Moral of the story: 2019’s boldest culture asked what it means to be good
At a time when deceit is trumping decency, artists from Kanye West to Greta Gerwig and Phoebe Waller-Bridge have taken it upon themselves to pose questions about virtue and privilege
- This article contains spoilers for Knives Out
In Greta Gerwig’s new adaptation of Little Women, a haughty publisher dismisses Jo March’s stories as unfashionable. “Morals don’t sell nowadays,” he tells the aspiring author. “People want to be amused, not preached at.” Hopefully the statute of limitations has expired on spoiling a 151-year-old story: March – an avatar for her creator, Louisa May Alcott – proves him wrong. As has Gerwig, reviving Little Women in a year where a great deal of culture has considered the question of what it means to be good when the answer is less clear than ever.
A decade of consciousness-raising via Twitter and Tumblr has complicated the issue, often by using culture and its makers to arbitrate issues of morality, from cultural appropriation to micro- and macro-aggressions. Even the concept of cancel culture ended up getting … cancelled: debunked by critics, often of colour, who pointed out that nobody who had been cast aside for their infractions had gone away or lost much as a result. If so-called cancel culture was actually effective, then Donald Trump’s history of sexually degrading comments (and alleged sexually degrading behaviour) and racist business practices would have impeded his path to the White House – an idea that seems increasingly like a fairytale as the far right mount a successful pushback that has resulted in a moral void in world leadership. Politicians and lower-level scammers have proven that deceit seldom gets in the way of success or power. It’s fallen to children to hold adults to account for the decades of irresponsible, selfish consumption that has accelerated the climate crisis.