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(What is obscenity?, US Obscenity laws, Why is this theme useful in…
What is obscenity?
the line between good sex and bad sex is based in a tolerance of what the reasonable person would tolerate other individuals being exposed to. However, the use of the reasonable person test in this sense is precarious, as the reasonable person may pose a threat to unpopular or misunderstood art, like rms
at the time of the butler ruling, this notion of tolerance opened homosexual art to easy cahrges of obscenity
traditionally concerned w/ morality and the court's role as the guardian of public morality
no longer the case. now obscenity law, at least in common law in Canada, is justifiable in its objective of preventing harm
however, the court's conception of "harm" is deeply rooted in conservative sexual morality
four pillars of western sexual ideology 107
obscenity laws often does not represent moral claims anymore, rather they cloak themselves in harm prevention, while serving ideological goals
Despite being dressed up in anti-pornographic feminist language, the butler decision simply provides a new discourse for what is a very old objective: the legal regulation of sexual morality, and the legal repression of sexual representation
US Obscenity laws
the US, in comparison to some nations, appears more interested in the State upkeep and interest in public morality
while mapplethorpe is certainly considered obscene by many critics and detractors, most of the focus on mapplethorpe and obscenity focuses on the use of public funds for art endowments
cases that are relevant;
Why is this theme useful in determining what/who decides the limit of freedom of expression? What/who gets to decide what/who decides?
surely there is aw humours disconnect in asserting that it is the role of lawyers and judges to decide what is art and what is obscene
The ease at which photography attracts charges of obscenity is perhaps a good thing. The ability for photographers to garner the ire of the law is ultimately a force for good, as it repeatedly invites society to reconsider its values, constantly forcing attitudinal shifts
gerrymandering art from obscenity fails to actually partition the two, rather it creates a feedback loop wherein art pushes the boundaries of the obscene, and the obscene subverts what we consider to be art
perhaps we need not a wholly new determination of obscenity, rather just an equal treatment/equal standard of obscenity across all artistic mediums (EP 3)
Mapplethorpe and Obscenity
the perfect moment - retrospective exhibit on RMs work (april 1990)
Obscenity charges were levied against the Contemporary art center in Cincinnati, the first time a museum had been criminally charged
charged with pandering obscenity and displaying photographs of minors in a state of nudity
7 photos in total were considered obscene, 5 from his X portfolio, such as Man in Polyester Suit, 1980 and other photos depicting sadomasochism, explicitly sexual acts, and homosexual subcultures, and 2 photos of nude children (12 TMOT)
important to note the culture war between liberals and conservatives of the early late 80s and early 90s
Dustin Kidd argues that Mapplethorpe's relationship with obscenity was moreso a product of the culture wars of the 90s than being a fundamental dynamic of his work
why may photography be more susceptible to obscenity?
exploitation
possibility of real life models being exploited in the process of photography
the black book
objectification and fetishization of the black male body has been particularly controversial
https://web.archive.org/web/20060321074911/http://www.glbtq.com/arts/mapplethorpe_r.html
erotic depictions of black men, panned by some as exploitative
photography on trial likely has some good points on this matter
consent
other forms of artisitc mediums don't grapple with consent in the same way
Court tells us that consent isn’t necessarily determinative. Consent cannot save some materials that otherwise contain degrading or dehumanizing scenes. Sometimes the very appearance of consent makes the depicted acts even more degrading or dehumanizing
Were RM to be born with a gift for painting, not photography, and he depicted the same scenes with photorealistic detail, would the same charges of obscenity be levied against RM and the medium at large?
perhaps if one decided that they were just as obscene as photographs, surely this would be appealing to a moral obscenity, unlike the legal obscenity of photographs
intrinsic characteristics of the medium
One answer is that there is an exploitation inherent in photographs; they capture your soul; they trick you about the real. As Susan Sontag tells us in On Photography: To photograph people is to violate them, by seeing them as they never see themselves, by having knowledge of them they can never have; it turns people into objects that can be symbolically possessed