Censorship by Giving Up

Posted on August 9, 2003 in Writing

I found this quote from a speech made by screenwriter and director Frank Pierson to be worth thinking about. It points to a way by which we individuals who struggle to create can effect a revolution:

Liberal critics have raised the alarm over corporate censorship, the exclusion from theaters and TV of anything except what seems marketable and the eliminations of anything that might offend somebody anywhere. But the danger of censorship in America is less from business or the religious right or the self righteous left, than to self-censorship by artists themselves, who simply give up. If we can’t see a way to get our story told, what is the point of trying? I wonder how many fine, inspiring ideas in every walk of life are strangled in the womb of the imagination because there’s no way past the gates of commerce?

I meet the kind of attitude in my writing group that he describes, of artists giving up on art because they’re afraid that what they write won’t sell out there in corporate America. For example, I was the only person who stood up for a woman who included a few Yiddish words in a historical piece she wrote. I suggested that for the sake of her readers she include a glossary, the others said get rid of the words.

I believe that any good work of art will make it. In times like this, however, we must work harder to make it happen, put in our own labor or have a dedicated fan promoting it for us. Vincent Van Gogh sold one painting in his life. After he died, his brother and his sister-in-law made his name.

My advice to my friend who wrote Yiddish was to stick to her vision, preserve the sound and sense that she intended for her work. I believe that if she does, she will find a triumph.

My thanks to Yule Heibel for the link and her own thoughts.