The concept of "death of the author" already killed the author by turning art from a way for people to express themselves and talk to others/society into something that instead focuses on audience consumption. The next inevitable step was obviously going to be literally removing the author from the equation altogether. It's the ultimate expression of post modernism where "art" is rendered as nothing more than a product scraped together from others works and tailor made for each individual to provide them nothing but feel good vibes while avoiding anything that might upset them or force them to think.
I'm not American and I don't know about op.
There's a tradition of conservatives and right wingers rejecting modern and postmodern art that goes back at least one century. The reasons vary, but in general, modern and postmodern art has embraced many things that right wingers hate, such as female and lgbtq artists, anti capitalist messages, rejection of tradition and consumerism, but instead embraced individualism etc. The claim that postmodern "woke" art is just virtue signaling "feel good" art is very common in today's right wing circles, for example in the recent debates about Nolan's The Odyssey.
The idea that art is an expression of the artist's self, their 'genius', is an idea derived from romanticism that postmodern art rejects, but many current conservative and right wing commentators embrace again.
Many, if not most postmodern artists do in fact challenge you and make you uncomfortable - people like Cormac McCarthy, Elfriede Jelinek, Michel Houellebecq would be good examples. Try to read some actual postmodern literature and see if it creates "feel good vibes".
That’s all well and good, but none of it explains how OP’s argument is inherently right wing?
If anything, the critique of art being reduced to a consumer product is perfectly compatible with left leaning criticism of capitalism. You can disagree with OP, but labelling the argument right wing does not make it one.
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u/Enkindle451 23h ago
The concept of "death of the author" already killed the author by turning art from a way for people to express themselves and talk to others/society into something that instead focuses on audience consumption. The next inevitable step was obviously going to be literally removing the author from the equation altogether. It's the ultimate expression of post modernism where "art" is rendered as nothing more than a product scraped together from others works and tailor made for each individual to provide them nothing but feel good vibes while avoiding anything that might upset them or force them to think.