Art And The Politics Of Censorship

Webster dictionary (cited in Dinnerstein 2007, p. 7) describes feminism as the theory that women should have political, economic and social rights equal to those of men. She should be treated equally and fairly in all these fields. This theory emerged as a result of the discrimination towards the females. Since many decades, women are being barred from the basic rights and deprived of the common activities and privileges like owning a property, the right to education or to participate in public life and they could even be used as a property to be sold by men in some parts of the world. The people who fight for feminism or who raise their voice in this matter are called feminists. They can be divided into certain categories: radical feminist, social feminist, Marxist feminist, lesbian separatists and so on. Pornography is the display of sexual behaviour through pictures, videos or in writing to arouse sexual excitement. Pornography is more prevalent these days than ever before and is easily accessible to all age groups through various mediums like internet, romance novels, erotic telephone conversations and so on. Pornography can be both beneficial and harmful for people. Some people consider it as medium and way of making love, on the other hand, many sources show that pornography is addictive and thus can affect relationships.

The pornography industry is more about power and profit than pleasure. Feminism and pornography are related and complement each other. While some feminists are against pornography and view it as being a form of violence against women and consider women being used as a commodity to men, other feminists debate this by saying that criticizing pornography perpetuates a sense of shame around sex and around women’s own sexual fantasies and desires. Shaming pornography is to ignore the fact that many women enjoy pornography that other women find degrading or sexist. The part that concerns in pornography is how women are represented in it. They are shown as submissive and the men are depicted in power, taking control over the women’s body. Moreover, some themes shown or mentioned in pornography are unreal and give a vague idea about women to the audience. They are illtreated and shown as a thing to be used and women are shown to be enjoying the entire procedure which gives its viewers a wrong impression about sex and women.

The work of Leena McCall can be considered pornographic and is regarded as disgusting. It was taken down by the gallery just after two days of it being put up. She made an oil painting of her friend who is shown as a model standing and smoking a pipe and wearing a fur-trimmed vest and short trousers. The vest is unbuttoned to reveal the cleavage and the trouser open to show a strip of her pubic hair. The painting is titled ‘Portrait of Ms Ruby May, Standing’. It has been described as “too pornographic and disgusting” but the artist says it was designed “to get people talking about sexuality”. McCall said “My work deals with female sexual and erotic identity. The fact that the gallery has deemed the work inappropriate and seen it necessary to have it removed from public display underlines the precise issue I am trying to address: how women choose to express their sexual identity beyond the male gaze” (Independent 2014, para. 5). Later, the gallery offered her to replace her artwork with another work, but she refused by saying that accepting that offer would mean admitting that there was something wrong with the painting. She instead set up a social media campaign under the banner #eroticcensorship to see people talk about sexuality through the internet if not the gallery. The gallery in its defence said that “As an educational arts charity, the federation has a responsibility to its trustees and to the children and vulnerable adults who use its galleries and learning centre. After a number of complaints regarding the depiction of the subject and taking account of its location en route for children to our learning centre, we requested the painting was removed” (Independent 2014, para. 10). The painting was seen as a pornographic work and thus taken down.

The gallery and such institutions are sensitive about pornography because they believe that people of all age groups, children and vulnerable adults walk in to view the artworks and thus such artworks should not be displayed in galleries as they give the wrong impression but the artist defends her work by saying that it was for people to start talking about sexuality and that the whole motive of her artwork was to show how women chose to show her sexual identity beyond the gaze of men. The work of Rupi Kaur, who lives in Toronto and belongs to a Punjabi community was censored by Instagram. She posted a picture of herself lying on the bed with her face towards the wall and her period had leaked onto her pyjamas and bed sheets.

This picture was a part of her university project which she had posted on the internet to view people’s reaction to the piece of art in different settings. To her surprise, the picture was removed by Instagram within a few hours and she posted it again, but it was again removed within eight to ten hours which concerned her as it was not just about the picture anymore but about the way women’s bodies are portrayed and censored on Instagram. She then used the account of a porn website and questioned how Instagram could censor her picture which actually did not violate anything but at the same time host such bold and sexually violent material (Driscoll 2015). She argued that having periods is a natural process and happens to half of the world’s population and at some point or the other, almost every girl wakes up to the scene she photographed. Taking such a picture down means shaming the female body and her femininity. She then decided to post the censored image on Facebook along with the notification that her image was taken down. This attracted a lot of media and her photograph went viral all over the world.

Due to the whole incident, Instagram allowed the image back on their site and sent an apologetical email to Rupi stating that it had been removed by mistake but Rupi remained adamant that the same mistake cannot happen twice and that the issue was serious as it involves a very important part of womanhood. Menstruation is a taboo subject that is rarely discussed, especially among men (Rupi 2015). She wants men to see her work the most as she says it’s the misogyny that we need to address, rather than the feminism" (Rupi 2015). In India, from where Rupi belongs, menstruation is considered filthy and impure and the women suffering it has to go through a lot of discrimination from elders till the time the periods last. Her artwork caused her a lot of trouble and she had to face hatred from a large number of people but at the same time, she was also appreciated by some people for bringing up a topic like this which was necessary to broaden the thinking of people about a natural process of women’s lives. Despite getting her work censored on Instagram, she still uses that platform because her aim is to reach a wider audience which is possible only through a social platform like Instagram. Although there was no justification from Instagram on why they removed that picture, the general public also had mixed reviews and opinions about the period photograph. Many people criticized it and had negative views about it. They even took her face and attached to pornographic photos shaming her for what she had posted. Rupi defends her artwork saying that it is a natural process and Instagram does not mind promoting content from porn accounts which have explicit content, then how can it censor something that is part of a female body and her life and is suffered by half of the world’s population.

In my opinion, Leena McCall’s work was pornographic, but it was a piece of art and every artist has the right to express their emotion and ideas through artwork. These days, images that reflect nudity are common and easily accessible over the internet or television. The artist decided to show the cleavage and the strip of pubic hair to allow the public to talk about sexuality. The gallery was correct about the fact that exposing children to such kind of nudity would distract their mind and cause a wrong impact on them, but the gallery could instead use the information sign outside the exhibition informing the visitors about the bold artworks being displayed inside and could ask the audience to attend the exhibition considering it. Galleries are meant to display the artworks of the artist and it is one of the major platforms through which the artist can express their ideas and feelings. Thus, censoring the work of an artist because it reflected nudity is unfair and means suppressing the views of an artist.