Don’t Art Therapize Me Bro! Bob Ross, Alienation and Subjectivity.
By Tom Pazderka
Bob Ross is having a moment. The documentary that highlights his life and takes many looks behind the scenes of “The Joy of Painting,” the PBS show of which Ross was the main star, is currently trending on Netflix. And while it is pretty standard Netflix fare, purveying the same style and narrative structure of past Netflix documentary endeavors like “Wild Wild Country” or “Evil Genius,” it is nonetheless a very interesting probe into the life of one of America’s most unlikely celebrities. It can be said that Bob Ross already had several moments since he died in 1995 and that this is just his latest. Ross’ affected whisper and bulbous afro have been a meme since before memes became a thing and his legacy has been revived or kept alive in various forms over the past three decades, even by Netflix itself. Bob Ross – the pop cultural icon.
All of this, the documentary gets into straight away. What is left unsaid or mostly unexplored are the reasons why his art, or art in general, had the capability of martialing so much fame and success. The documentary suggests that behind the success lie clever branding ploys, like the whisper and the personality of Ross himself. The entire concept of the show was lifted from an earlier painting show where Ross cut his teeth, but which did not enjoy as much success, because the host was too loud, sharp and boisterous. The idea came to change the show’s model in subtle ways to appeal more to stay-at-home women.
Ross took off his glasses to make him look less like a nerd; he began to speak in his trademark whisper and had a big round afro teased up to make him look more ‘artsy.’ Soon the show was popular and production was putting out three episodes a day.
The clever branding is said to have come from the Kowalskis, a couple of art hawks – the wife, an artist wannabe and the husband, a former CIA agent, both bent on making the image of Bob Ross into a cash cow for ages to come.
They went on to license the Bob Ross Inc. product line and method of art instruction. As Ross became more popular, the Kowalskis tightened the screws on their ownership of everything related to the painter, eventually gaining sole ownership of his entire estate and even his name.
The entire documentary is essentially a reiteration of the Bob Ross product via other means and a way to circumvent the intellectual property rights of the Kowalskis and Bob Ross Inc. And while this angle is interesting, what it does is focus solely on the behind-the-scenes drama between various actors, mainly Bob Ross’ son Steve, a few of Ross’ friends and colleagues and the Kowalskis. It is a he said she said marathon of accusations, emotional diatribes against corruption and greed bordering on virtue signaling, and the kind of sleaze we’re used to consuming from our bought-out mainstream political media. If Bob Ross wasn’t the subject, one would have the impression that this is a dive into the underbelly of the Washington DC lobby, rather than a documentary about a television landscape painter. But anything goes to make the film viral and Netflix is continually perfecting the ‘art’ of clickbait television.
Nothing in the documentary suggests the filmmakers were interested in the subjects of art and creativity and how these are essential components of the human condition and survival.
No questions asked over the subjectivity of the creative process. Instead, the doc presents the Ross phenomenon wrapped in the cloak of ‘art therapy’ and hardly supposes that imagination and creativity are essential functions of human psychology. It paints a vivid picture of the drama of human subjectivity as completely subservient to capital relations, bringing into view the Kowalskis as the archetype of the corruption present within the US capitalist model, which is presupposed to be essentially perfect and only subject to various modes of distortion, of which the Kowalskis are a perfect example.
The film takes the position that things would have worked out quite differently, and presuming better, were it not for the influence of the CIA-tainted Kowalskis. It points the finger at the problem, the distortion in the system, and says ‘aha, here it is, and all we have to do is fix it and all will be well again,’ ignoring the fact that the Kowalskis are not an aberration or a symptom of the system, but rather the perfect manifestation of its function and ruthless efficiency. This is a similar mythological narrative to the one that paints the Walton family as the modern corruption of the perfect old-school capitalist model of Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, who created the store to drive prices lower to help the poor people of Arkansas, and not the capitalist wrecking ball of small US towns and businesses. The Kowalskis, like the Waltons, are not a symptom, but a feature, of the system. They saw the opportunity to game the system, to create a market where there was none, and ran away with it, using all the dirty tricks and shady deals the system allows to do it. None of the corruption seems to have touched Ross himself. Many interviewees in the doc say that Ross wasn’t in it for the money, though he did revel in the idea of being famous. He was in it for the art. Which is why it is disappointing for the filmmakers to treat the whole Bob Ross saga as a tabloid headline.
Art is the closest point to an unalienated labor within a completely alienated market.
