"Reagans": All art has an agenda

[greatauntoftriplets]

This is a good article about CBS' idiotic decision to not show the mini-series (not that I planned to watch it, of course).

Reagans': All art has an agenda

By Chris Jones
Tribune arts reporter
Published November 9, 2003

At various points in his long movie career, the actor and conservative icon Charlton Heston impersonated Brigham Young, Sir Thomas More, President Andrew Jackson, John the Baptist, Moses and Josef Mengele.

As an actor of formidable creative talent, Heston was under no obligation to offer sympathetic or even truthful portrayals of those real people, any more than Mel Brooks should have offered a fair and balanced look at Adolf Hitler in "The Producers." The inclusion, interpretation -- and, yes, the manipulation -- of actual public figures in otherwise fictional creations has been both a fundamental artistic freedom and a vital wellspring of creativity since Aristophanes attacked his fellow playwright Euripides, some four centuries before Christ.

CBS' startling decision this week to pull the broadcast plug on the biographical drama (as distinct from biographical documentary) "The Reagans," following an extensive campaign by conservative activists alleging the movie was "inaccurate" and "unfair" to the former president, reflects a dazzling and immensely troubling lack of awareness of the sacred importance of this vital cultural freedom. Furthermore, such preemptive, content-driven attacks on works of art are on the rise in America.

Aside from the recent flap over Dan Brown's controversial novel, "The Da Vinci Code," Mel Gibson recently has been obliged to fight any number of agenda-laden activists (many from the other side of the political spectrum) for his right to interpret the last 12 hours of the life of Jesus Christ in the manner of his own artistic choosing, placing praise and blame where he, the artist, chose to place it.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/arts/chi-0311090308nov09,1,5806120.story?coll=chi-leisurearts-hed

[Cheswick2.0]

1. good article, it looks like it is time for some street theater

the only artistic form that can not be controlled by the system is made by people who have nothing to lose. I think if we really want to fight this creeping fascism, someone needs to write a play or two. We need a new generation of radicals in the arts.

[cosmicdot]

2. speaking of theatre

FLORIDA, the election play, by Dale Reynolds

a stage play about the US Election in 2000,
based on a treatment for the screenplay, FLORIDA


http://www.radioleft.com/mod.php?mod=userpage&page_id=118
---------------------------------------------------------
Act 1, Scene 3


LIGHTS UP CENTRE STAGE on a Law Office. Actually, it is no more than an on-stage semblance of a Hotel Conference Room, but by the presence of GENE, a Democrat Lawyer, it is a law office; wherever he is, so there is The Law. Gene completes some paper task, snaps it into his briefcase.

LIGHT UP ON BEN, STAGE CENTRE REAR. He is on the PHONE.

BEN
(into phone)
“Lou.” Okay. Lou. Nice to meet
you. I mean, talk to you. And
thanks!

Ben listens, suddenly, to a DIAL TONE. The young woman, Lou, who perhaps will become a woman of his dreams, hung up abruptly, with no hint whatsoever of any romantic curiosity she might hold for him.

He is the world’s last romantic; clearly, an idealist.

Ben becomes aware of Gene’s eyes upon him. We see in the older man momentary amusement at Ben’s highly readable adolescent thoughts. But Gene waits for Ben to report about the call, hoping it will not have been a waste of his time.

BEN
Hey, I got a report of ballot
fixing. From a reporter! From
MBC!

GENE
(already skeptical)
I’m all ears, Ben.

BEN
She overheard two men talking.

GENE
Oh yeah? Where?

BEN
In a bar. Here in Tallahassee.
They fixed ballots against the
President-elect, in Broward
County and Miami-Dade County.
They admitted it! They told
their whole story.