speech and respect - College of Social Sciences and International ...

The Excesses of State Regulation
satire could protect Andrew Dice Clay. 17 Her exemption of
museums might permit a neo-Nazi display of Hitler memorabilia. 18
As we will see below, Holocaust revisionists and black anti-Semites
have sought refuge in the "neutral reportage" she would immunise.
And the literary realism she would protect did not satisfy black critics
of William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner or feminists
incensed by Bret Easton Ellis's American Psycho.
Speakers often don the raiment of Art when threatened by state
regulation. A publisher justified disseminating the Marquis de Sade's
Juliette by claiming that "his works are considered by many academics
and students of history, literature and philosophy to address
serious issues of personal liberty and freedom of expression." 19 That
not only is tautological—every defiance of state regulation raises
"serious issues of... freedom of expression"—but also offers carte
blanche to dress pornography in the trappings of art by hiring
reputable scriptwriters and directors, adding plot and character,
attending to "production values," and seeking historical
verisimilitude. 20
In any case, aesthetic judgements do not close the enquiry. Some
artists assault their audience in an effort to demonstrate originality,
attract attention, and intensify response. The novelist and critic John
Gardner nicely captured this impulse.
The man who blows up grand pianos is howled at from every side,
"Fraud! Not art!" but what counts is that the crowd is there to
howl, though it may not be there next time. Something happens to
them as they watch the instrument blown up—some will even
admit it. They experience a shock of terrible metaphor—"Grand
pianos are in my way, the whole tradition is in my way, and you
are in my way: I can say nothing, do nothing, affirm nothing
because of the piano's intolerable high-tone creamy plinking,
which you fools adore; I will therefore destroy them, I will destroy
you all! 21
Our century has had no shortage of those who aim to shock, from
Dada through performance art. In 1971 a British court found the
"Oz" School Kids Issue obscene because it showed a naked Rupert
Bear having sex with a gigantic Gypsy Granny. 22 At the Newcastle
festival twenty years later Karen Finley invited viewers to drink red
wine and spit on the American and British flags. Annie Sprinkle,
former prostitute and porn queen, performed "Sluts and Goddesses"
by stripping, douching, dancing, displaying her vagina, and gagging
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