Having a Difference of Opinion About Art

I used to think that not only did my opinion matter, but that it defined me. And if you did not agree with me there must be something wrong with you, or worse, something wrong with me. Sharing my opinion about someone's show or a movie wasn't just a matter of an opinion. It was a matter of life and death. I took it personally. You were the enemy. I don’t know, maybe it was because I read so many of those self-help books like, “How To Win Friends and Influence People,” but somehow I had it in my head that when people were agreeing with you, that made you more likable, and I was all about being more likable.

Clearly, I had this all wrong. The way to be more likeable is actually to be able to see everyone’s point of view, not just you own. But sadly, this took me a long time to figure out.

I think the fact that people have different opinions about art is why it can be so hard to discuss, and also why it can be so hard for some of us to continue to put our art out there.

Having people talk about our art, even if what they say is not favorable or what they think about it is not what we intended to say with our art, is good thing, though I prefer when they like it.

Recently I realized that, thank God, I’ve finally changed and am now able to have a passionate conversation with someone else who has a different opinion about a show or a movie and not feel that because we don’t agree that I lost an argument, and more importantly, a friend.

Last week, I watched about an hour of Steven Spielberg’s new West Side Story. There were a lot of things that I liked about the movie, but overall I felt that it moved too slow, and I did not like it as much as the original, which I’m not even sure I have ever watched in its entirety. That did not prevent me from having an opinion about it and getting into two different conversations about it, which I did with two of my friends. Nobody raised their voice, nobody got heated, nobody had to convince the other person they were right.

I could feel the passion in their voices because both people know far more about musical theater then I ever will.

It was the first time I realized we could each have different opinions and I did not have to be right and they didn’t have to be wrong — that art is subjective. I think the best art doesn't offer solutions, it starts conversations. And the intention is not to divide us, but to bring us together by talking about our reactions to it.

And that does not mean we all have to like it or all have to hate it. If everyone likes something, that’s not art, that’s a cult.

The point of art is not that we all like something but that we have a shared experience in seeing it. This is how art connect us. It does not have to polarizing, like so many things are today. We can share a difference of opinion, and though it has taken me many years to realize this, art is safe place to do that.