Alison Croggon is an Australian writer and critic. She is also the driving force behind the 2020 Open Letter in Support of Bill Henson, a letter signed on to by a couple dozen luminaries of the Australian arts and culture scene. The night before last I decided I would e-mail her, and she’s been kind enough to assent to my posting the resulting correspondence:
From: tony@comstockfilms.com
Subject: CensorshipDate: May 29, 2008 2:57:51 PM EDT
To: alisoncroggon@xxxx.net.auWhere were you and your friends when police were sent to prevent the screening of my film last year in Melbourne? Or the year before that in Sydney?
Rather stark, but it does get to the point. It also got a response…
From: alisoncroggon@xxxx.net.au
Subject: Re: Censorship
Date: May 29, 2008 7:01:40 PM EDT
To: tony@comstockfilms.comTo answer your question: we have only been in contact as a group for the past month, since the 2020 Summit. Many of us speak out individually about the ridiculous things that occasionally happen here, but we generated headlines because we spoke with a collective voice. I am hoping that this is the beginning of a representative arts group that can talk about such things and more importantly be heard.All bestAlison
None of the 2020 gang spoke out when DAMON AND HUNTER was banned 2006. Neither did they speak out when ASHLEY AND KISHA was banned in 2007, so I felt a little miffed:
From: tony@comstockfilms.com
Subject: Re: Censorship
Date: May 29, 2008 8:39:39 PM EDT
To: alisoncroggon@xxxx.net.auI’m sure you can understand that after having a film ordered removed from the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Documentary Film Festival in 2006 and then having a second ordered removed from the Melbourne Underground Film Festival in 2007, both with nary a peep from the Australian artistic community, I find myself surprised that so many people are turning out for Mr. Henson. Previously I had supposed that Australian’s were afraid to speak out, or simply indifferent.
Upon re-reading this, I never would have responded to this sort of low-grade sarcasm. But to her credit, Alison gave me the benefit of the doubt:
From: alisoncroggon@xxxx.net.au
Subject: Re: Censorship
Date: May 29, 2008 8:47:22 PM EDT
To: tony@comstockfilms.comI can quite understand. One of the major problems with the artistic community has been the lack of co ordination and public voice, which permits the nutcases free run. I’m hoping this will change, difficult though it is to get artists to agree on anything if there are more than three of them (as I can personally attest) because frankly it has to. You are not alone in running foul of the authorities, but all of us tend to behave as if they are individual battles, which totally disempowers us.All the bestAlison
Individual battles indeed. I saw an opportunity to make a point:
From: tony@comstockfilms.com
Subject: Re: Censorship
Date: May 29, 2008 8:58:15 PM EDT
To: alisoncroggon@xxxx.net.auIndeed. BTW, you’re pretty much throwing me and my work under the bus with all this “But it’s art! It’s not meant to arouse!” stuff. Makes it doubly hard to fight my battles with the OFLC. Couldn’t you find a better way to defend Henson? How about a nice libertarian, “Except in cases of immanent danger it is not the role of the state to usurp parents rights to raise their children in the manner they see fit. This includes both bible-base home education and consenting to have your children model for nude photographs. In the case of Bill Hendson so evidence of any such immanent danger has been presented by anyone.”That would have been so much more interesting, defensible and ultimately pro-social than the tired old “It’s not porn, it’s art.” What does that mean? If it is “porn” than the state has the right to suppress it? That’s how police ended up at the screening of my film.
Unbeknowst to me, some the 2020 groups most prestigous membes had voiced similar concerns about the arguments put forth in their Open Letter. Unwittingly I had found a point of common ground:
From: alisoncroggon@xxxx.net.au
Subject: Re: Censorship
Date: May 29, 2008 9:16:51 PM EDT
To: tony@comstockfilms.comYeah, I know. In retrospect, it could have been better phrased. You have no idea how difficult it was to get that text together, and things slipped through despite my best efforts. In Henson’s case, it’s such bullshit to claim it’s pornography that it had to be stated strongly that it wasn’t, given the sweaty insinuations and straight accusations of paedophilia that were being so noisily broadcast in the msm. (I feel as strongly as anyone else, btw, about child porn). Also, it’s a legal issue.
