Inside or Outside the System? Thoughts on the Radical Potential of Art

Abstract

For better or for worse, we are in the habit of holding new cultural artefacts to pretty high standards when it comes to their socio-political messaging. A memorable recent example is Barbie, the Greta Gerwig/Margot Robbie film about the eponymous toy that sought to do the impossible: rehabilitate Barbie as a feminist. This was always going to be a tall order given that, as Andi Zeisler wrote in The New York Times last year, “Barbie holds the weight of several generations’ worth of beauty standards and feminist analysis on her tiny shoulders.” But perhaps we shouldn’t look for social analysis or a radical emancipatory feminist project in something that is too wrapped up in the various systems it seeks to criticise. This article considers whether truly radical art must exist “outside” the systems in wants to criticise, or whether it is possible for artworks to critique from within.