by Christopher Michaud
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A coalition of artists, academics,
free speech advocates and politicians last week denounced a
new “decency panel” formed by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in
response to a work of art that depicts Jesus as a nude black
woman.
Giuliani put together the panel to advise museums receiving
public funding on decency standards for art displayed in their
galleries after becoming outraged by a Renee Cox work at the
Brooklyn Museum of Art.
A year ago, the combative mayor lost a court battle when he
pulled funding for the same museum over its “Sensation”
exhibit, which included a work depicting the Virgin Mary that
was covered with elephant dung.
Cox attended to decry the 20-member commission.
“It's a sign of our times,” Cox, whose “Yo Mama's Last
Supper” triggered the latest salvo from City Hall, said at a
news conference at the New York Civil Liberties Union.
“I'm just the conduit. … The real issue is … if this
can happen in New York, the cultural capital of the world, it
sends a signal to the rest of the country. That's my biggest
fear.”
Lawyers said on Thursday that Giuliani had lost 20 of 21
First Amendment court cases during his two terms as mayor, and
advocates said the mayor was pushing the envelope again.
“He has the gall to start all over again,” said artist Hans
Haacke, “as if he had never been slapped down.”
Actress Phyllis Newman of the television show “100 Center
Street” said, “I find the mayor's actions and this so-called
decency panel puzzling and frightening.”
MAYOR ACCUSES MEDIA
Announcing the group on Tuesday, Giuliani said the news
media were stoking fears by calling the Cultural Affairs
Advisory Commission a decency panel.
“You literally have intimidated people from doing this who
wanted to do it because they're too afraid of what you're going
to write about them,” he told reporters.
The commission is made up of business leaders; attorneys,
including the mayor's own divorce lawyer, Raoul Felder;
academics; religious leaders; and three artists, including
Constance Del Vecchio Maltese, the wife of State Sen. Serphin
Maltese, a founder of the state Conservative Party.
Some at the news conference suggested the mayor's outrage
was less than sincere, motivated more by political
considerations than anything else.
And many said that Giuliani, who often has complained about
art that is offensive to Roman Catholics, had failed to include
Catholic Church leaders on the panel.
City Council President and mayoral candidate Peter Vallone,
a self-described devout Roman Catholic, said, “We should never
be placed in a situation where we prescreen any art,”
denouncing the notion of the “government as censor or culture
cop.”
Cox said she was puzzled by the controversy. “We're
supposed to be created in the image of God,” so as a black
woman she depicted Jesus that way, she said.
Cox said Leonardo da Vinci had used his friends, including
his male lover, as models for “The Last Supper,” which she said
was now considered “the end-all, be-all” depiction of that
event.
Actor William Baldwin, president of the Creative Coalition,
a nonprofit educational organization that deals with arts and
censorship issues, said in a statement that “decency
commissions throughout history have existed only in
dictatorships, whether in Spain during the Inquisition, in
Germany during the Nazi regime (or) in the Soviet Union.”
'Spy Kids' Tops Box Office for Second Weekend
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – The espionage film for the grade-school set “Spy Kids” outmaneuvered several new movies to claim for a second consecutive weekend the top spot at the North American box office, according to studio estimates issued on Sunday.
“Spy Kids” (Dimension Films) pulled in $17.8 million for the Friday-to-Sunday period. The movie, from writer/director Robert Rodriguez, has grossed an estimated $49 million after opening at the end of March.
The gadget-heavy movie stars two young siblings (Daryl Sabara, Alexa Vega) who get caught up in the adventures of their secret-agent parents (Antonio Banderas, Carla Gugino).
The top 10 contained three new releases. The Morgan Freeman detective thriller “Along Came a Spider” (Paramount) opened at No. 2 with $17.1 million; the Johnny Depp cocaine saga “Blow” (New Line) logged in at No. 3 with $12.5 million; and another children's film, “Pokemon 3: The Movie” (Warners) came in fourth with $9.2 million.
“Along Came a Spider” is the second film based on the popular crime novels from James Patterson. The first, “Kiss the Girls”, also starred Freeman as psychological profiler Alex Cross. It generated about $60 million at the box office.
Last week's No. 2, the Ashley Judd romantic comedy “Someone Like You” (Fox), fell to No. 5 with $5.5 million in its second weekend. Its 10-day total stands at $17.9 million.
The mother-daughter crime comedy “Heartbreakers” (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer ) fell to No. 6 in its third weekend, with $5.1 million. The 10-day total for the $40 million caper stands at $30 million.
The Battle of Stalingrad drama “Enemy at the Gates” (Paramount) came in No. 7 with $3.5 million, while “The Brothers” (Screen Gems), a relationship comedy revolving around four young black men, was No. 8 with $3 million.
“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (Sony Pictures Classics), which won four Oscars including foreign-language picture, grossed $3 million, falling to No. 9 from No. 8. The total for the Chinese-language martial arts saga is $117.7 million.
The teen comedy “Tomcats” (Columbia) fell to 10th place from its opening slot of No. 4 last weekend.
Overall, the top 12 films for the weekend grossed about $84.5 million, up some 3 percent from last weekend and up 15 percent from the year-ago period. New Line is a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc., Twentieth Century Fox is a unit of Fox Entertainment Group Inc. Columbia Pictures is a unit of Sony Corp.
© 2000 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