But I totally take your point. Hopefully, prosecution won’t take place, and we can take a longer and less reactive view on what to do about the whole question.
Cheers
Alison
No idea? Longer and less reactive? The words came quickly:
From: tony@comstockfilms.com
Subject: Re: Censorship
Date: May 29, 2008 9:57:55 PM EDT
To: alisoncroggon@xxxx.net.auOh but I do have an idea how hard it is. I fight this battle nearly every week, with virtually no allies, and I’ve been fighting for more than ten years, watching this “it’s not arousing gambit” used for everything from the KEN PARK to DESTRICTED (which, btw was playing at ACMI the same night the cops came to my screening; complete with yet another “How can we define art? How can we define pornography” panel)
And because of that I’m afraid I really have to disagree on it being important to say that Henson’s work isn’t porn. When you engage in the porn debate, the only people you convince are the people who already agree with you, and in the process you re-enforce this nonsense art/porn paradigm and make it much, much harder for people who are taking genuine risks doing work that confronts our attitudes towards photographic depictions of erotic joy.
What do I mean by genuine risk? Right now in Australia it is illegal to sell or screen my films, and the people who sell my DVDs or screen my films do so under the very real threat of prosecution. There can be no “But it’s not meant to arouse” defense, because I’ve declared plainly from the start that these films are about arousal. Right now here in the US I am vulnerable to RICO prosecution that not only would take my liberty, but take my property as well, leaving my wife and children with nothing. This is what I risk to make my films, and every time some one says “But it’s not porn, it’s art” they are reenforcing the idea that there is a line that I’ve crossed that is indefensible.
I don’t for a minute believe there was ever any real danger that Henson would be prosecuted, and even if he were, he (obviously) has a long list of powerful allies ready to come to his defense. But so far that defense has been, by your own admission, carelessly worded and short-sighted.
In any event, I imagine your inbox is quite full these days, and I appreciate the chance to have a dialog with you on this issue. No matter how it is parsed, the ultimate question is where the boundaries lie between the legitimate interests of the state and each of us, as artists, as sexual beings, as parents, and as citizens. I make my films in the hope that they contribute to this debate in a positive way.
Yours sincerely,
Tony Comstock
Did I reallly say “have a dialog”? I guess I did. I guess that’s the way you talk when you’re trying to have a polite but serious discussion with someone with which you have strong differences of opinion. Alison responds:
From: alisoncroggon@xxxx.net.au
Subject: Re: Censorship
Date: May 29, 2008 10:20:34 PM EDT
To: tony@comstockfilms.comThe difficulty wasn’t writing the letter, it was getting everyone to agree on it.
It was a process which involved literally hundreds of emails and 36 hours with no sleep. I don’t want to do that every week.
If it’s any comfort, I said on talkback radio in Adelaide that there was a long tradition of pornographic art (Japanese prints, eg) and that was a separate matter to whether children were abused by Henson’s work. I really think it is, no matter how conflated by the tabloid press.You’re quite correct on what you think the real issues are. But please don’t feel you’re alone on this; that isolation is what has disempowered all of us.
Btw, can I forward your mail to other 2020 people?
All best
Alison
It was a process which involved literally hundreds of emails and 36 hours with no sleep. I don’t want to do that every week.Just as I thought we were getting somewhere. Will I be able to keep my cool, or revert to the petulant child that I really am?
From: tony@comstockfilms.com
Subject: Re: Censorship
Date: May 29, 2008 11:26:11 PM EDT
To: alisoncroggon@xxxx.net.auRe: Comfort
Reading from the 2020 Letter:”…the defining essence of pornography is that it endorses, condones or encourages abusive sexual practice…”
Given the above and the other comparisons between Henson’s work and pornography, I can’t begin to imagine how you’d think I’d be comforted your mention of pornography, let alone be comforted by the suggestion that my work is a part of a pornographic tradition.
