When Tragedy Strikes, What Does Criticism Have to Offer?

My critical faculty fails me now, as I contemplate the real world, where people are still dying from the pandemic, Asian-Americans are facing ever-present hate and a man with a gun can end the lives of grocery shoppers on a Monday afternoon.

The first thing I look for is the motive, as though I’m searching for a stage direction in the script of this tragedy, so I can say, “Ah, there’s the meaning of the violence. Here’s how it serves.”

It never does.

For some people, the world brings them to art — the news leading them to a gallery or a stage. And for others, art brings them to the world, raising their awareness and shaping their ideas and politics. I’m one of the latter, and have built a shelter for myself in that space of remove. Through criticism, I also speak about politics and current events, which I can often otherwise blissfully avoid in my daily life.

But some days, when reality barges in, the art seems to be nothing but farce. And I’m part of the joke, considering plays about dead English kings or movies about men flying in capes. On the darkest days, what do I have to offer but notes on some fictional tragedy? What does art have to offer but a shadow of ourselves?

On Tuesday, as I dragged myself around my apartment, I looked at my list of assignments: plays, cartoon series — entertainment that I loved but seemed to hold little weight during yet another national catastrophe.

And yet I did return to the job. I watched the plays, reviewed the movies and TV shows. Because that is what I do, on those bleak days and the bright ones alike. We, the audience, sit, watch Chekhov’s gun go off and then consider what it means. Though the stories, the characters and the deaths are fictional, we make them real for ourselves. We suspend our disbelief, allowing ourselves to empathize with a hardship or grief, however briefly. I become flooded with my own memories and recollections; sometimes through the work I channel my real-life anxiety or grief and am overwhelmed by the sudden warm wave of catharsis.