Emotional Honesty

Hiding from dark truths can sometimes be detrimental to good art

I watched a show recently on Netflix. I won’t name the show, because I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it. In the show, someone gets cancer and, though the characters do everything to keep her alive, she ends up dying, leaving behind her grieving friends and family.

But her death was too perfect.

What I mean is, while the show had some poignant moments, I found it emotionally dishonest. They presented her death as a mere “slipping away,” sort of like falling asleep, or drifting off into a nap while no one was looking. The woman got to say her goodbyes to all her loved ones, and all her emotional loose ends were neatly tied up when each family member and friend got to say their final goodbyes.

Life is seldom like this. Very often, we don’t say all that needs to be said to our family and loved ones before they die. We don’t get closure. We don’t arrive home in time or we miss our window, or death comes quick and unexpected, and far too soon.

Also, death is seldom “like a finger plucking a hair from a glass of milk” as the Hasids like to say. It’s often painful, brutal, and excruciating not just to the dying, but to those who love them.

I’m not trying to depress you, but I want to point out what I felt was emotional dishonesty in a work of fiction. For the sake of providing the viewer emotional comfort, they sacrificed verisimilitude and, in my opinion, turned the show from something that could have been great into something that was merely good.

Some people read fiction to escape reality — and that’s okay. Reality can be brutal enough without reading fictional stories about it. And, of course, there are some types of fiction intended to give us the warm and fuzzies, like curling up on a rainy day with a glass of tea, a blanket, and a good book, like the so-called “cozy” mysteries.

But the unfortunate truth is that real life is hard. It’s unpredictable. It’s brutal. It steals away those we love when we least expect it. And I think if we really want to be comforting, if we really want to write about the human condition, we shouldn’t shy away from these painful experiences, but challenge them head on.

I’m not saying all writers or artists should do this. Some may not want to go this route. Some may find it too painful or emotionally treacherous.

But for me, I think the best works of art are those that don’t shy away from truth, no matter how ugly. Because it’s only by reflecting our own humanity back to us that we can understand who and what we are.

And it’s what we do with that pain, what we sublimate that pain into, that, in my opinion, makes a work of art great.

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