Final post- Banned Books

1.) MPAA– The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is a representation of the six major film industries: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures; Paramount Pictures Corporation; Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.; Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation; Universal City Studios LLC; and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (MPAA 2013).  The MPAA is responsible for giving a film its rating (G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17). We learned and saw a lot of the MPAA during the film “This Film Is Not Yet Rated” which dealt with the drawbacks on receiving a higher rating of R or NC-17 and the affects that can have on a movie’s success.

NEA Four- A team of performance artists consisting of John Fleck, Tim Miller, Holly Hughes and Karen Findley that had their NEA grants revoked in 1990. The four took the case to court and won, each being awarded an equal amount of funds. The NEA then decided to not fund individual artists any more after the incident. Perhaps the most controversial part of The NEA Four’s situation was that their grants were vetoed after they had passed their peer review process successfully (NEA Four 2013).

Donohue- Bill Donohue is the president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights. Bill has more or less attacked a number of artists for their depictions of Jesus that he finds unfavorable, one being Terrance McNally’s Corpus Christi that we read in class. Donohue didn’t like the way Jesus was portrayed in the play specifically that he was a gay man who had sex with his apostles. Donohue raised an issue with many other artists but this being the one we read in class, this is the one I seem to know the most about. 

2.) The performance I chose to talk about is this list of banned children’s books that have been banned from many school’s curriculum. Most of the books are banned for themes of homosexuality and how they portray those in the gay community. The list contains a few books but I thought i’d pick the most shocking to me: And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson. The artist is trying to tell the (100% true!) story of two male penguins at the New York zoo who never found a female mate, but instead liked each other’s company and looked after an egg together. The egg hatched and became their son. Seems harmless right? Wrong. People freaked out that the penguins were “gay” (I use the term gay loosely here because hey who knows maybe the two penguins just thought girls were jerks and wanted to keep each other’s company because they were just nicer than the other penguins. I mean it could happen right?).

3.) Richardson’s work was just trying to tell us the story of the two penguins in a way that children could understand: with pictures and simple sentences. His work is trying to tell the story and tell the story only. I read through the book and I didn’t get the impression that Richardson was trying to promote homosexuality or anything like that. The support for his argument is that the story is true. There really were two penguins who raised a little egg into a baby named Tango and the artist is trying to tell that story.

4.) Donohue relates to the performance of the book due to the themes of homosexuality in the work. We saw how adamantly opposed to the work “Corpus Christi” Donohue was for it’s portrayal of Jesus as a homosexual. I don’t really see Donohue in the work directly, but one can bet that if this book was read to one of his children he wouldn’t agree with it due to it’s content of gay penguins. Donohue helps us better understand the censorship of this performance because even though homosexuality is a seemingly normal human action, people are still opposed to it and wish to have it disappear from the public eye.

The MPAA relates to the book also because it is the head honcho that censors movies, much like there was a head committee that decided to have the book banned from the school system. The MPAA gives ratings to movies and a lot of those movies end up being documentaries much like the one we watched in class. The MPAA censors real life events and situations, just like the real life event of two male penguins raising a baby together was censored. The MPAA helps us better understand censorship in the way that even if the story is true, it can still be censored. It brings up the question of “can/should we censor real life?” that we discussed in class a few times.

The NEA Four relate to the book in the way that their/its ability to perform was granted then taken away. The book was published and then was decided it was not suitable for children, much in the way that the NEA Four were given funding then had it taken away because it was not appropriate for different reasons. The book also relates to Holly Hughes specifically who was said to be “a lesbian and her work is very heavily of that genre” by John Frohnmayer which is a huge reason she got censored (Hughes 2013). It also related to Tim Miller who was also censored due to his “lush, wall-to-wall homo themes” (Stacy 2007). The NEA Four helps us better understand censorship of this performance for two reasons. One being that people aren’t comfortable with homosexuality and want it out of the public eye. The other being that censorship is not also given from the beginning. Sometimes permission is given and then taken away.

Blog Post #3

This picture here is a mural painted by the artist Blu on The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA  in Los Angeles. The cherry picker or whatever it is is white washing the mural which was censored for being insensitive to war veterans. The building features work celebrating Japanese American soldiers that served in World War II and the opposite wall is the LA Veterans’ Affairs Hospital. 

