Here in South Africa, and for a long time, female nipples were obscured by little stars. Most erotica (and/or “tasteless” material) was simply banned, and political censorship under apartheid was mixed up with puritanical repression, thus confusing the situation in people’s minds as to what — if any — censorship is actually permissible to begin with in a free society.
This confusion continues, with people’s ideas that taste itself perhaps should be controlled, and that “indecency” or “obscenity” (whatever that is) is fully entitled to be legislated against. This rather funny and backward notion severely curtails freedom, unfortunately. That said, I thought a nice quick and dirty crash course through the realms of obscenity and censorship could be a fun and sleazy ride.
One has to begin with the granddaddy of all writers, whose urge to write provoked horror and outrage in the thin-lipped brigade: the Marquis De Sade. His name has passed into the English language as a synonym for cruelty. Read about the life and writings of The Marquis De Sade. And more on Wikopedia.
In 1928, it was a lesbian book titled The Well of Loneliness and written by Radcliff Hall that freaked out censors and authorities.
This was somewhat overshadowed by the publication in the same year of DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover. Read this BBC item on the 1960 unbanning of the book in the UK.
Of course, one of the big granddaddies of trials in literary history was James Joyce’s Ulysses. Read Culture on Trial.
And read this interesting court description and decision in 1933, when the book was cleared for publication in America. Ulysses Decision.
Moving into more hardcore literary territory – and it’s worth a read if you never have – but in 1954, an S&M underground classic appeared, pushing the frontiers just a little bit further (and kickstarting a French trial for
obscenity). Read about the Story of O.
Here’s an Observer article, going deeper. Try I Wrote The Story of O.
You wouldn’t expect poetry to have caused a fuss, but back in 1957 it was the turn of cheerfully different poet Allan Ginsberg to face up against the forces of law and order for his famous poem Howl. And read this for more.
Moving out of the literary genre into live performance: the satirist whose legendary fights with authority carved out the freedoms without which we’d have little or no standup comedy. Read The Trial of Lenny Bruce, and The Lenny Bruce Trials.
In case you think this is distant history, it was only two years ago that Lenny Bruce was officially pardoned for his four letter word offences. Read 37 Years After Death, Lenny Bruce Pardoned.
In 1965 William Burroughs was the latest to fall foul of the urge to censor, and it was his latest book The Naked Lunch which sparked outrage.
The law occasionally bit off more than it could chew, let alone comprehend. Read this extract from the trial of Abbie Hoffman where Allan Ginsberg, poet extraordinaire, is cross examined: Allan Ginsberg.
History doesn’t always reward the pushers of boundaries. Take for instance Hubert Selpy Jr who wrote the excellent gritty novel Last Exit to Brooklyn, itself the centre of much uproar in the mid-sixties. Few know that the recent film Requiem for a Dream came from the same writer’s mind. Read this short but pithy obituary on Hubert Selby Jr.
Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the courts were doing battle against the ‘permissive society”. In 1966, a classic work of erotica, penned by John Cleland in the 1700s, resurfaced and became one in a string of court battles being fought on a variety of fronts. See Fanny Hill.
On the film front, entire books have been written over this slow but consistent push towards freedom, but the classic groundbreaker would have to be the low budget hardporn film Deep Throat which was the first to show in ‘normal” mainstream cinemas. (Something we’ve yet to experience in our own prissy society.) Read this article, coinciding with a release of a documentary about this 1972 porn film: Deep And Meaningful.
The film itself, unfolding at a time when two journalists were uncovering the evils of Nixon’s White House (which in truth, pale in comparison to the violent excesses of the George W Bush administration) even lent its name to describe a now famous White House insider. Read Who Was Deep Throat?.
In the visual arts, it was probably Robert Mapplethorpe’s photographs in the 1980’s that pushed the frontiers of ‘what was acceptable”. Read Mapplethorpe Battle Changed The Art World. To see some of his artwork, and provide further exploration, this link will give you a Google image search result. Watch out for adult content. And here you’ll find more of his work – but advised it’s adult in nature.
In modern literature, there’s been the fuss over Salmon Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, but for me the far more readable (and frightening) boundary-pusher was the white supremacist fiction novel about a revolutionary take over of the USA, titled The Turner Diaries.
This book was allegedly part of the inspiration for the Oklahoma City bombing and, while an amazingly unpleasant read, is probably one of the most interestingly disturbing books you’ll ever come across- always a good indication that your own predjudices need a good spring-cleaning or re-evaluation.
And if you’re one of those who’ve discovered the allegedly Christian books detailing the adventures of those ‘left behind” on Earth to face and deal with the coming of Antichrist, read the fascinating article comparing these widely spread Christian books, to the aforementioned Turner Diaries. Read Left Behind Tribulation Novels — Turner Diaries Lite.
Read this excellent article from the BBC: Why Books Get Banned – or ‘Free People Read Freely’.
And in case you think all of these battles are far distant, read my own posting on this newspaper’s to blog site where I decided to communicate some legal problems I’m facing, due some writing I did.
Trying to define ‘obscenity” or ‘acceptable expression” tends to force the individual and society to confront their own ignorance, conditioned ideas of morality and preconceived notions of good behaviour and decent thought. Therefore, having these notions attacked in some unexpected way, is a deeply psychologically productive and healthy experience.
Just from this quick and dirty runthrough of some of the more famous obscenity trials, it’s clear that every age gets its nose tweaked rudely and firmly by someone in a way the society and conservative mainstream is appalled by. And the end result of this supposedly tasteless or obscene big leap forward, is that the society itself becomes the better for it.
Until the next time, if the censors don’t get me.