I understand why you have chosen to use this tactic to defend Henson’s work. I have written you in the hopes that you might begin to understand how much this tactic hurts me and my films, and I question whether this tactic ultimately serves the broader interests of freedom of expression, both within the arts community and in the body politic at large.
Again, I’ve enjoyed our discussion; please feel free to share this correspondence with whomever you feel might be interested.
Yours,
TC
Phew! That was a close one. Alison responds:
From: alisoncroggon@xxxx.net.au
Subject: Re: Censorship
Date: May 29, 2008 11:58:47 PM EDT
To: tony@comstockfilms.comI totally see your point. And fair enough. Being so focused on a single thing, it can be easy to miss other implications. John Coetzee didn’t, and I wish now he’d been forthcoming in suggesting edits. But hey ho.
Btw, I’ve been trying to find out via google about the fuss around your film, and am being very unsuccessful. One other issue that especially affects artists is that no one knows what anybody else is doing.
CheersA
Was that an invitation to tell you all about how wonderful I am? Twist my arm:
From: tony@comstockfilms.com
Subject: Re: Censorship
Date: May 30, 2008 12:41:14 AM EDT
To: alisoncroggon@xxxx.net.auRather wound up over this and my family’s away, which confuses me about when I should go to bed.If you’d like to know more about my films’ misadventures in Australia, a good place to start would be my “Open Letter to the OFLC” over the banning of DAMON AND HUNTER two years ago. The only signatory was yours truly, none the less the letter was publish in a few media outlets in Australia and the US, and the situation got some coverage in Australia’s gay press.
http://www.comstockfilms.com/blog/tony/2006/09/08/an-open-letter-regarding-the-cancelled-queerdoc-screening-of-damon-and-hunter/
Of course what other people say about you is always more impressive than what you say about yourself. I’ll round up some press clippings, including coverage of the banning of ASHLEY AND KISHA last year in Melbourne and send them along soon!
Yours,
TC
I could have left the exclam off of soon, but of course I can’t. The next morning this was in my inbox:
From: alisoncroggon@xxxx.net.au
Subject: Re: Censorship
Date: May 30, 2008 4:12:51 AM EDT
To: tony@comstockfilms.comThanks Tony – I thought you were an Australian filmmaker, which may be why I couldn’t find anything. You suffered a good dash of homophobia too, by the sounds of things. I’m sorry for this aspect of my country – as you note, most Australians are pretty open-minded and easy going, but we have a pretty bad tradition of banning things. Much more significant than our beginning as a penal colony is the fact that we began as a penal bureaucracy.
Regards
Alison
“As you noted…” She actually read the link I sent her. Well then I guess I’ll send her some more:
From: tony@comstockfilms.com
Subject: Re: Censorship
Date: May 30, 2008 10:20:23 AM EDT
To: alisoncroggon@xxxx.net.auYes, American. I’m like one of those rock bands you read about, virtually unknown at home, but big in Japan. Well that’s not quite true. My work has had some success here in the US, but for some reason (Hmmm. what could that be?) Australians seem to better understand the political confrontation implied by my films.
RE: Banning
It would seem to be a product of Australia’s commonwealth tradition; my films are also illegal in Canada and the UK. Thankfully we have supporters in those countries as well, people willing to risk their liberty to make our films available.
Here in the US the question is phrased differently; here non-protected expression is called “obscenity”, but like Australia, Canada, and the UK, the state only seems interested in asserting its authority over sexually explicit expression. We don’t ban it here. They just show up at your door one day, clamp you in irons, and freeze your assets. We send our films to any number of jurisdictions that “pornographers” will not go near (think Cleveland and the Maplethorpe controversy, or Alabama and Texas and their dildo laws) because we think it’s the right thing to do. As I said in my Open letter, “even today, here in America, in Australia, and elsewhere, the state’s role in the most intimate aspects of the lives of its citizens remains an open question.”
