Arts Community Flips

Terry Golway, a columnist for the Jesuits’ America magazine, has written one of those columns that makes me want to slap my forehead and groan. You know, one that makes you mutter to yourself, “Oh, man, why didn’t I think of that!” He landed a haymaker.



In his Oct. 20th column entitled “A Curious Silence,” Goloway exposed the hypocrisy of what he calls the “cultural community of New York,” the folks who a few years ago worked themselves “into a frenzy when the city’s mayor denounced a piece of art he deemed to be anti-Catholic.” You will remember the incident. The piece was the painting of the Virgin Mary smeared in elephant dung and adorned with sexual images that was put on display in the Brooklyn Museum of Art, an institution that received at the time about $7 million in taxpayer’s money. Rudy Giuliani, the mayor in question, saw no reason for taxpayers to subsidize this affront to Catholics.

At which point the “arts community” got on its high horse. They took off against Giuliani, accusing him of engaging in “censorship.” They said his criticism would have a “chilling effect” on artistic creativity. Giuliani was called a simple-minded boor who did not understand that art is sometimes meant to shock and challenge established pieties. Artistic freedom had to be protected. Giuliani had not even taken the time to see the painting in question before issuing his condemnation. Yada-yada. A group of writers and artists signed a full-page advertisement in The New York Times attacking Giuliani. Goloway notes that there “were some not-so-very-subtle suggestions that this was just the sort of thing one might expect from, well, a man who was proud of his déclassé Roman Catholic education. And besides — wasn’t Joseph McCarthy Catholic. Case closed.”

And what is the “curious silence” of the arts community this time round? Goloway: “Three years later, another work of art is provoking bitter and often hostile criticism. This time critics are charging that the art — Mel Gibson’s movie ‘The Passion’ — is anti-Semitic.”

There is no need to go over the controversy that surrounds Gibson’s movie. It has been thoroughly covered by the press and the television talking heads. Goloway focuses on something else: “The intellectual and cultural community that rallied to oppose Mayor Giuliani has not risen to defend Mel Gibson. There are no full-page advertisements featuring the names of the nation’s most famous writers and artists. When a New York politician urged studios to boycott the film and thus prevent its release, nobody uttered the word ‘McCarthyism’.”

Bull’s eye! Goloway spotlights the selective indignation of the American left; the double-standard they employ whenever it suits their needs. He notes that the critics of Gibson’s movie have not yet seen the movie, but that they thought it narrow-minded of Giuliani to criticize the dung-smeared painting of the Virgin Mary before taking the time to view the piece. And something else: He observes that “Gibson’s critics also have suggested that the unseen film may inspire anti-Semitic outrages in America and Europe.”

This point deserves our attention. We have been told for decades now by the defenders of the freedom of expression of pornographers that there is no demonstrable connection between the images people see in porn and their subsequent behavior. They trot out psychological studies that purport to prove that viewers of sexually explicit material do not “act out” upon the fantasies they encounter on the screen; indeed that the pornography may even provide a “release” that makes sexual assault less likely from the viewer. Well? By that logic, why would a movie to have the power to inspire anti-Semitism?

Goloway: “I happen to believe that popular entertainment does, in fact, influence personal behavior and choices. Otherwise the advertising industry would collapse. I believe that the spike in smoking I have seen among the under-35 set is a direct result of increased smoking on screen. So I have no problem with those who worry that Mel Gibson’s unseen movie might give pretext to thugs.” But, Golway continues, “Then again, I also believe that vulgar hip-hop music encourages misogyny and that violent computer games inspire anti-social behavior. But we don’t hear much about these kinds of concerns. Instead we’re supposed to worry about a movie nobody has seen yet.”

Precisely. It should be obvious by now. The left uses “freedom of expression” to advance their agenda. They oppose censorship when the work of art in question undermines societal values that they seek to weaken — in recent years, traditional views on sexual propriety. But they are all for censorship when they are in positions of power and find themselves challenged. All one has to do is consider the authoritarian manner with which the authorities enforce codes of political correctness about feminist causes and homosexuality on our college campuses.

Goloway concludes: “Author Jack Newfield, in a piece critical of Giuliani’s stand on the Brooklyn Museum, wrote that he sympathized with Catholics who were offended, and tried to imagine a piece of ‘art’ that mocked the gas chambers of Auschwitz. ‘I would like to think I would still oppose censorship and defend free expression,’ he wrote.”

Maybe Newfield would. But he would be an exception. Think back. The champions of freedom of expression succeeded in removing the Amos ‘n Andy shows from circulation. The old Walt Disney movie The Song of the South is no longer shown because of what some critics called its “sugar coating” of slavery. Hillary Clinton attacked Hollywood for glamorizing smoking.

The free-thinkers are for freedom of expression when it suits their needs. They are for codes of political correctness for the same purpose. Their attacks on Mel Gibson are just the latest example of how they play the game.

James Fitzpatrick's new novel, The Dead Sea Conspiracy: Teilhard de Chardin and the New American Church, is available from our online store. You can email Mr. Fitzpatrick at fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net.

(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)

Subscribe to CE
(It's free)

Go to Catholic Exchange homepage

MENU