FREE ESSAY ON THE CENSORSHIP OF ART

THE CENSORSHIP OF ART

The Censorship of Art
Things are heating up in America. People are protesting outside of the movie theaters,
concerts, and book and record stores of this great nation everywhere. What is all the
fuss about? Censorship, Government officials and raving mad protesters alike have been
trying to stop the expressive creativity in everything from Marilyn Manson to Mark Twain.
One of the biggest shake-ups happened in museums all over the world recently that would
have made Michelangelo and DiVinchi's hair stand on end. In the Constitution of the
United States, the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, religion, press, the
right to assemble and to petition the government; the Ninth Amendment says, "The
enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or
disparage others retained by the people". So it seems one cannot use any of the other
rights to quell the rights of an individual or group. Then why is the government trying
to censor literature, movies, music and art? All of the world's modern society has become
desensitized and easily trainable. Therefore society has come to accept the ideals,
morals, and values driven into the psyche by the dominant forces in the nation: the
Government and the Church. By quieting the objective voice these two institutions stand
in the lead and stay in control. 
One might assume that the blood-sucking politicians have nothing better to do than to
look for things that offend any one major group of people (i.e. the church) to obtain
votes. In this manner the government is becoming more and more controlling and artistic
censorship is just another way to maintain control. Things were not always so. Government
had very little to say about censoring anything. Was it not only three decades ago that
as one nation the population was united by the ideals of peace love, and harmony? As an
art student in the 60's era, Robert Mansfield states in his article, Artistic Freedom:
government challenge "the first amendment was seldom an issue of concern...In fact it
seemed that boundaries of expression were governed only by individual creative ability
intellect and imagination". Where have these ideals gone? It seems in recent years they
have disappeared with the freedom of thought. Why is it so important to some people not
to offend? It seems the people easily offended are the ones deciding what is acceptable
for the population. "Well about a decade ago when the nation debated about funding
controversial art," writes John Cloud of TIME magazine, "in the capital of crude, few
people consider rude art a problem." Articles ranging in titles from "New York's Art
Attack" to "Creative Chaos" are appearing in TIME and other numerous front-page materials
across the country. In H.G. Hovagimyan's TOKARTOK: The Censorship of Art, he states:
"Artists are often asked to change parts of their works to conform to the publics
morality. This has been going on since the Pope asked Michelangelo to paint fig leaves on
Adam and Eve." Yes do not forget about the control the church has had on artistic
expression since the beginning of time. When the church has something to say everyone
listens. It is amusing how when something offends the church it quickly disappears.
However, when these people see some bubble that looks like the face of the Virgin Mary in
a tortilla chip, they start worshiping it. Next comes a media circus and before lunch it
is all over CNN and every other news broadcast in the world. It is obvious the government
uses those situations to promote the Church and its ideals of acceptable art even if it
is a tortilla chip. 
As the 1960's came to an end the meaning and importance of the first amendment became
indisputable. The Democratic National Convention in Chicago, protesting against the
Vietnam War and the political assassinations of the late 1960's (with the governments'
interjection and objection) showed that the so-called guaranteed right of freedom of
expression was not so guaranteed anymore. This point was proven again by the incident at
Kent State University on May 4, 1970, where students rallying against the presidents
decision to send troops into Cambodia without declaring war were arrested, beaten, bombed
with tear gas, and ultimately shot at by a dozen men armed with M-1 rifles. "A total of
67 shots were fired in 13 seconds." Is what it said in on the May 4th Task Force of Kent
State University. Four of the students were killed and nine were wounded. The extent the
government would go to in order to quell the objective voice was proven that day. The
government proves once again, in modern times, that they cannot be trustworthy of
humanities unalterable rights by trying to censor artistic expression. In September 1999
an exhibit called SENSATION went on display at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. One of the
artists, Chris Ofili, portrayed a black Madonna adorned with elephant dung and pictures
of women's crotches from porn magazines. New York City Mayor, Rudolph Giuliani, said "
The idea of having so-called works of art in which people are throwing elephant dung at a
picture of the Virgin Mary is sick." What is sick is that the government seems to have
the idea that it can make decisions for the nation. Had the Mayor decided to go to the
exhibit the mayor would have found out Ofili includes elephant dung in all of the works
not just the religious portraits. It would also come to pass to the mayor that elephant
dung symbolizes regeneration to the African culture. The wonderful Mayor then threatened
to cut the museum's funding of about $7 million dollars (a third of the museum's budget)
unless SENSATION was cancelled. Now bad mouthing the exhibit is one thing, but to
threaten to cut the funding is another story. In an article that appeared in TIME Daily
news: When a Mayor and the Constitution Collide, the article shows how the First
amendment is just a notch in the mountains to government officials. What is important to
the government is forcing their ideals of morality onto others. "Monday Federal court
judge ruled that the mayor trampled all over the first Amendment in his attempts to
remove funding from the Brooklyn Museum of Art because of an exhibit he deemed
offensive." Guiliani withheld $500,000 a month from the museum from October 1st 1999
until the court hearing which ruled against the mayor. The dictator mayor Guiliani then
suggests the board of the museum resign. Time arts writer Steven Madoff said, " There's
no end to the gall that Guiliani has." The mayor tried to close down this museum for one
single painting? A little harsh one would think. Mrs. Hillary Clinton in a public
statement to the press defended the museum saying, "It's not appropriate to penalize and
punish an institution such as the Brooklyn Museum," She then added to her statement that
she would not go to see this exhibit because she would find certain things offensive.