My interest in the Australian political and artistic landscape is not merely that of an outside observer or gadfly. Film critic and curator Megan Spencer seems to have an especially acute understanding at what drives my films, both cinematically and politically, and has several times said that she’d like to screen a retrospective of my films, but of course she can’t do that without putting herself and whatever organization she’s affiliated with in jeopardy. Lisa Daniels, director of Melbourne G&L Film Festival said that ASHLEY AND KISHA was the “sweetest love film” she’d ever seen, but of course she dare not exhibit it at her festival. I have been identified as a “pornographer” by the OFLC, and as such sales and exhibition of my films is illegal.
Legal repercussions aside, MGLFF and other film festivals can only operate with the OFLC’s blessing and many depend on government funding to operate. Having found in Australia an enthusiastic audience for my films, I am shut off from the recognition and revenues I need to continue my work. When I say that you’ve “thrown me under the bus” it’s not simply a matter of hurt feelings.
As promised I have some links for you, both essays that I’ve written, and write-ups from various news outlets. I’ve dug a little deeper into both the genesis and reaction to the 2020 letter and see echos of some of the questions that I’ve been asking for 20 years. I do hope that as this story unfolds, that you and yours will be able to take a “longer and less reactive view”. I’m quite sure that would be in the best interest of everyone, regardless of where they stand on the question of Henson’s work, or mine for that matter.
Lesbian Film Banned, Melbourne Community Voice, Sept. 2007
http://tinyurl.com/5rzeu6
Melbourne Community Voice 2007 Year in Review (September)
http://tinyurl.com/5twmrh
A Criminal Intent to Arouse (written the night of the illegal MUFF screening of DAMON AND HUNTER in 2006)
http://tinyurl.com/5gkc96
Triple J’s HACK Radio Broadcast (Broadcast on the eve of the banned ASHLEY AND KISHA screening in 2007)
http://odeo.com/audio/17015233/play
A Genuine Passion for Woman, Sydney Star Observer, August 2007
http://www.ssonet.com.au/display.asp?ArticleID=6823
How “X-rated” Came to Mean “Porn” and the Death of Movies for Grown-ups
http://tinyurl.com/67gl2g
“A Person Would Have to Be Dead Inside” (A critique of Mike Nichols’ and John Cameron Mitchell’s views on sex in cinema)
http://tinyurl.com/5b8usz
Lastly, although I’m sure homophobia has played some part in our misadventures, my belief is that it is ultimately incidental. The core is the (criminal) intent to arouse. That is what the OFLC cited in their refusal to grant exemptions and/or X-ratings my films, both those featuring homosexual couples and those featuring straight couples.
If I were smarter I suppose I would simply go the tried and true route and claim that my films are not intended to arouse, but I simply am unwilling to say, even by insinuation, that there is anything unwholesome about the natural, normal and healthy response that people have to my films.
At present we have a very lovely film featuring a middle-aged heterosexual couple (referenced in the essay “You Would Have to Be Dead Inside”.) It is our only heterosexual film that has not been subjected to the OFLC’s classification process, and as such is a better candidate to mount a challenge than our works upon which the OFLC has already rendered a determination.
Still the obstacles are great.In their rejection of ASHLEY AND KISHA, made without benefit of seeing the film, the OFLC cited both the classification of my previous films and the “quality of the applicant”; which is to say, because they have classified my previous films as pornography, ASHLEY AND KISHA is presumed be to pornography; and because the Melbourne Underground Film Festival does not have the prestige of ACMI or MGLFF, the OFLC looks upon their application for festival exemptions with a less kind eye. (The screening of DESTRICTED at ACMI or IN SEARCH OF THE WILD KINGDOM at MGFF illustrate this in the most disappointing way.)