The people who hold power in the original work are a number of people. Those who are angry with war, government and the country in general hold power with the original art. Anyone who lost a loved one or who lost a part of themselves to war have power.

The people who hold power with the censored piece of art are those who are in support of the war and those who fund it. Namely, active personnel who enjoy their work, government and/or proud veterans. I feel that those with a strong sense of patriotism and that typical “YEAH ‘MURICA!” kind of attitude are the ones who hold the power with the censoring of such a politically motivated peace. 

There are definitely times when the powerful/powerless switch places. Since this piece is so political and the politics of it are still relevant today, the two switch back and forth often. Think of any censorship of war-related materials: mission information, an incident report, a report of the death of a soldier or even just a simple skype phonecall home from a soldier. With all of these things being censored, information is being kept from the public. It can be seen in two ways: the government wins, the people who are unhappy with the military’s involvement loses OR the people win because they are kept safe, and the government loses because they are keeping information from the people. It’s all contextual and all very open to interpretation. I hope that makes sense. 

My questions for all of you lovely readers are these: What was your initial reaction to the mural? Would the mural be acceptable if it was in a different context (like not next to a veterans’ hospital)? Was the MOCA right for painting over it?

 

Finally Some Good Censorship

I want to start off first by saying that I have no problem with any type of religion, organization, interest group, whatever standing up for something that they believe in or are passionate about. I think it’s awesome that people are so dedicated to certain things that they are able to spend time fighting for/against it. I will however tell you I have a problem with the Westboro Baptist Church. I think they’re nuts and I will not censor that statement any further.

That being said, the Westboro Baptist church really likes to protest things and people like to protest their protest even more. Specifically military funerals. For any of you who don’t know, WBC claims that dead soldiers are a result of God’s actions taken out against America’s sins. The latest form of censorship comes from Congress requiring that protesters must be at least 300 feet from military funerals 2 hours before they start until after they end.

Censorship of the WBC’s “performance” is completely justified in my opinion. Religious differences aside, WBC shouldn’t be allowed to be there. I don’t have any justification to it other than it’s morally wrong for them to protest against someone who died defending that very basic right of them protesting.

Censorship of their protesting performance is unable to be justified in the way that it is potentially voilating their right to assemble. Even though they are still allowed to assemble there are certain restrictions to it.

I believe the rights of a performer are to simply be able to perform, as long as no one is directly physically or mentally hurt by the performace, hey whatever let the show go on. As long as the intent is purely for entertainment and for (someone’s) enjoyment in a safe way, by all means. I don’t have to look.

Their responsibilities however are different. Their responsibilities should be to conduct their performance in a safe way and in a safe environment. They should assume all responsibility for someone who was injured in any way during their performance.

here’s a link to the article talking about the bill concerning military protests: http://www.cnn.com/2012/08/03/politics/military-funerals-protests

MY QEUSTIONS: Are there any reasons why the WBC is justified in protesting funerals other than “it’s their right as protected by the constitution?” What would you do if you saw them protesting a funeral?

The Beginning of an Era

I’m entering my junior year in the Speech and Hearing Sciences field with a minor in aging. Ultimately my goal is to work with patients doing speech therapy in their end of life stage. I guess what I’m really trying to say is I like old people.

Generally speaking, censorship will impact my future career because I will have to be more reserved in what I say to patients. I obviously wouldn’t be able to talk to patients the same way I would talk to my girlfriends on a Friday night. The therapy and care I give them might even be censored by the nurses, health care systems, company I work for, etc. There will always be someone over me carefully monitoring and editing my decisions.

Censorship affecting me in every day life would be along the same lines. Being aware of which word selection to use and rerouting thoughts to make sure I’m being both polite and politically correct are something that occur in every day conversation with me. Most of the time I do it without realizing I’m actually doing it, other times I have to actually stop and take a moment to think about it before I continue.

My question to all of you is where else can you think of censorship in the speech therapy area? What about in your life?

 

I’ll leave you with this song. The video does a great job of showing both censorship and a lack thereof. Also, on a side note, the main singer wrote this album while experiencing extreme mental and emotional issues. I read somewhere that he tried to commit suicide about 2-3 times over the course of writing this album. Even with all that, the album is absolutely amazing. Like I said, unrelated but pretty awesome.