This whole thing about Bill Henson’s latest exhibition getting raided by the police, the confiscation of some of the photographs and talk of charges being laid against both the photographer and the gallery (Roslyn Oxley9) is ridiculous in the extreme. It’s a complete farce that has degenerated into a witch hunt and a national embarrassment.
If you haven’t heard about it you can check out the details in the news here but the short story is that someone complained that some of the photos constituted child pornography apparently on the sole basis of them being images of nude adolescents.
Henson is internationally renowned and one of Australia’s most famous artists and yet it seems that because of this one complaint and the media-induced (or at least amplified to the point of being irrational) fear of a very small percentage of the population with some serious psychological issues that everyone may be deprived of viewing or, more importantly, deprived of the freedom to choose to choose to view or not view, an exhibition of artistic works and an artist may be denied his freedom of artistic expression. If charges are actually laid it’s the start of a very slippery slope down to a place I’d rather not think about.
The media, which always loves controversy and scandal, has whipped up a virtual lynch mob and drawn all manner of rabidly reactionary prudes and wowsers out of the woodwork crying about pornography and the sexualization of children. The latter of which I should be addressed but is not relevant to the works in question and, ironically, a problem created and propagated by much more mainstream media and advertising.)
Pornography and sexualization are a matter of context and, from what I’ve seen in the media (along with those ridiculous censorship black strips and pixelation) the images in question seem very similar to (and actually less explicit than) some of Bill Henson’s previous (unraided and unconfiscated) works and I really don’t see how anyone could view them as sexual or pornographic. In fact, it strikes me that those people out there who apparently think they are sexual or pornographic images have a problem and they should seriously consider why they may be thinking and responding to images of nude adolescents like that. This is actually one of the things I find most disturbing.
When are people going to grow up and deal with the fact that we all have a body, share the same basic anatomy and there is nothing wrong, indecent, obscene or inherently sexual or pornographic about a naked human body? It is nonsensical to think that for a baby to be naked is perfectly acceptable but that at some arbitrary point or at a certain age a human body suddenly becomes ‘offensive’ ‘obscene’ or ‘indecent’. There is something very, very wrong with that idea as there also is with the idea that nudity automatically equates to sexuality. These completely irrational attitudes stem solely from warped social conditioning.
What the police or an organisation dealing with child abuse have to do with the exhibition, the artist or his works is beyond me. Surely the police have better things to do with their limited resources and it’ll really piss me off if this thing leads to a big protracted court case that chews up taxpayer dollars. What a ludicrous waste of time and money that would be.
Yes, it is unfortunately true that there is a very small and deranged segment of the population who may get some kind of sexual gratification from viewing images like these but they’re also getting the same perverse gratification from many mainstream media and advertising images too. So should we surrender freedoms and civil liberties and change our way of life just on their account? Consider the recent stupidity regarding forbidding parents to take cameras to school swimming carnivals. Is it okay that because of a few idiot paranoids that parents be denied capturing the memories of their kids competing in these events and then denied forever the pleasure of looking back at them and sharing them with family and friends? And we’re not even talking about nudity here! Idiots.
Maybe everyone should wear a Burka to avoid inadvertently offending or titillating someone by being a human being and – shock, horror – having a human body!
Unfortunately, there’s also another very small, moronic segment of the population that seems to like throwing stones at passing traffic from overhead bridges, recently with devastating and tragic consequences. So should we ban all rocks and stones and gather them all up and lock them away somewhere in case seeing one of these offensive rocks entices one of these fools to pick one up and throw it at a car? Or should we deal with the offenders and address the actual problem?
Yes, the issues raised are real problems but they don’t have anything at all to do with Bill Henson, his artwork or the gallery in question.
The ultimate irony is that, as in all cases involving censorship, the huge outcry has attracted far more attention to the artworks than they ever would have gained had the prudes and wowsers just pulled their heads in and not stirred up such a big shit-fight. To those people: if you don’t appreciate the images then you’re free to not go and see them and you’re free to not buy them and please leave the police free to do their job and work on real crimes with real criminals and real victims.
May ‘common’ sense prevail.
Filed under General by Craig Jhet
