Exit Through the Gift Shop

Viewed June 19, 2010

Exit Through the Gift Shop

Directed by Banksy

I was on the fence about whether to see this movie. I knew we were going to see a movie. I was itching to go to the movies. However, I was unsure about whether we would see Exit Through the Gift Shop or Please Give. Exit Through the Gift Shop’s premise vague. It had something to do with street art and it had something to do with Banksy. I am a big fan of street art and a big fan of Banksy, but I further noted that the movie was directed by Banksy. It is usually dangerous to watch a movie about a person that is directed by that same person. Furthermore,  the trailer wasn’t enticing. On the other hand, the trailer for Please Give was horrible and I knew there was no way we were going to see that nonsense. Finally, I checked out Roger Ebert’s review of Exit… and I was sold. Funny how these things work.

Ebert’s review noted how the primary focus of the movie was a French American with an absurd Inspector Clouseau accent and a “dashing mustache” and how this person followed street artists around documenting their art and their process. Furthermore, he gave the movie three and ½ stars (on a four star scale).

That a good reviewer is nothing more than a good writer with a well-expressed opinion (as opposed to some motherfucker who knows any more than anybody else) notwithstanding, the movie sounded interesting. So off we went.

Ebert’s description of the movie was accurate. However, I will start my bullshit by responding to something Ebert wrote in his review:

There are all kinds of graffiti. Much of it is ugly defacement, the kind of territorial marking a dog does so much more elegantly. That’s why Mayor Daley’s Graffiti Busters have my support and admiration. Some graffiti, however, is certainly art, as Norman Mailer was one of the first to argue in his book The Faith of Graffiti (1974). Banksy and others at his level, such as Guetta’s hero, Shepard Fairey, find ways to visually reinvent public spaces and make striking artistic statements.

I agree with Ebert in that not all graffiti is beautiful. As to whether it’s art, that depends upon one’s definition of art. However, putting aside the undeniably beautiful graffiti, consider the ugly stuff—the graffiti that is little more than “territorial marking.” One is left to ask what is the nature of that territorial marking? When one considers the environment in which graffiti is borne, doesn’t it make sense that people—castoffs and renegades; people who typically feel out of control of their own environment—doesn’t it make sense that such people would look to reclaim what should rightfully be theirs? Furthermore, doesn’t it make sense that the way many of these people reclaim their territory would be harsh and ugly? Finally, isn’t the primal need for a person to have some control over his own environment, especially when said environment is under the control of hostile overlords? And if that is the primal need of any person, isn’t “territorial marking,” however unseemly, as justifiable an action as any? Yes, the harsh and ugly “territorial markings” are arguably unproductive and transitory. However, they serve a definite purpose. In the environment where graffiti flourishes, it would be more a crime if there were nothing on the walls, beautiful or ugly, and people simply took their oppression without any fight or attempt at reclamation.

As for the movie, it was striking how Thierry—the aforementioned French American who documented street art and artists and is the main subject of this film—referred to the artists as “nice” on multiple occasions. Specifically, he was referring to their willingness to artistically express themselves and give the public access these beautiful things at no charge. When you think about that, isn’t “nice” the ideal word? Yet, going back to the graffiti task forces, isn’t this exactly what they are trying to stop, or more poignantly, control? And, in the end, isn’t control what everything is about? People strive for control. An average person strives for control over her own life. An oppressor strives to control others. Both the movie and I have a slanted view, yet it seems obvious who the real “bad guys” or criminals are.

This brings up the idea of modern law and modern society and how it denigrates the culture, lifestyle, and yes, art of the people within it. When you disrespect, and worse, make illegal, the art and culture of your own people, then your own people and their art and culture necessarily glorify their own illicitness. Right now, we live in a “Thug” world. The reason we live in a Thug world is because the establishment has told those making the music, making the art, those decorating the world, that they are no good. They are essentially asking the youth and their culture to give the establishment the bird. Needless to say, that is exactly what the youth and modern culture distributors are going to do.

Street art—good street art—like all art is by its nature subversive and both flying in the face of and building off of what came before it. A stronger culture accepts and even pays tribute to this. A weaker culture fights against it. The funny thing is it’s hard to say where our culture stands, because our culture doesn’t pay tribute to it. Rather, it attempts to buy it out and it’s hard to say how to feel about that. One can’t begrudge a motherfucker for making a living. However, if art—and specifically street art—is by its nature anti-establishment, what does it say when the art itself becomes part of the establishment? Part of the allure and greatness of the street art is that it is illegal whether that means it is illegally hanging a stencil up on private property or it is pissing on copywrite laws. The basic nature of street art is to say that these streets—all of this “private” property—is ours and we’re taking it back, creating beautiful things, and are having a good time doing it. So what happens when the art itself becomes private property?

Finally, there is Thierry, who eventually adopts the moniker of Mr. Brainwash (an awkward and clumsy moniker that sounds like it would be the moniker of a non-native American) and himself becomes an artist, and a painfully average artist at that. As the movie ended with Thierry hitting it big in the art world despite his lack of artistic talent, I was reminded of the Spike Jonez/Fatboy Slim video for “Praise You.” In the video, Spike Jonez gathers a troupe of dancers that are intentionally awful and seem to play a joke on everybody who is watching. The thing about Thierry aka MBW, is that most of these putzes don’t get the joke (or maybe they do which makes it even sadder). Banksy and Shepard Fairey get it—or rather they get that Thierry is not actually good—but Thierry doesn’t realize it. Furthermore, he makes a nice chunk of change selling his art that  “looks like everyone else’s.” In the end it’s sad on a number of different levels not the least of which Thierry is an artist of life—the life he has chosen to lead is like a piece of art. He’s just got no demonstrable talent, and perhaps that is the problem and maybe what drives him on.