-awful (Wink, Wink) pornography pretending to be anti-pornography," but I could be wrong. /2

But think about the idea that art can legitimately discomfort. The old high-liberal elites commonly used the trope that conservatives, rubes, and moralistic Peyton Place puritans thought art should only be uplifting. (Remember… /3

the insinuating snarl with which the town's busybodies pronounced the name "Balzac" as an indictment of Marian the Librarian in The Music Man?) /4

Eventually it reached the point that, for some, the sole measure of art seemed to be whether or not it made the rubes upset. Think of the old brouhahas about Mapplethorp and "Piss Christ." You knew it must be great art because the Moral Majority organized protests against it. /5

To see the return of this old trope in discussions of Cuties is to suffer whiplash. For the past decade, "art as always uncomfortable" has lost to the idea that people are triggered by discomfort. The analogy to Peyton Place got replaced by the analogy to PTSD. /6

Conservatives just don't see how disempowering discomfort is. (Funny how it's always "conservatives wrong," isn't it? When they attack art, the cry is "anti-modern rubes"; when they defend art, it's, well, "anti-modern rubes" again. The ratchet turns in only one direction.) /7

But why can't we ask for the general principle that art can make us uncomfortable and still be art. Where was this defense of Birth of a Nation, among those defending Cuties as art? The poetry gone from American classrooms because it might trigger someone? Public statuary? /8

The simple answer here is the hypocrisy licensed by the idea that conservatives are always wrong, and a judgment of good old-fashioned hypocrisy was my first reaction to the "uncomfortable art" defense of Cuties. /9

But a more thoughtful answer is probably that this is just an echo of the old trope: half-heard, half-remembered by those seeing a chance to point out conservatives' lack of sophistication. The tune remains the same. What they've forgotten is that the lyrics have changed. /10/