CONSTRUCTING ‘DECENCY’
2013; Routledge; Volume: 27; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/09502386.2012.722300
ISSN1466-4348
Autores Tópico(s)Law in Society and Culture
ResumoAbstract This article examines the production of normative subjectivity and the construction of 'appropriate' and exportable knowledge through cultural policy during the culture wars of the 1980s–1990s in the USA. During this time, the performing and visual arts, and mass media were increasingly seen as the cause, rather than the reflection, of social instability, and quickly became subject to governmental regulation. Focusing on a 1998 US Supreme Court case, National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley, I examine the construction and application of decency offered in the oral transcripts, and attend more broadly to the relationship between cultural policy and law. Cultural policy is a technique of governmentality, and a means through which citizenship and national identity is constituted and regulated, and self-governance inculcated. Similarly, law is a key technology through which governance, and subjectivity is produced, constituted and regulated. Policies such as the 'decency' clause depend on a series of coercive technologies and practices, which ensure that only particular kinds of individuals are understood as embodying norms that are constitutive of citizen-subjects that the State desires. The introduction of the 'decency' clause may be understood, in part, as a response to a perceived failure in the arts community of individuals to effectively self-regulate and embody standard sociocultural norms. Keywords: citizenshipculture warscultural policydecencyobscenitysexuality Notes 1. National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley 524 US 569, 118 S.Ct. 2168 (1998). 2. The decency clause stated: '… artistic excellence and artistic merit are the criteria by which applications are judged, taking into consideration general standards of decency and respect for the diverse beliefs and values of the American public …' 20 U.S.C. § 954(d)(1), the 'decency clause'. 3. The Federal Act of 30 August 1842, ch. 270, 5 Stat. 548, 566. This prohibition was extended in 1857 to include photographs, images, and all other obscene articles in Act of 2 March 1857, ch. 62, 11 Stat 168. 4. Roth's case was combined with Alberts v. California, in which a California obscenity law was challenged by Alberts after his similar conviction for selling lewd and obscene books. 5. In the context of the First Amendment, speech also includes verbal, non-verbal, visual and symbolic expression. 6. Federal Communications Commission, Indecent Broadcast Restrictions http://www.fcc.gov/guides/obscenity-indecency-and-profanity, accessed 3 January 2011. 7. In FCC v. Fox Television Stations () No. 10–1293 challenged the FCC assessment of regulating speech as unconstitutionally vague. In an 8-0 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that because the regulations at the time did not cover 'fleeting expletives' the fines were invalidated as 'unconstitutionally vague'. The regulations have since been amended to include 'fleeting expletives'. 8. See 135 Cong. Rec. 16, 276 (). The amendment was Number 420 to the Department of the Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations, Fiscal Year 1990 Act. H.R. 2788, 101st Cong., first Sess. (). 9. Fifteen arts organizations refused grant monies including Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare festival. Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim refused National Medal of the Arts commendations awarded by the NEA in protest of the restrictions placed on grant monies. 10. The Lewistky decision also disposed a case with almost identical issues at law – a suit filed by the Newport Harbor Art Museum. See a discussion of the case in the 'NEA's Obscenity Pledge Voided: Law: Arts groups hail ruling in suits by a dance company and a Newport Beach museum seeking federal funds', Los Angeles Times: http://articles.latimes.com/1991-01-10/local/me-11211_1_art-museum, accessed 30 March 2012. 11. In November , Congress passed the Williams/Coleman Amendment in Public Law 101-512 sec 103 (b) amending the legislation for the NEA 20 U.S.C. 954 (d). 12. The plaintiffs also claimed that by releasing information from their applications for funding, the NEA had violated the Privacy Act of 1974. 13. My critique of Breyer's logic here is interested in unpacking how discourses of decency are formed and inscribed culturally and legally, rather than to make any accusations of homophobia. Breyer was part of the majority that struck down the sodomy law in Texas, and subsequently 13 others states, making same-sex sexual activity legal across the US in the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas decision. 14. NEA v. Finley. 524 US 569, 118 S.Ct. 2168 at 2188–2189 (Justice Souter, dissenting). 15. The NEAs first goal is survival, especially given the current fiscal climate, and the continued push for cutting the NEA budget and under-valuing the role of the arts, especially as outlined in conservative rhetoric. See The Huffington Post (2012 The Huffington Post 2012 ' Romney Would Cut Funding for Arts by Half ', The Huffington Post , 14 August, [online] Available at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/11/what-romney-would-do-with_n_1088851.html (accessed 14 August 2012) . [Google Scholar]). 16. For example, Franklin Furnace received support from the National Endowment for the Humanities and signed a collaboration agreement with ARTstor 'to digitize and publish on the web documentation of events it presented and produced, with the goal of embedding the value of ephemeral art practice in art and cultural history'. Franklin Furnace, Organizational Overview, accessed 3 January 2011 http://franklinfurnace.org/about/institutional_history/organizational_overview.php
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