Galati Reflects on Art and Obscenity
What follows are Frank Galati's remarks from the June 11, 1990, League of Chicago Theatres' press conference.
In 1938 John Steinbeck's publishers read the manuscript of The Grapes of Wrath for the first time. They were stunned by the majesty of the book but also shocked and deeply offended by the ending in which the young girl, Rose of Sharon, having lost her baby in childbirth, gives the milk from her breast to a starving stranger in order to save his life. That act, that gesture of compassion, has thundering, disturbing dimensions -- containing within it mythic resonances -- taboos, erotic overtones, collective associations of fundamental relationships between mothers and children, the flow of life from one human being to another, the rite of passage that transforms the female breast from a locus of need to one of desire, from the nourishing figure of the mother to the erogenous landscape of the lover. All of these layers of feeling and meaning are bodied forth in the gesture that closes the novel -- and that action was considered so shocking in 1939, so obscene, that the screenplay for the film of The Grapes of Wrath turned the closing moment of the story from one of awesome catharsis and profound ambiguity to one of sentimental optimism.
The artist in society, the great artist, has never made it easy for the public, has always challenged and disturbed the equilibrium in the cultural life of the community. In Italy, for centuries, there were fig leaves on the genitals of the great cultural artifacts of the Renaissance, and certainly the most conservative spectator would agree that there are deeply homoerotic dimensions in the masterworks of Michelangelo and Caravaggio. Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" caused a riot in performance in 1913 because the public heard the old harmonies of the 19th century crack and give birth to the new, and the new included the primordial and the sexual. The violent cadence of animal mating evoked in the opening passages of Stravinsky's masterpiece was considered obscene, but wound up as the soundtrack for Walt Disney's arty "Fantasia."
We don't now and never have had a clear consensus about the nature of obscenity. Certainly war is obscene, murder is and rape -- child abuse, prejudice, racism, discrimination, poverty, certainly the Holocaust was obscene, but is Joyce's Ulysses? The legal definition of the word "obscene" used in 1933 by Judge John M. Woolsey in his landmark decision to admit Joyce's masterpiece into the United States was "...tending to stir the sex impulses or to lead to sexually impure and lustful thoughts."
So -- if Steinbeck's madonna was considered obscene in 1939, is our own post-modern Madonna when she appropriates Christian icons and hangs a studded crucifix between her war-like breasts and asks the public to think about the nature of worship? Is it obscene to be provoked by an artist to reflect on the nature of the flag, or patriotism, or public office or the sacred and the profane? We are grown-ups! We must recognize that society is created by art and lives through art. The young women and men courageous enough to embark on the difficult way of the artist must be honored by society, celebrated, cherished and certainly, at the very least, funded. If the NEA dies or is injured, a portion of our liberty will be taken away and the nourishment, however small, that young artists need will be cut off. (The two most important works of my own creative life, The Grapes of Wrath at Steppenwolf and the Goodman's She Always Said, Pablo, would not have happened without the NEA.) Like the stranger in the barn at the end of The Grapes of Wrath, we, as a nation, are starving for spiritual food -- that is the nourishment great art can provide.
Could it be, at the end of the most catastrophic century in human history, when a vision of world peace has appeared on the horizon, that our country will not dedicate itself to the elimination of the true obscenity in our culture and pour our resources into the education of our young and the encouragement of a life in the arts? It would be tragic, after a century of artistic creation against a backdrop of death, to turn away from the young and break a promise to the poet in our midst.
Frank Galati is associate director of the Goodman Theatre, a member of the Sreppenwolf Theatre ensemble, and professor of performance studies at Northwestern University.
Arts Advocacy: A New Movement is Born
by Thomas Tresser – League of Chicago Theatres Biz Buzz, July 1990
A patron encounters a voter registration booth in a theatre lobby.
Artists conduct a press conference on support for the arts.
Ten thousand theatregoers receive a direct mail piece urging them to sign petitions and support the arts loudly and continuously.
Full page newspaper ads urge readers to call a "900" telephone number which sends telegrams Congress demanding support for the NEA.
These events all occurred in Chicago during the past few months.
All over America, arts groups are reaching out to their decade and to the public. They are reaching out to their patrons and to the public. They are forming coalitions, engaging in policy analysis, raising money, and speaking powerfully about basic issues of freedom of expression, support for the arts, and the place of the artist in society.
The mean spirited, poisonous, homophobic attack led on the arts by certain extremist politicians and religious leaders has galvanized the arts community from coast to coast.
As if waking from a long sleep, we are entering the public arena angrily to do battle with those officials who would eliminate federal support for the arts or establish veiled or overt censorship.
We are realizing that while millions of people attend arts and cultural events, we cannot claim their support automatically.
We have begun a new conversation with our public as a result of the attacks on our community which has the potential of creating a new national movement based on support for the arts and strengthening America's creative spirit.
In the short run, we must continue to develop our and deploy our arsenal to ensure the NEA is reauthorized without restrictions.
In the long run, we can maintain our association with our colleagues leagues in other arts disciplines and start to forge alliances with our brothers and sisters beyond the arts who are involved in any activity related to fostering creativity, including the education, science, publishing, software, literacy, and media communities.
Together we can affirm our position with other groups who are trying to remove oppressive barriers, fight prejudices, and seek empowerment.
Let's make the '90's the of creativity.
Thomas Tresser is a consultant or the League's Advocacy Task Force.
