Should art be allowed to offend?

Who determines "shouldn't"?

Snert wrote:

I wasn't really considering it in either context.  I brought up funding only as a quick example of the difficulties of agreeing on "good" or "bad" art.

And as far as legality goes, we have hate speech laws, and I would think those should define the border between legal and illegal.

But I think there's an odd middle ground, or at least I get the sense of one, where offensive things remain legal, but people think that artists "shouldn't".  That's the best I can put it.  Not legal, but not acceptable either... somehow.  That's the area I'm interested in, if it does indeed exist.

Some people will always be offended.Whether a thing is art, an advertisement, a political cartoon, a greeting card, a comedy routine or an editorial, if it has a message, somebody won't like it. And some people will always talk it to death.

But, as you say, we already have laws about slander, libel, hate and decency; we already have criteria for public funding; we already have a mechanism for civil action and appeals to change the law. How the rules change is through people talking each particular instance of contraversy to death. Each particular thing - picture, song, joke, essay - that falls into that "middle ground" is taken up and argued over until it finds its place in the 'acceptable' or the 'banned' side. Tedius process, but it works, more or less.

"the true measure of good art is how confrontational it is" 

the point of art is to make you think, feel and react, and when you ask people to think, it often offends them because it's challenging their beliefs or assumptions (look what happens on rabble!).  If art were not allowed to offend, in other words to make people react to it, what's the point?  

to me it's a bit of a silly question.  like saying "should people have the right to say what they think?"  the only people who would disagree are people who have contempt for freedom.  

and when you look at what offends people in art, it's pretty much everything.  people find a reason to be offended by everything without knowing the context or what it really even means in the first place.

now, "should art BE offensive" is another question, but when you say "allowed" it implies that if it's offensive it should be banned or made illegal or something, and no one who takes human freedom seriously would ever propose that.

@ milo204

Actually I think the true measure of good art is how enlightening it is. That includes challenging ideas, but also a good deal of other things that art also does - healing, inspiring awe, appreciation of beauty, and as a record of people and things.

But there is also a great deal of art which offends because it is dishonest, manipulative, or hateful.

In part I agree with you - In theory I think with a very few exceptions artists should have the freedom to create whatever they want so long as they can back up what they are doing and are prepared to take whatever comes back at them.

It's not in the theory, but in the practical application that things get a little more difficult, and some of us might be willing to risk that "contempt for freedom" accusation.

Without even getting into things like appropriation of culture, or art which is propagandist or promotes hatred, a big red flag for me is people who are vulnerable - in particular children, and other people who might be strongly-affected, hurt or manipulated.

So no, I don't think one has the right to do anything in any place.

@ milo204

Of course, but I don't think that is what we are talking about. Banning and censorship have been around for millennia, and very often it didn't even even need to be written down or rationalized.

The question (as I understand it) is whether there are any reasonable limits to art and expression, and I think there are, definitely.

But it is not as if talking about this is going to suddenly bring down the mailed fist of censorship, because that has always been there.

(edit)

On the actual question, although I do have some hard limits, there is a much wider grey area for me. I have seen a few works which made me grit my teeth and give the artist the benefit of the doubt that he or she actually understood the lines that were being crossed, and that it was not done blindly, arrogantly or gratuitously.

Once it gets to the point that pushing a barrier overshadows the actual message of the art - or when that becomes the sole purpose - is it really art any more, or is it simply a demonstration?

@ Snert #16

Well I'm not suggesting banning "Life of Brian" or "Betty Bowers, America's Best Christian" nor re-banning "Naked Lunch". I also do not support  Canada Border Services' targetting of Little Sisters Bookstore, and I would have been happier had VanderZalm lost that lawsuit way back when.

...and I know not everyone is offended by the same thing.

Even so, I think there are a few things that a lot of people generally agree on. As I said already, one of the main considerations for me is children and other people who might be strongly affected or manipulated, and material that is used to incite hatred.

If someone makes it a righteous cause to push expression to the limit, fine...  I am okay with having a place where that can happen. I am just as much a fan of COUM Transmissions as the next person, and if someone decided to stage a post-modern minstrel show as a piece  of artistic expression, well I can only hope that artist has done the appropriate homework before deciding to go ahead with it.

But not in front of my kids, please.

Maysie wrote:

Second, is everyone assuming the artists are white, and are creating art in the North American context?

