So Fear and Paranoia win another victory...

[serai]

It seems some photomanip artists have closed their sites over the hoohah yesterday. What a sad day.

Maybe not for the reasons everyone is thinking, though.



I'm sorry that these artists feel obliged to give in to paranoia and feeling responsible for something they didn't do. It's their work, and they can do what they want with it, but how does self-censorship help the situation? If it's not photomanips, then it'll be something else. Rude fans will always find some way to embarrass their idols - that isn't going to change. Neither will the phenomenon of people stumbling across or being presented with imagery that discomfits them. The only thing that's going to change is that fans will no longer see the artwork. And little by little, fandom will become more cramped and timid and less likely to circulate the things we enjoy. It's hardly necessary to have prudish watchdogs slavering to pin us to the wall when we'll so eagerly do it ourselves.

If it were my artwork in question, I'd have put a great big banner on my site giving everyone hell about things like yesterday, then stayed defiantly open. But then, I've never been one to allow the thoughtless actions of others to dictate what I do with what's mine. Thinking that I must stop creating because some ninny used my creation to hurt someone else would not result in less hurt. It would only result in less creation. I think of all the times famous books or songs or such have been used to persecute people - does that mean we should destroy all those works, or lock them behind doors where only The Approved can see them?

Fear is no justification for strangling the creative process. Ben Franklin had the right of it - Freedom requires risk. Let me repeat that.

FREEDOM REQUIRES RISK.

This isn't just a matter of some girls being thoughtless. It started with that, but by brunt of all this hoohah, it has turned into an issue of censorship, self-censorship being the worst and most insidious kind, because by its turnings freedom is cut off at the knees in a way that it never is when stifled by an external force. Rolling over and giving up is vastly different from being forced to capitulate.

Why? Because it sets a Bad Example. Art is something that thrives not only on creativity, but also on defiance and a strong sense of self. There are artists whose work offends me every damn time I see it. I can't believe some of the things that hang on gallery walls these days. Would I ever insist it be taken down? Of course not. Would I admire or praise those artists, or give them sympathetic pats on the back, if they pulled their canvases from display just because somebody might be offended?

OF COURSE NOT.

In such a circumstance, my thought would be, "Well, I guess their art wasn't important to them. They must not be true artists. If they were, they wouldn't let such things dictate their actions."

I have enormous sympathy for artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano when their art is attacked and vilified, pulled off walls and censored, because those actions are forced on them, and because they don't take such actions as reasons to stop creating. I do not have sympathy for artists who take such actions on themselves. I feel sorry that they're going through a crisis, but bowing one's head and murmuring "oh, dear, somebody got hurt seeing my stuff, I'm gonna disappear now" cuts my sympathy right off, and makes me think, "Well, I guess their art wasn't important to them." Certainly not important enough that they'd take a situation like this as an opportunity to get stronger and grow as artists, rather than just rolling over and dying.


Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. - Benjamin Franklin

Comments

[aquila0212.livejournal.com]

Here, here, Serai. Well said.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :)

[rubynye.livejournal.com]

Oh my word.

I thought the incident was silly and out of line, but I'm surprised to see how huge the brouhaha has gotten, and boggled that people would take their artworks down over it. Sheesh.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

It is pretty amazing, isn't it? I literally can't imagine ever doing such a thing, myself.

[isildae.livejournal.com]

Well spoken, I hope the word gets out.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Feel free to get the word out. I'd be happy to have this pimped, 'cause I feel it's an essential issue. :)

[willow-wode.livejournal.com]

You have made a very valid point here.

In this world of political correctness (aka social tyranny) where people are made afraid to so much as express a differing opinion without someone getting offended and throwing a tantrum, it is ESSENTIAL that artists (including writers) have to take responsibility for their own reactions and their own work. We all have to 'brave up', whether it is telling a narrow-minded editor to piss off, or refusing to let someone try to control what we can or cannot create. We cannot let themselves be censored by public opinion, or by stupidity--which is often the same thing, let's face it.

This does not mean that good manners and class need not apply. Unfortunately there are entirely too many fans--and those little picture-waving bints aren't the only ones, though they are certainly a primo example--who lack either.

To answer your quote--

"This is a revolution, dammit--we're going to have to offend SOMEbody!"
--John Adams (from the musical '1776')

Fandom used to be a revolution and an underground. The Russian word 'samizdat' not only means 'contraband' but means 'fanzine'. *grin* Worth thinking on, eh? ;)

Thanks, willow!

[serai1.livejournal.com]

This does not mean that good manners and class need not apply.

Absolutely. I'd be the first to tell those girls that their actions, although obviously not meant to harm, were not in the best of taste, and I could've told them ahead of time that Elijah would feel embarrassed and not happy to look at such a thing in public. But that has absolutely nothing to do with the artist who created the pic. The uses that art is put to by others should not be the concern of the artist, especially when it's simply a matter of a little discomfort or emabarrassment.