The reason that my Australian representative and I have not, as yet, thrown ourselves into yet another battle is because, as you yourself have seen, it is utterly exhausting, and I’m sure if you imagine how you would feel fighting this battle without the benefit of Noble laureates the arts community at your side, you might wonder how it is that we carry on. I wonder sometimes too. Sometimes I despair. Then I find something like this in my in-box:
“My girlfriend and I have just seen your beautiful film about Ashley and Kisha, and we just had to tell you that we loved it. The love-scene at the end was incredibly real and beautiful, and we both had tears in our eyes afterwards. Thank you! Lots of love from Sxx & Cxxxxx”
Who could resist the chance to hear that? Who wouldn’t carry on!
Yours sincerely
TC
And Alison’s polite response, which should have closed the conversation:
From: alisoncroggon@xxxx.net.au
Subject: Re: Censorship
Date: May 30, 2008 11:42:44 AM EDT
To: tony@comstockfilms.comThanks for the links. I’ll read them at leisure and inform myself.Well, if you’re aware of the history of censorship in this country, maybe I don’t need to point you to Ern Malley, a truly Pythonesque episode where a poetry editor was prosecuted for obscenity for publishing a fictional poet, a hoax perpetrated upon him by two other poets who wanted to satirisemodernism (the biggest irony now of course is that Ern Malley is a standard anthology inclusion) and did cutups from among other things an army manual on mosquitoes.
The court transcripts are pretty blackly hilarious, where a police officer is attempting to explain how he found a lamp post arousing.Mind you, the actual thing was awful, and that was the end of modern Australian poetry for about 30 years. Official Australia has always had a bit of a problem with culture. It’s not Puritanism, it’s more likeresentment, other people might be having a good time.
Pornography is readily available here, it’s kind of bizarre really. Film festivals are routinely rated R because the films are unclassified, etc. I guess it’s the issue of real sex that causes the classification people angst. We all have to be protected.
All best
A
Bridge built. Now watch me burn it down:
From: tony@comstockfilms.com
Subject: Re: Censorship
Date: May 30, 2008 12:04:56 PM EDT
To: alisoncroggon@xxxx.net.auIt’s not the real sex (see the oflc’s decissions on DESTRICTED, SHORTBUS, et al) It’s the presentation of real sex in a positive erotic context. Contextualized by ennui, cynicism, boredom, brutality, disenfranchisement, disconnection, or disaffection, and real sex is “art”. But if sex makes people happy, then it’s porn. And if it’s porn it can’t be shown in a theater, a film festival, or sold in a DVD shop. If it appeals to “prurient interest” they can take your house and put you in jail.
This is why the constant drumbeat from the “art community” that “It’s not intended to be arousing, it’s not porn, it’s art.” in Henson’s case and in every other case gives me the shits in a spectacular way. From where I’m standing the so-called “provocative” work that comes out of the artistic mainstream are little more crass publicity stunts, calculated precisely in accordance with cultural norms, and challenging nothing.
Just now I’m seeing that the case against Henson is faltering. No surprise there. He knows as well as anyone else where the line is, and doesn’t dare cross it. But it’s only when we are willing to cross the line (like Ern Malley) that any real change occurs.
I know I’m talking about a friend of yours, and he’s clearly an artist with a firm command of the medium of photography and an instinct for where our discomforts lie. What a pity he did not choose to put those talents in service of something that would be both more challenging and more defensible.
Yours,
TC
And just for good measure:
From: tony@comstockfilms.com
Subject: Ulysses, Intent to Arouse
Date: May 30, 2008 12:24:08 PM EDT
To: alisoncroggon@xxxx.net.auAlso, the best place to start is at the beginning, and as best as I have been able to discern, the beginning of all this “intent to arouse” non-sense is the 1934 case U.S. v One Book Called Ulysses.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._One_Book_Called_Ulysses
My interpretation is that Justice Woolsey was put in an impossible situation. By the letter of the law, the James Joyce master piece was obscene. Faced with the humiliating prospect of banning a masterwork of the English language, Woolsey created from whole cloth, the “intent to arouse” doctrine. The salient passage reads:
“[W]hilst in many places the effect of Ulysses on the reader undoubtedly is somewhat emetic, nowhere does it tend to be an aphrodisiac.”
