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The Limits of Censorship1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 2007

JANELLE REINELT
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Abstract

The rhetoric of censorship is increasingly invoked in the West in response to the curtailment of civil liberties, often as a result of new repressive legislation arising from efforts to fight terrorism. However, while agreeing that serious issues concerning censorship are arising for artists with more frequency, this essay argues that caution needs to be exercised concerning the charge of ‘censorship’, and that theatre artists and scholars need sustained and nuanced analyses of what constitutes censorship and what extenuating circumstances may accompany events that at first glance bear the marks of the censor.

Type
Articles
Information
Theatre Research International , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , March 2007 , pp. 3 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © International Federation for Theatre Research 2006

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References

NOTES

2 For a careful discussion of the factors involved, see Joseph Kahn, ‘China Bans “Code”’ after warning from Catholics http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/09/world/asia/09cnd-china.html?ex?1307505600&en=ff7ff72ee1bb93c4&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss (accessed 15 September 2006).

3 I have since moved to the University of Warwick after five years at University of California Irvine.

4 See Chancellor Michael Drake's homepage at http://www.chancellor.uci.edu/civility3.shtml (accessed 14 September 2006).

5 When William Gaskill was artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre, for example, he avoided the censor by presenting John Osborne's A Patriot for Me as a club performance. For his discussion of why he decided not to do that with Edward Bond's Saved, and of the resulting consequences, see William Gaskill, A Sense of Direction: Life at the Royal Court (London: Faber and Faber, 1988), pp. 68–70.

6 For a recent book on the problem of child porn see Max Taylor and Ethel Quayle, Child Pornography: An Internet Crime (London: Brunner-Routledge, 2003); for a pair of opposing essays on the values of pornography see Andrew Altman, ‘The Right to Get Turned On: Pornography, Antonomy, Equality’, and Susan J. Brison, ‘The Price we Pay? Pornography and Harm’ in Andrew Cohen and Christopher H. Wellman, eds., Contemporary Debates in Applied Ethics (London: Blackwell), pp. 221–50.

7 Janelle Reinelt, ‘Notes for a Radical Democratic Theater: Productive Crises and the Challenge of Indeterminacy’, in Jeanne Colleran and Jenny S. Spencer, eds., Staging Resistance: Essays on Political Theater (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998), pp. 283–300.

8 The best analyses of these events by a theatre scholar were Peggy Phelan's two articles, ‘Serrano, Mappethorpe, the NEA, and You: “Money Talks”’, Drama Review, 34, 1 (1990), pp. 4–15; and ‘Money Talks again: The National Endowment for the Arts and “Obscene” Art’, Drama Review, 35, 3 (1991), pp. 131–41.

9 See Tim Miller and David Román, ‘Preaching to the Coverted’, Theatre Journal, 47, 2 (1995), pp. 169–88.

10 In a recent article in conjunction with the 2006 revival of the play in Sheffield, Howard Brenton discusses the events of 1980 and the effects of the censorship attack: ‘Look Back in Anger’, http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/O,,1696539,00.html (Accessed 15 September 2006).

11 For more about this case see Robert F. Ladensen, ‘Free Speech and the Klan, http://ethics.acusd.edu/resources/cases/Detail.asp?ID=73 (Accessed 15 September 2006).

12 I have put ‘reasonable’ in quotes here and earlier to indicate that sometimes an ad hominem attack claims that there is no rational way to understand some human behaviour, and therefore a serious argument does not need to be put forward, but the offending party can simply be dismissed as irrational. I think these charges are usually suspect or, worse, lazy, but the cases I have in mind here are those where it is relatively easy to see that there are at least two sides worthy of serious consideration. Embedded in this point of view is a critique of political rationalists such as Jürgen Habermas and John Rawls for whom rational argument can lead to universal consensus. Following Mouffe and other contextualists, it is precisely the competing ‘rational’ explanations and positions that must be considered, and the possibility that there is and can be no harmonious resolution to them.

13 For an in-depth treatment of the issue in France, see the transcript of ABC television broadcast on 18 May 2004 by reporter Evan Williams at http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2004/s1106690.htm (accessed 15 September 2006). For a special report on the UK situation, see Wainwright, Branigan, Vasagar, Taylor and Dodd, “Dangerous attack or fair point? Straw veil row deepens,” http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/O,,k1889846,00.html (accessed 31 October 2006).

14 For more information about this case see David Johnston, ‘Columnist Coatradics Leak Source,’ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/15/washington/15leak.html?n (accessed 15 September 2006).

15 Patrick Healy, Jesse McKinley and Anne E. Kornblut, ‘Passions Flare as Broadcast Of 9/11 Mini-Series Nears’, New York Times, 8 September 2006, late edition, p. A 18; David Leigh, ‘BBC Did not Know of 9/11 Series Link to Religious Right’, Guardian, 13 September, 2006, http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,,1871149,00.htm (accessed 31 October 2006).

16 Platform Talk at the Royal National Theatre, London, 4 October 2005.

17 Interview with William Gaskill, London, 3 September 2006.

18 Behzti means ‘dishonour’ and the cover of the published playscript (London: Oberon Modern Plays, 2004) reads ‘Behzti (Dishonour)’.

19 Letter to the editor from Joan Bakewell, chair, and Victoria Todd, director, National Campaign for the Arts, Guardian, 25 October 2005.

20 For the text of this bill, see Parliament website http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmbills/011/06011 (accessed 15 September 2006).

21 For the text of this bill, see the office of Public Sector website http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2006/ukpga_20060011_en.pdf (accessed 31 October 2006).

22 Interview with David Edgar, Alghero, Sardinia, 25 August 2006.

23 Nicola's comments were repeated and debated in many venues. For a typical and thoughtful discussion see John Heilpern, ‘A Scandal for Our Time: Rachel Corrie Ignites Uproar’, New York Observer, 13 March 2006, p. 14. For an excellent scholarly commentary on this case in the context of documentary theatre, see Carol Martin, ‘Bodies of Evidence’ Drama Review (special issue on Documentary Theatre), ed Carol Martin, 50, 1 (2006) pp. 8–15.

24 Katherine Viner, ‘A Message Crushed again’, Los Angeles Times, 1 March 2006, p. B 13.

25 Lars Norén, ‘. . . instead we aroused hatred . . .’, Svenska Dagbladet, 2 November 1999, p. 13.

26 David Edgar, ‘Come Together’, Guardian, 10 January 2006, http://arts.guardian.co.uk/features/story/0,,1386599,00.html (accessed 31 October 2006)