Lecture Notes 10: Censorship and Truth

Truth and Manipulation

• Ansel Adams was considered important as a photographer for his photos of the American landscape, and his skills in the dark room and abilities to alter the truth. He manipulates in the dark room the way he prints things to create something considerably different from the original.
• It's nothing sinister though, unless you think about it in a political context.

• Censorship and manipulation in photography goes way back to 1917.
• 9/11 photoshopped works are done seeing how well they are able to cause a react out of the intended audience

• Then there's the more superficial stuff, such as the photoshopping of models and celebrities on magazines. 
• British GQ messed up pretty badly when they slimmed down Kate Winslet in one of their cover shots... only to completely forget to alter her reflection too.

• Manipulation becomes a more impressionable and impactful thing.
• Is it real?

• Robert Capa, "Death of a Loyalist Soldier", 1936, queried for ages now over whether it was real or simply set up.
• "At that time (WWII), I fervently believed just about everything I was exposed to in school and in the media. For examples, I knew that all Germans were evil and that all Japanese were sneaky and treacherous, while all white Americans were clean-cut, honest, fair-minded, and trusting."
  ~ Elliot Aronson in Pratkanis and Aronson, 1992, Age of Propaganda, p. xii
• With lively step, breasting the wind, clenching their rifles, they ran down the slope covered with thick stubble. Suddenly their soaring was interrupted, a bullet whistled - a fatricidal bullet  - and their blood was drunk by their native soil" - caption accompanying the photograph in Vue magazine
• Persuasion - "a deliberate and successful attempt by one person to get another person by appeals to reason to freely accept beliefs, attitudes, values, intentions, or actions". ~ Tom L. Beauchamp, Manipulaive Advertising, 1984
• Simulacrum
  1. An image or representation of someone or something: a small-scale simulacrum of a skyscraper
  1.1 An unsatisfactory imitation or substitute: a bland simulacrum of American soul music

• "The Gulf War did not Take Place" by Jean Baudrillard
• Contrary to the title, the author believes hat the events and violence of the Gulf War actually took place (And expectedly such silly criticisms are made of the title alone by folks that didn't even read the book)
• Were the events that took place comparable to how they were presents, and could such events be called war?
• The title is actually a reference to the play "The Trojan war will not take place", in which characters attempt to prevent what the audience knows is inevitable
• Baudrillard argued that the Guld war was not really a war, but rather and atrocity which masqueraded as a war.
• The American military used overwhelming airpower for most part but otherwise did not directly engage in combat with the Iraqi army, and suffered few casualties.
• Thus, the fighting "did not really take place" from the point of view from the west.
• The closely watched media presentations made it impossible to distinguish betwen the experience of what truly happened in the conflict, and its stylised, selective misrepresentation through "simulacra"
• "It is a masquerade of Information: branded faces delivered over to the prostitution of the image" ~ Jean Baudrillard, p.40
• What is appropriate for the news? Despite its grimness and graphicness, do the viewers not have the right to see what truly unfolds?
• What is the news for then if such things are censored?
• An-My Le, who works alongisde the US army, has her work questioned over how much of it actually portrays the war?

Censorship

• Censorship:
  The practice or policy of censoring films, letters or publications.
• Censor:
  1. a person authorised to examine films, letters or publications, in order to ban or cut anything considered obscene or objectionable
  2. To ban or cut portions of (a film, letter or publication)
• Morals:
  Principles of behaviour in accordance with standards of right or wrong
• Ethics:
  1. Code of behaviour, especially of a particular group, profession or individual.
  2. The moral fitness of decision, course of action, etc.
  3. The study of the moral value of human contact

• ‘Suppose that a picture of a young woman inserting a chocolate bar into her mouth makes one person think of fellatio, but someone else says that this meaning says more about the observer than it does the picture. This kind of dispute, with its assumption that meaning resides in a text quite independently of individual and group preconceptions, is depressingly common in discussions on advertising as the picture does not in fact depict fellatio, but something else, what the dispute comes down to is whether everyone, a substantial number of people, a few obsessed individuals, or one particular person, understand it this way. Without an opinion poll, the dispute is unresolvable, but it is really quite improbable that such an interpretation will be individual’ ~ Cook, G. (1992), The Discourse of Advertising, London, Routiledge, Page 51 

• YES ON SO MANY LEVELS.
• United Colours of Benetton has always been known for their shocking, provocative ads that really don't have anything to do with their products, save for the unification of colours.
• "While the publicity generated by such campaigns [Benetton] is immense - and their globalised distribution protects them from the effects of a ban in any one country - it is also surely shocking that the shock effect wears off so quickly. Perhaps the overall driving motive of such campaigns is in fact nothing new - but simply an astute loyalty to one on the oldest adages in the business: there is no such thing as bad Publicity" 
• ~ Cook, G. (1992), The Discourse of Advertising, London, Routledge, Page 229

• "Dejeuner sur l'Herbe" sparked public notoriety and controversy, whilst prostitution was common knowledge in Paris, it was still considered a taboo subject unsuitable for painting

• This inspired Bow Wow Wow's album cover in 1981, which caused additional controversy seeing that the naked girl (lead singer Annabella Lwin) was only 14 at the time.
• The Miller Test in 1972 asks three questions to determine whether a given work should be labelled 'obscene' and hence denied constitutional protection.
• Whether 'the average person, applying contemporary community standards' would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest
• Whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct
• Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value
• Who is to decide whether someone thinks something is of artistic value or worth?
• Obscenity Law:
  1. To protect art whilst prohibiting trash
  2. The dividing line between speed and non-speech
  3. The dividing line between prison and freedom
• Sally Mann is an American photographer best known for her large black and white photographs - at first of her young children, then later of landscapes suggesting death and decay

• Her third collection "Immediate Family" received controversy on its release, such as accusations of child pornography and of contrived fiction with constructed tableaux
• "selling photographs of children in their nakedness for profit is an exploitation of the parental role and I think it's wrong"
  ~ Pat Robertson of the Christian Broadcasting Network
• Just how much should we believe the 'truth' represented in the media?
• And should we be protected from it?
• Is the manipulation of the truth fair game in a Capitalist, consumer society?
• Should art sit outside of censorship laws exercised in other disciplines?
• Who should be protected, artist, viewer, or subject?