In that one short sentence Woolsey set the tone for the next 80 years of erotic art, in the US and through out the English speaking world at least. To avoid prosecution, artists would have to claim that any sexual passages were intended not to engorge their genitalia, but to make the audience vomit.
This fear of the intent to arouse became the sin quo non of “artistic” explorations of nakedness and sexuality.As a result we have an modern artistic tradition that has explored in vivid detail every last anxiety about, and perversion and corruption of our sexuality, but has left simple wholesome pleasure virtually untouched. And what a shame that is.
Alison responds in kind:
From: alisoncroggon@xxxx.net.au
Subject: Re: Censorship
Date: May 30, 2008 2:29:53 PM EDT
To: tony@comstockfilms.comHenson isn’t a friend of mine, just an artist I admire enormously. He’s not about crossing lines, he just does what he does; like any artist, following his own vision. I don’t personally measure the worth of a work by its transgression: it may or may not transgress boundaries, but that has never really been the point for me. I’ve seen awful “transgressive” art that is actually doing no more than demonstrating its maker’s ego.
We’re talking about accusations of child sexual abuse here, which is in a rather different league than straight pornography and of a much higher social temperature. Hence the need to say that the work wasn’t abusive.
Personally, I don’t give a fuck whether art is pornographic or not. I think sexual adults should be able to choose and enjoy their pleasures, and sex and eroticism have long been at the centre of my own artistic practice. But I have limits. I do find much pornography – especially the stuff you get on the internet – absolutely horrifying: yes, I’ve looked, young Russian women getting fucked by dogs with the emptiest eyes I’ve ever seen, what is that story? That’s not freedom, that’s slavery and imprisonment and rape. That’s not about life, that’s about killing something.
Not that I’m suggesting by any means that is what you’re doing. I haven’t seen your work so I don’t know what I’d feel or think about it, and the classification judgments seem very dubious. But please don’t abuse me for defending the rights of another artist, or blame me for the sexual neuroses of the society I live in.A
And I make an awkard attempt at an apology. But you can see I’m still miffed about her dogfuckery comments:
From: tony@comstockfilms.com
Subject: Re: Censorship
Date: May 30, 2008 3:47:45 PM EDT
To: alisoncroggon@xxxx.net.auDear Alison,I regret that I’ve made you feel abused, and I apologize for it. That was not my intent (there’s that word again.)
I don’t doubt your sincerity or your motives. Not for a minute. If I did, I wouldn’t take the time to engage in this exchange. I also understand that charges of child abuse are serious and difficult to dispel, even when their isn’t a shred of proof. I understand the impulse to make refuting those charges the first priority.
I am also sorry that I mischaracterizing Bill Henson as your friend. Upon re-reading I can see how you could have read a snarky tone into that (“Of course you’re defending him. He’s your friend.”) But again, that was not my intention. What I meant was more along the lines of “It gives me no pleasure to speak disparagingly of your friend, but this is how it looks from where I’m standing. ” E-mail is notoriously bad at communicating nuance, and I’m very sorry that what I wrote came off as sarcastic.
I think the fact that “pornography” is understood to encompass everything from erotic japanese prints to photographic evidence of child abuse and slavery, imprisonment, and rape by animals goes to the heart of why I find the 2020 letter so personally wounding and professionally damaging, and I look forward to when we might explore that further.
But I’m guessing we’re both feeling a little raw, so perhaps for now it would be best to simply agree to stay in touch.Again my apologies for the hurt I’ve caused you. I hope on the balance I’ve given you something worthwhile in exchange.
Yours sincerely,
Tony Comstock
So there it is. A bridge build and burned in less than 24 hours.
UPDATE: Maybe the bridge isn’t burned all the way down. Alison accepted my apology and even commented on my Art with a Capital. And our pointed but civil discusion has continued over at her blog on a post entitled Naked Censorship