Everything Giuliani tried to do has backfired including the attempt to evict the museum
from the city owned building. What right does any government official have to cut funding
to a program in which there are so many artists work, time, and effort? Just on account
of one person finding it to be offensive does not mean that everyone else will. What one
person sees as tasteless may be tasteful to another. Remember that society does have the
option to go and see the work or not to go to see the work. The all-powerful mayor never
went to see the exhibit himself, but somehow found the time to criticize it. In a Letter
from the Brooklyn Museum of Art Director Arnold L. Lehman he comments on the way
SENSATION is a refreshing and attracting part of this exhibit. He stated, "SENSATION is a
part of our plan to revitalize the very concept of how art - whether traditional or the
most challenging - can speak to people in their own language...our museum must be central
to the topical sociocultural issues, expressed through art, that drive our daily lives."
Art means so many things to so many different people. So how can the government decide
what the public wants to see? It has more to do with what the government does not want
the public to see. The government is afraid people will see new controversial art and
think a thought or two and realize what a laughingstock life has been made due to the
need for control. On the National Coalition Against Censorship web site in an article The
Long and Short of It, the article reads:
" Mayor Giuliani's reaction to the Sensation exhibit stimulated a satirical installation
from artist Hans Haacke, now on display at the Whitney Museum of Art Biennial Exhibit in
New York. The provocative artwork, Sanitation, links the current culture wars to the
banning of "degenerate" art in Munich in 1937. It displays the text of the First
Amendment along with quotations in Nazi-style script from Patrick Buchanan, Pat
Robertson, Jesse Helms and Mayor Giuliani and is surrounded by garbage cans blaring the
sounds of marching troops. So far the controversy over Sanitation has not evoked a peep
from Mayor Giuliani." 
The fact of the matter is that the mayor will not have anything to say he has already
lost the battle. Federal Court Judge Nina Gershon stated in the article When the Mayor
and the Constitution Collide, "There is no federal constitutional issue more grave than
the effort by government officials to censor works of expression... to abide by
government demands for orthodoxy." Why should the nation have to harmonize to the morals
of the government? The fact of the matter is the nation should not have to conform to the
government's morality. The government, in this manner, has violated the god given right
of choice in order to quell the voices of objectivity and maintain its all-powerful
reign.
The Church has tried to extinguish the voices of artists for centuries. With the exhibit
SENSATION the Church had petitions at 36 congregations all over Staten Island to close
the museum, cut the funding, and for the board to resign. The petition read, "To allow
the display of a painting of an obvious desecration of a saint we Catholics hold so high
in our reverence is unspeakable. It went on to say if you and the board of directors see
this as art and insist on displaying it, then we call for your resignation and the board
members immediately. Monsignor Peter G. Finn who organized the 36 parishes on Staten
Island to post the petitions in their churches said in an interview that appeared in the
Staten Island Advance, "We don't want to fund a museum that attacks religion. Especially
if on the walls of the institution has the names of Isaiah, Jeremiah, St. Peter and St.
Paul carved...it is a mockery of the intent of the place." Now one must realize this is
the Church demanding for a board of directors of one of the most highly regarded museums
in the world to resign. Who do they think they are? God? Performance artist Karen Finley,
dramatized the plight of women by appearing on stage naked and covered with melted
chocolate in 1990, was denied money because her performance helped spur debate over how
the NEA hands out money. "She and three other artists were excluded from NEA grants in
1990 because the NEA holds grants to a general standard of decency." So said the article
on CNN's web site Supreme Court studies federal funding of art- March 31, 1998. If the
church is so offended then why is it that the Christian Coalition and the NEA fund
hardcore pornography? The NEA has admitted to this in the article Christian Coalitions
stand on the Arts that appears on the Christian Coalition web site that reads: 
"...Over the years, the NEA has funded and continues to fund materials that are indeed
hardcore pornography. Some examples include "art" that promotes lesbianism for 12 year
old girls, brother/sister team rape of a younger sister, the sexual torture of a male
prostitute, and such well-known examples as photos of a crucifix submerged in urine and a
play depicting Christ as a homosexual." 
