|
|
|
John Affleck's take on the
NEA debate
|
Just a week before Tom Coburn's ill-fated remarks on ABC's unedited
screening of Schindler's List (my and many other's vote for best
movie of the ‘90s), a local Congressman declared all out war
on the National Endowment of the Arts as the next important step
in Newt Gingrich's Contract With America. As politically unwise
as Dole's blind embrace of True Lies as a "family values"
film, Coburn's bravado indicates yet again his idealized, detached
perception of today's American society, which is larger than the
Angle-Protestant midwest. Coburn's comments, prefaced by his inaugural
manifesto in which he called the nation "back to God,"
have backfired to brand him a bigoted, Puritanical closed mind -
which he is not. Oklahomans, myself included, know him to be a man
of God and family, who is sorely lacking in political savvy.
Whereas Tom Coburn's outbursts have simply been bullets in his
foot, the campaign against the NEA has in sight a much more important
target: the government funding of thousands of local theaters, symphonies,
literary magazines and talented independent artists all over America.
Locally, that includes the Tulsa Philharmonic, National Public Radio,
OETA and the Tulsa Arts and Humanities Council. This argument is
part self-righteousness, part Darwinian capitalism, and part political
grandstanding. The logic goes something like this: the NEA is well
known for subsidizing the vulgar, obscene and profane; if people
really wanted the art, they would pay for it; and finally, the arts
are a sitting duck: who's afraid of the Cello Players of America
lobby!
The two Congressmen's outbursts together represent the Religious
Right's total resentment of art, private and public. It would not
flinch if the destruction of the NEA resulted in the destruction
of small market symphonies, opera houses and public art, while Coburn
and company long for the day Hollywood begins producing "family"
movies "again." The irony is that artistic capitalism
in America has resulted in the excesses of Hollywood, and while
Boston, Cleveland, New York and other major markets can support
their superb symphonies, theaters and operas, smaller markets like
Tulsa struggle even with their national endowment. Does America's
philistine taste mean that the Tulsa Performing Arts Center should
become a new multiplex) The NEA has subsidized obscene projects;
this cannot be denied. Everyone has their favorite NEA gaffe, so
I wilt not cite my own. But even during the Renaissance, which was
funded by church and state, when the church was the state, the emphasis
was on the avant garde - it must be for the advance of art. An anonymous,
second-rate artist added loincloths to Michelangelo's nudes in the
Sistene Chapel because the nudes were thought obscene.
Finally, the NEA is a privately run organization for the same
reason that Supreme Court justices are appointed for life: to be
immune from political pressure. The arts in America do not have
the funds to survive, let alone fight for their existence On Capitol
Hill. America, the richest country in the history of the world,
simply cannot afford to lose its most beautiful, most inspiring,
most valuable treasures - her ballerinas, her cellists, her artists,
her composers, her writers.
Fortunately, America can afford to endow them, to support them
and to trust them, even when we, the people, take them for granted.
|
|
|
