Terroristic Transgressions in Art & Literature

Warning the public before cultural consumption of film, literature & theatre

 

LAST year this Northern Voices' Blog produced a major rumpus over a question we asked about a warning issued by young man about a scene towards the end of the Spanish Civil War film 'Libertarias' in which a nun is raped by a 'Moro', one of General Franco's mercenary soldiers from Morocco.  This was perhaps of more consequence because it was being shown as a radical film at a Manchester Film Co-operative gathering in a Salford pub, and I think we pointed out at the time this was a Spanish film in which the significance of the rape to Spanish viewers was that it is who is doing the raping and to who, that is important.  One reason is the deep fear of the 'Moro' in Spanish and Catalan culture, and the implied blasphemy (for which the Spaniards are famous) of a scene in which an 'islamico' forces himself onto a Christian nun.  The everyday Spanish language is full of rich blaspheming utterances which are used on a regular basis and the ironic idea of a 'Moro' acting as an instrument of Franco Fascism whose goal was to defend Christianity, would not be lost on most Spaniards as it appeared to be on the more shallow members of the English audience in Salford.  

 

So a scene that in the Spanish mind may produce one set of excited responses in almost the finale of the film when the 'Moro' rapes the Christian nun, became in a Salford pub last year something that required a special health or trigger warning so that the comfort of Anglo-Saxon lefties in the audience brought up in a welfare state may not be disturbed  or offended by the content of the film in which the Spanish people went through the jaws of hell.   The whole idea of this film was to inflict transgressions on the audience so that they would understand what it's like to suffer in wartime.  To indulge in warnings is merely to blunt the impact of the film.

 

Why do the squeamish Anglo-Saxon peoples require these kind of health warnings in films like 'Liberterias' about what are perceived to be disturbing scenes in films, or theatre or even literature?  

 

This question is now even more relevant, because this year colleges across the USA are wrestling with student requests for explicit alerts that the material they are about to read or see in the classroom that might upset them, or as some students assert, cause symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder in victims of rape or in war veterans.  

 

The International New York Times journalist Jennifer Medina writes: 

'These trigger warnings, which have their roots in feminist thought, have gained the most traction at the University of Califonia, Santa Barbara, where the student government called for them.  But there have been similar requests from students at Oberlin College, Rutgers University, the University of Michigan, George Washington University and others.'   

Some academics have challenged these fragility claims arguing that being provocative is part of their job.  They say that 'trigger warnings' suggest 'a certain fragility of mind that higher learning is meant to challenge not embrace.'   

Some of the literature being suggested for these 'trigger warnings' are Shakespeare's 'The Merchant of Venice' (contains anti-Semitism), Virginia Woolf's 'Mrs. Dalloway' (addresses suicide), and 'The Great Gatsby' for its scenes that reference gory, abusive and misogynistic violence.   

There is something profoundly sterile in all this seeking to be protected from the unpleasant.  Perhaps the spread of this poisonous attitude seeking to comfort the reader or student is responsible for the lack of any really talented literature being produced in England these days.  Bertolt Brecht wrote in his essay 'Three Cheers for Shaw' that Bernard Shaw is a terrorist and that his brand of terrorism is that  'he uses an extraordinary weapon, that of humour'.  And Brecht adds:

'Shaw's terrorism consists in this:  that he claims a right for every man to act in all circumstances with decency, logic and humour, and sees it as his duty to do so even when it creates opposition.' 

Furthermore Brecht writes: 

'He (Shaw) gives the theatre as much fun as it can stand.  Strictly speaking what makes people go to the theatre is nothing but stuff that acts as a vast incubus to the quite real business which really interests the dramatist and constitutes the true value of his plays.  The logic must be such that he can bury them beneath the most wanton transgressions, and it is the transgressions that people most want to have.'   

It may have been true once that film and theatregoers wanted 'transgressions', but not now it seems among the righteous non-blasphemers of the anarchist-left and beyond..  Whereas once the likes of Brecht, Shaw, Orwell, and other writers may have been wallowing in transgressions today we have the triumph of the bumpkins and the shallow minded on what is represented as the progressive left. 

Six O' the Best Northern Theatres & the need for the Arts in the North

Christopher Draper in Northern Voices 13, now on sale, tried to judge the best theatres in the North, many serious politically minded people dismiss these kind of articles on the arts and northern cooking in Northern Voices as trivial, but earlier this month Simon Schama wrote a piece in the Financial Times on William Shakespeare arguing that 'almost before there was a true political and institutional "England", there was a theatre of England.'    Some folk will say, and have said, that we are wasting space filling up our publication with stuff on films, gardening, regional beer, or tea time treats, when we could be analysing the economy and the national deficit. 

Simon Schama writes of the Bard:  'Shakespeare would not be the great poet-philosopher he is were he not to have spoken to the universal condition of humanity, but in the beginning he didn't address himself to humanity at large but to the English.'   It was a need for identity of place that he address himself to in an England that was not yet then fully born.  Schama argues persuasively that:  'This peculiar sense of English belonging, kindled in the theatre and then projected on to the streets, fields and villages of the country, had begun in the time of the first Elizabeth, and Shakespeare was its great virtuoso.'

Thus, Northern Voices (NV) commits half of the coverage in its journal to our Northern culture, food, drink, history and the arts.  That it why we supported the Touchstones Challenge campaign to protect the arts in Rochdale; listed the Manchester & Salford Film Co-op; reviewed the 'Pre-Raphaelite Pioneer' Ford Madox Brown exhibition at the Manchester Art Gallery; interviewed Eddy Hopkinson on his second-hand bookstall on Church Street in Manchester; backed the Tameside TUC campaign for a Blue Plaque for Spanish Civil War hero, James Keogh in Ashton-under-Lyne; as well as surveying the clash of the classes in Sheffield in the 19th Century and covered a football story on Glossop North End in N.V.10.
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Groucho Marx

Manchester and Salford Film Coop is showing the film Duck Soup in January 2011. This film stars the Marx Brothers and it so threatened the Fascist Dictator Benito Mussolini that he barred it from Italy. According to the writer J B Priestley "Karl Marx showed us how the dispossessed would finally take possession . But I think the brothers Marx do it better". Antonin Artaud described their films as " a hymn to anarchy and whole hearted revolt". Groucho can loosely be described as a libertarian socialist, and he supported Heywood Broun when he stood for Congress in the Manhattan district of New York on the socialist ticket. Other supporters include George Gershwin, Fred Astaire, Harpo Marx and Helen Hayes.

Groucho was dismissive of the Hollywood Communists. He described them as "the kind of Hypocrites who would sing in between laps around their swimming pool". Nevertheless Groucho opposed the witch hunts of McCarthy and the House Un-American Activities Committee. He supported the Committee for the lst Amendment in defence of freedom of speech.

An underground newspaper in the San Francisco Bay Area asked Groucho for his views on Nixon, the US President. "Do you think theres any hope for Nixon?" The reply- "No I think the only hope this country has is Nixons assassination". He was investigated by the FBI and listed in their files as a political threat to the President.

Groucho once referred to the United States as the "United Snakes" on a quiz show and contributed to an anti-fascist rally in the 1930s.

Finally Groucho Marx influenced the French students in May 68 in Paris. Grafitti read "je suis marxiste, tendance Groucho". He also quipped "Military Intelligence is a contradiction in terms"

The Film Coop shows monthly films at the Kings Arms, Bloom Street, Salford.