Well I did mention cultural appropriation as a whole area all its own. Being that I'm white and in North America that's as far as I felt was prudent to go.

...though surely you can appreciate the powerful artistic statement conveyed by those black velvet Elvis paintings.

Maysie wrote:

P.S. What offends bagkitty also offends me. Add in photos of kittens and puppies wearing clothing/hats/etc.

Can I quote you on that? Whoops, looks like I already did!

@ milo204

Yes, I agree with you about what happens when the powers that be try to impose a comics code, movie ratings system, or lyric advisory. You wind up with alternative and political art being suppressed, and also with a big to-do  being made whenever someone runs afoul of the censorship laws - on purpose (that singer who walked around Houston or whatever city it was and took her clothes off) or maybe not (Janet Jackson at the Superbowl).

When I think of things I object to, many of them have to do with historical context - I am glad I can enjoy Loony Tunes and other cartoons without seeing the gratuitous racism that was in a huge percentage of them. I wouldn't want to see the originals burned and erased forever, but they are much better without it. And sorry, I don't see that as quite the same as bowdler's version of Shakespeare.

Same thing for a lot of gender, orientation, body image and disability slurs that mar some art that is otherwise pretty enjoyable.

When I think of art that I don't think should have been made, there are only a handful. One might surprise you because it was a clown performance - a fairly modern style one. Anyway, there was one point at which the performer ripped up a five dollar bill and threw it up in the air, and the kids - 2, 3 and 4 years old - just freaked out and scrambled all over the ground trying to get the pieces. Perhaps I am sensitive, but something about their reaction and the lesson in it just seemed very wrong to me.

Dusan Makavajev's film "Sweet Movie" has a scene involving children which I think should never have been made. The movie is available in Canada, so it's not against the law and there is lots of actual graphic stuff in it that I am sure would push other people's buttons, but that scene crosses the line for me. Too bad, because I think it is a good movie in other respects.

I can think of a couple of pieces of shock art that seem gratuitous enough to me that they are well into that grey area I spoke about, and art that focuses on gore, depression, negative emotions, and disconnection from life is something that I think is very damaging to people generally. But again that's not quite the same as a hard limit.

Oddly enough (since it hasn't happened often) the last time I was offended by art was this summer, and it was actually because someone didn't respect those limits after agreeing to do so. It was at a festival - middle of the day, with an audience of people of all ages, including lots and lots of kids, right down in front of the stage. This poetry slam guy got up. I won't repeat his words (I would not be able to repeat them here) but they were disturbing, deeply misogynist, graphic, profane, and most of all arrogant and juvenile. Plus, it was just shitty poetry. Many of us were furious and hurt by what he said, not least of all the person who booked him for the event, and whom he promised he would deliver a piece appropriate for a family audience (and it was not, by the way, an audience that would have been shocked by the word "fuck". The tirade was much more than that). When told about it the guy acted like people were making a big deal out of nothing.

It screwed things up for a number of us, because we were all mindful of the principle of free expression, but how does one balance that when faced with a violation and a breach of trust. There was an apology from one of the organizers the next day which broke a lot of the hurt and anger that was there. But it was a good illustration of the fact that there are real limits (not just those imposed by the evil oppressors).

i hear you.  and that thing with the clown is very much something i'd find objectionable!  teaching kids to fight each other off the pieces of a bill is pretty lame!  Same with the poet.  It's like these things wouldn't be an issue if people just used their heads and therein lies the problem.

Some artists are perceptive enough to know when the time to offend has come, and others seem to simply revel in being offensive for no reason.

It's funny, because i remember as a kid listening to some pretty offensive stuff and my parents being far from impressed at some of the records i would bring home (i was pretty into heavy metal and punk rock) and the images and lyrical content was sometimes graphic and plenty of cursing.  I think they handled it well.  They just made sure they talked to me about the lyrics and ask me what i thought they meant and then let me listen to it.  It was good because then i felt like i had some freedom and they were involved with what i was being exposed to, whereas some friends parents would take their records away which made them want to listen to even more graphic or offensive stuff.

The only record i was ever forced to return was the Suicidal Tendencies first LP.  It was right around the time kids were committing suicide after listen to judas priest backwards  so the name kinda freaked my mom out.

