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Printer-Friendly ModeProfessor calls attention to female censorship with documentary
Collaborative film emphasizes lack of public awareness
November 13, 2006 —
Shaun Bangert's art classes were on hiatus for the end of October while she was in Paris screening her new documentary that focuses on and condemns the censorship of female artists.
The name of the film is Censorious, and it's dedicated to "all artists who will not shut up."
Bangert collaborated with artists Carol Jacobsen and Marilyn Zimmerman in order to produce the 34-minute long project. They put together the film in order to illustrate how censorship of female artists is not a new problem, but rather a historical one.
Bangert says the piece is representative of how the public is seemingly unaware of the magnitude of the general issue of censorship.
"We just focused on women in the documentary because that's what we are, and I guess we know the topic relatively well," Bangert said. "But censorship is something that crosses all borders and it's something that people really need to step back and take a look at. I mean, how would they feel if something that was important to them was disallowed because it didn't fit in with everyone else's agenda?"
Censorious was screened at the Trianon Theatre located at the base of Montmartre, the hill that overlooks all of Paris and was the center of the city's artistic life at the end of the 19th century. Many artists, including Pablo Picasso, lived and worked in Montmartre, and the area remained the city's intellectual and artistic hub up until the First World War.
Bangert, who had never traveled to Paris before, found it refreshing to be immersed in a culture that understands the importance of appreciating art in everything done in the course of a day. Whereas art in the States tends to be confined to museums, Bangert was pleased to find that Parisians are virtually surrounded by art on a daily basis.
"In the States, we cut funding for the arts because we don't consider it important," she says. "It's considered frivolous here - it's stuff you hang on your walls so that it matches your sofa. But that's not what art is. True art is a statement of what's going on around you on a day-to-day basis."
The film Censorious attempts to tackle the issues surrounding the censorship of female artists through interviews ranging chronologically from the 1970s to today. Women artists candidly tell their stories of losing their NEA grants or having their art exhibits shut down because of community members complaining of their work being too radical or sexually explicit.
"I truly don't believe that if you put up an image of a nude individual - whether it be an adult or a child - that it's going to cause somebody to run out and start raping and pillaging," Bangert says.
According to Bangert, the considerable amount of nudity in Censorious is illustrative of the fact that sex and images of the body have been the things most commonly censored throughout history. She claims that anything that has to do with sex usually has "the greatest knee-jerk reactions" and is quickly censored.
Bangert believes a feminist piece of artwork speaks from the women's point of view, no matter the amount of nudity involved. In other words, feminist art takes control of a situation from the women's viewpoint rather than the male perspective.
She says male artists have a tendency to objectify the female body whereas female artists prefer to show a woman as less of a victim.
The Parisian women Bangert talked to were shocked to discover that there is censorship in the States and that feminism is not a "blessed" thing here.
"Feminism is basically the other f-word here," Bangert says. "I hear from young women all the time: 'Feminist? No, ewww... I'm not a feminist.' It's more of a curse than a blessing in a lot of respects."
Bangert feels strongly that censorship is dangerous, infectious, and unthinkably prevalent in today's society. She believes censorship should not even be entertained because it is wrong to respond to pressure from people who take offense to things they choose not to understand.
"You just have to decide at some point whether you're gonna be influenced by other people or if you're just gonna do your own thing," she says.