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

The Excesses of State Regulation
27 Svenson(1982: 207).
28 New York Times B1 (March 24, 1992).
29 Fried (1991); Guardian 25 (November 21, 1991). Sally Mann's photographs
of her children (7, 10, and 12 years old) are a perfect example
(1992). They appear nude, poor, and abused but insist they enjoy posing
for her. A psychologist found them "well adjusted and self-assured," Ms.
Mann gave them a veto, which they exercised against some pictures:
"They don't want to be geeks or dweebs," she said, but "nudity doesn't
bother them." Some of the most troubling pictures—"The Wet Bed,"
"Jessie Bites"—are posed reconstructions. Mann says she would stop if
she thought she were harming them. "I don't think of my children, and I
don't think anyone else should think of them, with any sexual thoughts. I
think childhood sexuality is an oxymoron." A Cardozo Law School
professor maintained: "There isn't the slightest question that what she's
doing is art ..." But religious conservatives have sought to close her
shows, and a federal prosecutor warned her against exhibiting some
photos and urged her to look out for strangers who see them and
ingratiate themselves with the family. New York Times Magazine 29
(September 27, 1992).
30 Gardner (1978: 135). A Stasi officer once shouted at the East German
writer Lutz Rathenow: "I forbid you to write poems with double meanings!
Also poems with triple meanings! We have experts who can
decipher everything!" Kinzer (1992: 50).
Should the ambiguity of art protect Andres Serrano's "Piss Christ" (a
crucifix submerged in the artist's urine), "Stigmata" (a nude female with
white leather cuffs and bloodied hands), "Cabeza de Vaca" (a calf's head
on a pedestal but also the name of a 15th century Conquistador),
"Heaven and Hell" (a cardinal turned away from a bloody nude woman
whose hands are bound and head is flung back), "Ejaculate in Trajectory"
(self-explanatory), and the "Red River" series (close-ups of sanitary
pads)? Serrano "explains": "I've always had trouble seeing things as
black or white. I've always accepted that duality in myself. My work is a
reflection of it." Lippard (1990).
31 Abel (1973).
32 An American Indian recently entitled an article "White Men Can't
Drum," complaining (humourously) about the appropriation of his people's
culture and symbols by the fringe of the men's movement that seeks
to recapture manhood in the wilderness. New York Times Magazine 30
(October 4, 1992).
33 Perhaps with humour. A cartoon in the inaugural issue of The New Yorker
under the editorship of Tina Brown (formerly of The Tatler and Vanity Fair)
shows a man walking by a construction site, from which four women
workers taking a coffee break give wolf whistles and yell catcalls like "Yo!
Nice Butt!" "I think I'm in love!" and "Looking for me, Sweetie?" The
New Yorker 114 (October 5, 1992).
34 Ellen Burstyn and the entire cast of "Shimada" protested that the critics
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