Articles re. the Judas Priest controversy

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/07/17/arts/2-families-sue-heavy-metal-band-as-having-driven-sons-to-suicide.html

http://www.suite101.com/content/judas-priest-and-metal-on-trial-a49944

http://videosift.com/video/Judas-Priest-Subliminal-Messages-Suicide-Trial

I was simply providing background information. This one is between you and nilo.

Frankly, Remind, you don't know what assumptions it was based upon. The links I provided would provide some background for any babbler that wondered what you and Milo were discussing.

not sure why it doubled

catchfire you have good taste!

Sorry remind, i don't think judas priest had anything to do with it either, i should have written it differently.  I just meant to refer to the whole controversy at that time where parents thought kids were killing themselves after listening to judas priest.  a well paced "apparently" would have been better in front of that sentence!!

the whole idea of subliminal messages in metal was so stupid, you could play any record backwards and think you're hearing real words.  Wasn't there a similar thing with stairway to heaven?  I also heard a really great program on college radio that was some pastor from the US talking about how certain lyrics to rock songs were coded signs from the devil or something, wish i could recall more about it so i could find it on youtube or something, because it was hilarious!

actually thanks remind for bringing this up, i just read the wikipedia thing on "backmasking" and it was a good read.

here's a recording of some wacky pastor talking about satan infiltrating rock music!

http://vocaltracks.blogspot.com/2010/01/pastor-gary-greenwald-on-backmas...

Art is freedom of expression...Good art can speak to a person in ways no spoken word could (I'll limit my point to the visual arts)

I remember some years back,when a couple of college students tortured and skinned alive a cat on film as a work of contemporary art depicting the murderous meat industry.

To this day,I'd like to meet these 2 gentlemen and create a work of art of my own--- (I'll leave it as that)

There are little to few examples where art can transcend so far that it is offensive and morally repugnant to anyone who is not a psychopath and what I just mentioned is one of them.

But that's an extreme example that thankfully never caught on.

Besides an over the top piece of 'art' such as that,the freedom for one to express him/herself should never be denied because it may offend someone.

And let's face it,you cannot do or say anything that won't offend atleast one person in this world.

Cueball wrote:

My gut sense is that Snert was not really asking, "should are be allowed to offend" but "should people be allowed to be offended by art"?

haha

I sure hope so. Otherwise we'd have to listen to all those disappointed artists mope about and complain.

And not to diss artists looking to push boundaries, because there are enough out there doing valid work... but if the goal is to outdo what has come before it will be awhile before anyone matches Yukio Mishima's final work.

Since many artists are obnoxious and offensive, I can't see why that shouldn't be reflected in their art.  Honestly, there's no reason to disallow their snotty work.  Anyone who disagrees can 'booger off'!

Quote:

Well, what happened there is, of course—now all of you must adjust your brains—the biggest work of art there has ever been. The fact that spirits achieve with one act something which we in music could never dream of, that people practise ten years madly, fanatically for a concert. And then die. And that is the greatest work of art that exists for the whole Cosmos. Just imagine what happened there. There are people who are so concentrated on this single performance, and then five thousand people are driven to Resurrection. In one moment. I couldn't do that. Compared to that, we are nothing, as composers.

—Karlheinz Stockhausen, 16 Spetember 2001

Responsibility and other nebulous terms only mean as much as society ascribes to them. We don't, in fact, learn responsibility from the law. Law (in the form of commandments rather than oral history) does not enforce responsibility, society does. We (i.e. society) do this by encouraging some voices and discouraging others in myriad ways. This should be no great secret: there is a reason why Criss Angel has his own television show and no one has heard of Sam Hsieh.

So when those of us question why a Danish newspaper would publish a stupid cartoon guaranteed to infuriate a billion people who are already targeted by a global economic, propoganda and war machine, it is not because we want Johnny Law to step in and actively prevent the cartoonish from putting pen to paper. Rather, we simply voice aloud the prospect of a world which doesn't cynically value the "free speech" of Danish cartoonists while ignoring the voices of those our governments and rulicg classes are actively oppressing. We wonder what it would be like to live in a world where the gleeful mockery of oppressed cultures doesn't get mainstream coverage, doesn't get supported by the perverted pillars of liberal thought, ideologies so corrupt they wouldn't recognize the noble vision which created them. It's not those who condemn such 'artists' who, like Göring, would reach for their sidearm--it seems to me that such a refrain is only imposed on such a utopian vision by those who fear its imminence.