Twee Magazine

Boy, some people hate twee.

Boy, some people hate twee. If something demonstrates the slightest amount of whimsy, they start getting red-faced and veins grow visible in their forehead, throbbing with aesthetic rage. People discuss having an upper-limit for their patience with twee, as though it is something tolerable in low doses, like salt, but is unbearable in large amounts, like mid-level managers. Critics seem to wait the moment when certain artists will outgrow being twee, as though Wes Anderson will finally be a mature artist when he finally puts down the anamorphic lens and pastel color scheme.

They're welcome to their tastes; we're all welcome to our tastes. But I think it is worth exploring what it might be that rankles people about twee. And the more I think about it, the more I think that there are certain artistic gestures that are critically reviled, but that twee not only makes use of these gestures but puts them at the forefront.

Now, there is a long and noble history of doing this. To pick an obvious example, punk rock embraced amateurism and antisocial gestures, but there have been plenty of artistic movements that have embraced previously despised aesthetics. So let's take a look, in list form, of some of the elements of twee that go against conventional tastes:

1. Inauthenticity: This is probably the greatest stumbling block for many audience members. For whatever reason, Americans have a longstanding sensibility that prefers a semblance of authenticity over artifice. Of course, "authentic" is a fraught term, especially when applied to something as artificial as art. But even if authenticity is mostly a myth, American audiences and critics nonetheless bristle when something seems deliberately inauthentic. Art is supposed to either represent a genuine tradition or a personal expression of the artist's experience.

We value sincerity and moral passion, and place a high premium on realism in storytelling -- so much so that we even prefer our nonrealistic genres (like fantasy and supernatural horror) to have a patina of realism. The more deliberately unreal a piece of art is, the smaller its audience will be. We tolerate stylized art only as much as we see it as an authentic expression of the artist themselves, but highly stylized work by even our most celebrated artists will get showered with criticism if the style seems to exist for its own sake. Francis Ford Coppola's "One from the Heart," as an example, very nearly bankrupted him, even while it inspired an entire genre of filmmaking in France (Cinéma du look).

But twee art is often willfully artificial, and often seems to be artificial simply because it delights the artist and not because it is a necessary tool of storytelling. There is a tradition of this -- much of the history of theater, as an example, consisted of spectacle and artifice, which may be why twee artists who work in other genres are so often dismissed as having never gotten over drama club.

2. Pretension: This is one of the more irritating words in the critical lexicon, because it is so essentially meaningless. Although the root is the same as "pretend," this criticism really isn't about the artist pretending to be something they are not. Instead, the suggestion is that the artist is somehow putting on airs, is being too much of something undesirable -- too arty, too intellectual, too affected, too self-satisfied, too too much.

It should be noted that twee art often makes use of the idea of pretentiousness, and so you end up with art filled with characters who are pompous boors, pseudo-intellectual chatty cathys, failing strivers, self-concerned dandies, and other irritants. Moreover, these characters are sometimes the heroes of the story, and for people who rankle at the idea of pretension, experiencing art that both celebrates and mocks pretension is going to be ... well, too much.

3. Precociousness: A close cousin to pretentiousness, precociousness is something we strive for in our own children and despise in the children of others. We speak, of course, of the child who is educated, or wise, or clever beyond his or her years. This sort of child inhabits the world of twee as its aboriginal and most common citizen. And one not need be a child to be precocious -- the word describes anything that seems to have developed too quickly and too early. We might describe a middle-aged man as being precious if they behave like an old man, and these, too, run wild through the untrammeled wilderness of the land of twee. It's a world where people regularly act older they are, but, then, there is another group, and they are equally irritating:

4. Immaturity: You'll find two sorts of immaturity in twee art. There are characters who have simply failed to develop into adults in some significant way and struggle with the demands of adulthood. But there are also twinkly manchildren who have managed to preserve a childlike sense of adventure, or delight, or wonder, or playfulness into adulthood. There are women, too, who have done this, unfortunately most often represented by the free-spirited manic pixie dream girl who exists to allow unhappy men to rediscover joy in the world. The twee world is one in which children often act like adults and the adults act like children.

5. Nostalgia: This seems like a bit of an unfair criticism to lob at twee art, as American arts in general are shot through with nostalgia, as are American politics, as are Americans in general. But, then, twee art has a way at looking back at a different past. The twee world seems inspired by foreign histories, or forgotten eras, or obscure art movements. It's like there is nothing that twee can do that it won't be overbearing about!

6. Whimsy: This doesn't seem like it should be a criticism -- after all, the qualities of whimsy are playfulness, humor, and fancifulness, all of which people tend to appreciate. But another quality of whimsy is quirkiness, and at its root is whim, and critics tend to rankle when art seems to involve purposeless oddness and capriciousness, both found in twee art. 

7. Affectation: Here we have a lethal mixture of inauthenticity and pretension. Anything can be affected: A gesture, an accent, an item of clothing, an attitude, and twee art seems dedicated to making everything in it as affected as possible. Never mind that in an environment of stifling conformity, anything with a little bit of character is going to seem affected. God forbid that in the land of jeans and baseball caps you should wear a bow tie, never mind create a work of art filled with people whose daily habiliments look more like costume than clothes. You do that, the critics will line up around the block to complain that your art exists in a hermetically sealed dollhouse, because nothing could be more irritating than the affectation of it all.

8. Weakness. This is by far the most common criticism against twee art, offered up in many forms, and it's the criticism that can most quickly be dispensed with. Critics will sometimes dislike twee because it is filled with characters who are too sensitive, or emotional, or neurotic, or nerdy, especially if those characters are men. There is an often unspoken or disguised criticism against twee art because it seems somehow "wussy" -- that is lacks strong characters and clear storylines but prefers fragile oddballs and their hurt feelings.

There is nothing about this criticism that is worth addressing. Charitably, it's a small-minded view of art, but, uncharitably, there is a lot of sexism and homophobia nestled into this criticism, and it comes down to policing what are should be based on blinkered and troubling standards of masculinity.

I say to hell with that. If twee did not embrace the very things that people dislike about it, it would not be twee. It is entirely possible to make valuable art out of all these elements -- in fact, I would argue that this art is especially valuable, because it explores the very territory that critics have decided is valueless.

Twee is not punk, and they are a poor parallel for each other. But they do have something in common: They really irritate people, because they do art in a way a lot of people think is wrong, or immature, or embarrassing.

But, if you don't have a group of people around you complaining you're doing things wrong, there is a very good chance you are not making art.