So much for a "general standard of decency". The play this refers to is Joseph and the
Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat which had a run on Broadway and a national touring company,
but it was not posted all over the news and CNN. Thank God this society is not in 399 BC,
when the philosopher Socrates was put to death for undermining the beliefs in the gods
and corrupting the morals of the young. If it were new radical ideas and opinions about
religion would carry with them an electric chair. Filmmaker Kevin Smith recently released
his new film entitled DOGMA. The movie is about a young woman who is Jesus Christ's
distant niece in modern times and has to save the world from two fallen angels who want
to get back into heaven. In order to do so they would have to disobey God. Since God is
infallible this would prove everything false including the existence of the world. Hence
the end of the world and all creation gets sucked into a big black hole. The movie
includes a black 13th apostle, and a woman plays God. The fanatical Church was offended
by this movie. The Catholic League, a lay group with 350,000 members and an intimidating
letterhead, had pressured the Walt Disney Co. and its subsidiary Miramax Films to drop
DOGMA. People protested outside movie theatres with signs that read: stop desecrating our
god now. Every week I go to church," says Kevin Smith in an article on TIME on the web
"and sooner or later the priest makes a joke! How come a priest can mix religion and
jokes, but if I do it, I'm anti-Catholic?" One should wonder if those same people protest
outside of the theatres of the porn movies that their Catholic Coalition supports and
funds. Well these people have more versions of their so-called concrete bible than china
has egg rolls. So it is no wonder they are confused. In an interview on Moviefone.com
with Elizabeth Castelli the Professor of Religion, at Barnard College she states how the
Bible is used for control purposes. She said "the Bible is a fragmentary record that was
written by various religious communities...texts in the Bible were also written with the
explicit goal of persuading their audiences into accepting a particular point of view."
So the Bible has some mumbo-jumbo in it in order to maintain control over what people
think, say, and do. The Church sticks beliefs to follower's minds that have doubt. When
one expresses that doubt the Church then tries to put down ones expression to support
control. 
What censorship is really about is the control of our new ideas and opinions that
undermine the supremacy of religion or the state. "Man is born free, and everywhere he is
in chains." Once said French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The "chains" being the
qualifying factors government or the church set on the rights and freedoms people have.
We are supposed to have rights independent of any government intervention. Over the years
our right to have freedom of speech has proven to be frivolous and impertinent to the two
dominant institutions of the modern world. Furthermore the nations revered Bill of Rights
has been kicked to the curb by the government and the Church for many years. Neither the
government nor the Church has the right to interdict material that can be injurious to
their faith or morals. What if every civil rights speaker were required by law to include
the views of the Ku Klux Klan in their speeches? Every statement one believed to be true
would be worthless while being undercut by falsehood. "The nation is quickly becoming a
country of cowards and bullies. Our politicians are unable or unwilling to defend the
rights embodied in the constitution..." Says H.G. Hovagimyan. Fear that new ideas will
bring strong opinions that speak out opposing views and take away some control from the
Church and government disgust and fury these two institutions. We as a society have the
choice to see, hear, and read controversial books, music, movies, and art. Neither
governmental tyranny nor the Church's intimidation should abridge that choice. 
Bibliography
TOKARTOK: The Censorship of Art.
By G.H. Hovagimyan
http://www2.awa.com/artnetweb/views.tokartok/tokcen/tokcen.html
March 15, 2000
Artistic Freedom: government challenge
By Robert Mansfield
http://art.sdsu.edu/courses/art15//resources/index.html
March 27, 2000
When a Mayor and the Constitution Collide
Time Daily Michael Eskenaz
http://www.time.com
November 2, 1999
TIME Magazine: Shock for Shocks Sake?
By Steven Henry Madoff
http://www.time.com
October 11, 1999
Letter from the Director of the Brooklyn Museum of Art
By Arnold L Lehman
http://www.brooklynart.org/sensation/letter.html
December 14, 1999
Kenfour the May 4th Task Force: Kent State University
www2.acorn.net/~aa3/8/acnrono.htm
Revised April 4, 1996
Moviefone.com - Reality check: A Religion professor examines DOGMA
http://www.dogma-movie.com/archives/religionn1.html
Date written Unknown
CNN Interactive web site Supreme Court studies federal funding of art
http://cnn.com
March 3, 1998
Christian Coalitions stand on the arts web site
http://www.cc.org/issues/arts.html
May 5, 2000
Time Magazine: New York's Art Attack
By John Cloud
http://www.time.com
October 4, 1999