I'll never forget watching Donald Trump ascend to the American Presidency. The putrid forces that had hamstrung and hollowed out the Obama years delivering a flashy deathblow to that era's characteristic optimism. And of course, the sense that, shit, we should've seen this coming. And then watching the embarrassing, impotent resistance to the Trump Administration's sadism and slowly realizing, with each passing moment, how deeply embarrassing and insufficient modern liberalism is. There's a reason these people lost to Donald Trump. Reaganism's rot remains strong in the Democratic party; the 1980 election created an antigovernmental battlefield on which the the entire American (and very often Western) Overton Window still bases itself on. Yes, I'm Canadian. But in the age of climate change (and globalization) the world swings on the choices of a few major countries.
The above paragraph is the beginning of a scratch on the surface of this topic. But hopefully I communicated the absurdity clearly: almost forty years ago an actor became President and broke the most important political system in the world and now we may all die to climate change. Is that an oversimplification? Probably. But that's what it feels like. I don't know. It's confusing, weird, and infuriating. Being a young liberal person is the experience of learning all of the problems we have today are results of decisions made years ago by people who, in the process of making money, unintentionally crafted an overwhelming, self-saving web of intersecting impenetrable feedback loops, forging modern life into an alloy of social gridlock and popular rage.
Does this feel like a lecture? Or a rage-filled rant against the machine? Probably. Any media that tasks itself with tackling The State of the World runs the risk of coming across as didactic; more an instructional video on What To Think than a, if intentional and motivated by a desire for change, piece of art. This is a problem worth digging into.
Lets do a thought experiment: you want to write a novel. A big novel about a lot of stuff. About a character riddled with guilt over her decision to murder her child to save her from the life of an enslaved person. You want to write about the long, lingering effects of trauma and how it consumes someone's life and spreads out into the world around them and affects their family and the lives of everyone around them. These are a lot of interior feelings. You could write a very talk-y novel wherein the important characters have innumerous long conversations dealing with deep feelings and unspoken rage. In the end, this would probably be thematically on point, but not very dramatically compelling. What is this, Plato's Republic?
Okay so, maybe you write it in metaphor. Maybe she goes on a journey and it slowly becomes evident that this is about grief and--hmm. Wait. This sounds like As I Lay Dying. A great book, but, broad. Not specific. Metaphor often has the problem of obfuscating what you're actually talking about. We want this story to be specific.
Okay, why don't we just... have the kid come back? And she wants her mother to atone for her mother. The mother, she becomes obsessed with caring for this dead-daughter and it almost kills her and the only way to heal is through collective effort and forgiveness. That...is it. Isn't it? That's the move.
...
Yes, I'm talking about Beloved. And yes, we're finally getting to magical realism. Lets talk about it, and why it may be a good way to make art about The State Of Things.
For the uninitiated, Magical Realism isn't a rigorous critical genre with specific qualities, but instead more of a descriptive term to describe an intersection between certain genres. Putting it plainly: magical realism is literature with supernatural or magical qualities and content presented in an otherwise real-world or mundane setting. Many authors have magical realist works, including the peerless Toni Morrison. Beloved does it perfectly, never committing to being explicitly supernatural. Outside a few key elements it is plainly dramatic. But, it also never feels the need to justify its supernatural elements-- and by draping these magical elements in reality it lends the emotional relevancy of a grounded novel to the symbolic potency of more magical fiction.
A lot of us young folks take the massive problems personally; we've grown up being told that within our lifetimes the world may be unrecognizable due to climate change. In this way, these problems feel personal. The feelings are big, almost as complex as the situations themselves. And these situations-- without the proper attention-- they wouldn't make sense. The breadth of youthful rage feels absurd without the proper context. This makes it hard to write about-- how do you balance the emotional stakes with doing the problem justice? Magical Realism solves the problem of complexity by creating room for a supernatural element that embodies the multifaceted nature of the problems at hand; it pierces all the complexity allowing storytellers to get to the issue's emotional heart. Emotions, like I've said before, above all else.
So, what would this look like? I have a few ideas of my own. I won't say what. One day maybe you'll see them on a big screen. For now, though, run free with this: magical realism is a great tool to tell specific and complex stories. Especially when you're talking about modern day stuff-- our reality is practically surreal and absurd as it is. A single boat stuck in the Suez Canal has thrown global shipping into disarray. The world is silly, don't be afraid to be.