A Rapper's Doing: Aristotle's Art in "Nicomachean Ethics" and Reality Television

Finding something in particular to relate to this week's reading was challenging... as most weeks, till, as usual, something just clicked. However I warn you, it's a stretch.

In "Nicomachean Ethics" Aristotle states, "Making and acting are different" (141) as he defines techne in Art-knowledge of how to make things. This chapter is particularly interesting in relation to how we see products rather than the production of making said products. This is related to reality television shows in their attempt to reveal "the making" of things, whether it be revealing the day to day process of winning a beauty pageant as seen in Toddlers and Tiaras or revealing the day to day life of a creative professional as seen here in T.I. and Tiny: The Family Hustle. This last mentioned show specifically relates to Aristotle's differentiation of making and doing.



Aristotle, in the previous chapter mentioned before, states, "The origin of action... is choice, and that of choice is desire and reasoning with a view to an end" (139). Making something involves a series of choices and actions, which is why it is different and more than just acting. Each action and choice is a part to the whole of making something. Aristotle further explains, "This is why choice cannot exist either without reason and intellect or without a moral state; for good action and its opposite cannot exist without a combination of intellect and character" (139).One can do something as long as they have some sort of intellect, however if they have character then their action can be good.

There are two products from the reality show T.I. and Tiny: The Family Hustle. The first is the show itself which is aired on VH1. The second is T.I.'s music, the 8th album of his career. Rap is an art. Making a rap album, as Aristotle would say, involves, "a true course of reasoning. All art is concerned with coming into being, i.e. with contriving and considering how something may come into being" 141). In most cases as the consumer we see the album, we don't see the production of the album. However, a reality television show can be art as well, if it has intellect and character behind it.T.I. and Tiny: The Family Hustle gives us a view of the production behind the album, not just the music itself but also the artist.

Even for Aristotle, art itself is involved with the reasons and choices for why the artist makes something. In an interview with the Daily Best, T.I. on His New VH1 Reality Show, T.I. explains why he decided to do this show. He states,

"I did a reality show to give people an idea of who I really am,” said the Grammy-winning rapper. “I wanted my fans to see what my life and my family’s life was actually like apart from all the rumors they see on the blogs and in the news. You can’t believe any of that stuff you read, and I wanted my fans to understand my reality and my world."

T.I.'s actions and the choices he makes are simply the doing to the whole making of the products that are T.I.'s albums and the reality show of his family on VH1. It is evident that T.I. chose to do the reality television show because he wanted people to see the production to the product, and not just the product itself. He wants to clear his name from the media and self identify himself.

More specifically this is related to Aristotle's point on art in that T.I.'s reasons and intentions are virtuous, which is why T.I. and Tiny: The Family Hustle is true art. As Aristotle claims, "Art, then, as has been said, is a state concerned with making, involving a true course of reasoning, and lack of art on the contrary is a state concerned with making, involving a false course of reasoning" (142). Because T.I.'s intentions for doing the reality television show are with reason and good reason, intellect and character, it is art.