Artist Outsiders

In Ricki and the Flash, Meryl Streep plays a woman artist who followed her dream and comes face to face with family consequences. Diablo Cody gives her genuine feminist kick to the script, and Streep shines. Streep’s real life daughter plays the daughter with whom Ricki has an opportunity to make amends. Later when Ricki tries to reconcile by attending her son’s wedding, upscale guests treat her as a pariah. For me, the strength of Streep’s performance is how viscerally she communicates, both what it feels like to be an outsider, and, in spite of it, her hardwon courage to stand up for who she is.

I happened to view this film the same day I saw The Prophet, Salma Hayek’s interpretation of Kahlil Gibran’s poetry book of the same name. My two-for-one-dart-across-the-hall trick gave me an interesting perspective on the two movies. Mustafa, the central character of The Prophet, is also an outsider–on three counts, in fact; by being in exile, by being a poet, and by being jailed for inciting freedom.

Ricki and Mustafa are both artists as well, one a poet and one a musician. In a sense, an artist must be an outsider by definition, a person who steps back enough from the inside norm, from the cozy acceptable, to be able to write or paint or compose about it. To create is to risk, to step back–and then to step forward, way forward, making oneself completely vulnerable to the public’s praise or censure. Mustafa risks his life, Ricki risks being her naked musician self in front of her grown children and their snob crowd. In the end, they both give everything they have gladly. Ah, what good company I feel myself to be in today— artist outsiders, my favorite kind of folks.