In my view, the artists who are so eagerly pounding the breasts and weeping Mea culpa! Mea culpa! ought to take their cue from the very focus of their concern: Elijah himself. Has he ordered his lawyers to write nasty C&D letters to The Theban Band in preparation for a lawsuit. No. As far as I know, none of the sites that showcase these pics has received any such correspondence. He's level-headed enough to realize that his unwillingness to look at such things is no excuse to impose his tastes on those that create them. He's not only an adult, he's one that understands the concepts of self-determination and integrity. What would he say to someone who found one of his films offensive? Most likely, "Don't watch it, then." He certainly wouldn't stop acting over it!

I'll see your quote and raise you another!

[serai1.livejournal.com]

My man, Harlan:

"Let me just begin by saying," Ellison announces from his perch by the window, "that if there is any group I do not offend here this evening, you will raise your hand, yes? I'll be more than happy to get to you."

[loreley-se.livejournal.com]

You are so very right. These two acted of their own free will. Whoever created the manip they gave him is not to blame and should not take the blame (and certainly not on the mere suspicion that it COULD be theirs, because we don´t even know).

[lucky-jack.livejournal.com]

As I have said before, there seems to be a strange contradiction here. The motives a lot give for closing down sites, I have noticed, is that they are dismayed by Elijah's percieved 'reaction' to the manip he was given. Doesn't this then suggest that those manip creators were expecting some other reaction? Closing down sites on this basis shows that they are not creating 'art' for themselves and their audience, but expect some wider approval. It's almost the attitude that 'that person's work is unworthy but mine has higher motives and is done with love therefore it is more valid'.

I find the whole reaction stinks of publicity seeking and kneejerk sentimentalism.

[danachan.livejournal.com]

Well said, Serai.

I only know that something is going on because of reading in your journal.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Thanks, darlin'! My, I don't think I've ever been a news source before. *chortle*

[cassiopeia3019.livejournal.com]

I said this in my other comment, but why are these people pulling their sites now, instead of a few months ago when Elijah was shown a slashy pic of himself on the Graham Norton show? I seem to remember Elijah being embarrassed then as well. Now, if Elijah feels strongly about this, and makes a statement to the effect of "I'm uncomfortable with these images of myself and I'd prefer that they weren't on the web", I'd say take the sites down if you respect Elijah's wishes. If Elijah said he'd prefer people not write slash about him, I probably wouldn't read/write it. But he hasn't said anything, to my knowledge. He has ample opportunity to voice his feelings, if he really doesn't like this kind of thing. So what is the big deal?

At least The Theban Band's site is still up. *sighs with relief*

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Yes, I agree with you. It seems the site-pulling isn't about the pics being offensive to him, or making him uncomfortable with the artwork itself. It's about how the pic might have been one of theirs, and that he might somehow find out who they are. So it's not really about him or his feelings at all; otherwise, as you say, they would have pulled their pics back when the Norton show aired.

Interesting, isn't it, that the Theban Band, whose work is the most likely to have been in the pic, are the artists who haven't pulled their stuff? Maybe it's just that they're so much more visible and famous, and thus are the most likely to have weathered just this sort of brouhaha before. Ned&Leny don't seem to care what anyone thinks of their work, and just go on blythely doing what they love. Good for them!

[fyrdrakken]

Well, I never heard about the Graham Norton thing (and only heard about this thing via this LJ, though it's apparently all over the place for people whose friends' lists include lots of RPSers or whatever). My $.02 there as to the timing issue.

[(Anonymous)]

I did disable all my manips when Graham Norton was aired

[annwyn55.livejournal.com]

*applauds*

Thank you for giving voice to what I didn't have the words for. Sadly, there will always be those of little brain and less manners who crave their few minutes of fame. And if my admiration for Elijah was immense before, it is boundless now. Thank goodness for the classy guy he is.

[serai1.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! This kind of thing seems to snowball so quickly. Why people get so upset over these events, I don't know. I can't imagine what would happen if he'd actually gotten hurt somehow. A rash of suicides, maybe. Sheesh.

[fyrdrakken]

Devil's advocate here: My first fandom, when I found out the guy who played the character we were writing about was starting to get online and actually read the fanfic about his character, I freaked and started e-mailing people who had archived my fic (which by that point really mainly consisted of an atrociously raw NC-17 and a slightly risque but genuinely funny piece) demanding that they yank it off their archives. I wasn't alone in my reaction, since the BNF who managed to finagle her way into the position of webmistress of the actor's official site admitted that it was screwing up her ability to write fic as she got to know the actor and knew that he was likely to eventually read what she wrote.

And it didn't help that of the noisiest advocates for "free expression," one struck me as largely clueless generally and the other was a flagrant asshole with a personality like steel wool. Kind of a case of the message being tainted by association with the bearer.

Of course, by a year or two later I had settled down to the point of submitting the funny piece to a zine that the actor in question was picking the stories for! (It didn't get in, but some of my artwork did in the second edition.) And the NC-17 piece really did deserve to be yanked from the web, dating back to so early in my writing career that I could only do smut scenes with a towel draped over the monitor so as not to have to read what I was typing!