It is a lens through which we can and should talk about subjectivity without falling into the obvious problems stemming from other kinds of critique. Unlike Marxism, post-structuralism, identity politics, market analysis and even art criticism, art deals with alienation directly. When we are engaged with art though creativity, by making or imagining, we are by definition dis-alienated from our labor. Everything flows in and through us at that moment. Whatever ‘product’ emerges is ours to see and experience as it springs out from our own minds, hands, studios, in other words from our labor. This is the fundamental point from which we can begin discussing the appeal that art has for many people, from the most ideological PMC to the most alienated Amazon warehouse worker or office drone.
Art isn’t about a return to some mythical youthful innocence or unfiltered truth of the moment as presented through the eye of the uncorrupted child we’re seeking to emulate, but about the engagement of the ego with the hidden unconscious and the uncovering of the superego and the ID. It can be argued that art is the perfect vehicle for the communication of the ego through the hidden channels of the alienated ID, where the process gets smoother and quicker with each session. But this approach alone leaves art nestled within the confines of therapy, while reality is decidedly not this. Art moves across the spectrum of human subjectivity and touches every human endeavor to a degree.
The degree to which art is not felt within a specific subject, typically has a correlative degree of alienation within it. Thus, the relationship of art to alienation is proportional and correlational. Where art or creativity are less deeply felt is usually where more alienation exists, and business is one such major arena. This is why the marriage of business, money and art has always been very fraught and why this relationship continues to be a very contentious one.
The process of business and of money is one of estrangement of the subject from its source through the implementation of a medium. In the case of money, it is the idea that social relations are mediated by a neutral, disinterested and objective non-entity, that causes alienation. In the modern age, money has become, not just a necessity of life and the fantasy space of economists, entrepreneurs and philosophers alike, but an entire proposition toward human progress, an inalienable right, promulgated as a right to property and happiness in the US constitution. To have money is to have a stake in society. Its reverse, the lack of money, signals a total alienation from it.
A conscious rejection of this form of stake, in the forms of alternatives or amendments to capitalism, such as socialism or modern monetary theory (MMT), result in a version of social suicide.
In essence, human subjectivity cannot NOT be mediated by the notion of money.
Business is an added layer to that social relation which further alienates the subject. This is further evidenced in the move of business and money toward its digital and online forms. Under the guise of efficiency, convenience and community building, the digital realm and the internet have added another layer of alienation. With each layer we are getting further and further away from the kernel of human subjectivity in which individuals may act authentically. Each layer that the digital and online world offers and tries to uncover, further obfuscates the truth and alienates the subject.
We can see this in the example of cars. As computerization entered the auto marker market with its promise of convenience and performance, what seems to have happened was that most drivers are now entirely reliant on the network of banks, dealerships, auto parts makers and auto shops to get even the smallest of repairs made while the price of these services increases, rather than decreases. In other words, the driver is totally alienated from their ability to change or repair their vehicle as they see fit. This is also true with electronics, computers and TVs. It was not too long ago when people had the ability and capability to fix and make things themselves, but the process of digitalization and automation, made such a state of affairs almost impossible. To be able to make and fix things is one of the last forms of dis-alienation still available to us. From money, to business, to machines and computers, the internet and now cryptocurrencies, each add a successive layer of alienation. Contrary to their intentions, which have always been sold to the public as good, important and necessary, instead of peeling away the layers of alienation so that we may finally realize the stated objective of the rights to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ with property (money) as an addendum, we get further and further down the path toward misery, deracination, immiseration, exploitation and alienation.
Art is the bridge by which we get across the chaotic waters of alienated labor and capital relations.
It is not a bridge to but rather away and over from those alienated subjects. This is of course a kind of fundamentalist or idealist belief in the transcendental power of art which holds little resemblance to how things really are in the world. However, we should be asking the question why is it that this is the way things are in the world and how can we change it? Is it possible to affect change through art, despite the evidence to the contrary? Our specific kind of alienation made it impossible to see art as an agent of change because it has been completely subsumed into the framework of capital relations. It has become just another form of capitalist realism. But the cautiously optimistic nihilist in all of us should at least opt to try and see art as an offering of non-alienated labor and authenticity when stripped away of all its alienating layers. This is the fundamental question not being asked by the Bob Ross documentarians in their quiet amazement at the amount of fame and love that Ross received while he was still alive.
Art can be therapy, but it is not just therapy. Art can be a business, but it is not just a business.
What is interesting and inherent to art are both its resistance and acquiescence to outside forces like business and money. Ross didn’t so much succumb to the forces of money as he was indifferent to them, because on some level his relationship to art was completely non-alienated, not so with his friends, family and business partners. In a world that is too opaque and alienating, because we no longer understand, or are actively prevented from understanding on the micro-level, how things really work and why, from politics to media to the stock market, art provides a much needed platform for the frustrations stemming from this fundamentally undemocratic arrangement and injects agency into areas of life that were once bereft of it.
