Should art be censored?

[NickRowler]

Most art should not be censored. I know some museums will move controversial art into special rooms. This happened to a art piece in a museum in DC. It was an old painting of someone who was either intersex or trans, don't understand why it needed a warning when none of the other nudes have it. I also think the drama around Piss Christ was stupid. Yeah it's gross but there was no need for death threats or people trying to get the US government to denounce it.

On the other hand...
Robert Mapplethorpe is a photographer known for taking very sexual pieces, sometimes getting into kinky/BDSM territory. While most of his art is not my cup of tea, I don't think they should be censored. However, he did come under fire for photographing children in a way that might have been exploiting them. And there was another photographer who did something similar. He went into nudist colonies and photographed the girls, and was trying to sell his work as "art". I don't think we should be using art as an excuse to exploit children.

[BoomerZ]

I know this will be an unpopular opinion, but yes it should depending on the audience and format. If your publisher is a all-ages platform, you have to know the rules of the game. I get that you want nudity, gore, etc in your comic/art, but that platform is not for you then. (generic "you", not the poster). Everywhere has a code of conduct. Everywhere has limits to what you can do. Art is not some special thing that is immune to this. We have elevated art to something almost religious in that it can't be contained in any way. It's not.
So when you have a site like Tapas or Webtoons that doesn't want sexual acts on it, that is their right to not have it. They want a all-ages site. Just like there are porn sites to post that kind of stuff on. It's all about who the audience is.

[sushy00]

I think it should not be censored at all. However there should be a filter over it so that if it is 18+, people under 18 can't view it. If it is very gore-y, there should be a warning first.

[darthmongoose]

It's a complicated subject because exploitative art is still art, art that contains graphic imagery that could traumatise people is still art, propaganda art that incites violence against marginalised people is still art. So if we follow the rule of "art can never be censored", people can put all sorts of hate speech and dangerous rhetoric out into the world and say "well, it's art" and so if you wanted to stop it getting seen, you'd end up mired in an argument about what counts as art. BUT if you do have the mechanisms to censor art, you run the risk of those rules being abused to oppress free expression and freedom of ideas.

So it's difficult because of the "tolerance paradox". I don't want people to be marching around on youtube wearing swastikas and encouraging people to oppress others, because I fear what tolerance of that intolerance would lead to... but a rule that prevents that also prevents documentary videos discussing historical accounts of that ideology and often even ones about why it's bad, leaving people ignorant.

It's hard to make a perfect set of rules. I think there are circumstances in which we should be careful what people are consuming. In a perfect world, everyone would have good critical reading skills to think about the messages in the art and media they consume... but that's not how things are. But then on the other hand, "we're protecting children from harmful content!" is the kind of rhetoric that's used to censor or ban even a pretty inoffensive content that happens to have gay or trans characters. I say this as a creator who makes pretty tame and inoffensive work I'm fine with my mum or my boss seeing that has several LGBTQ+ characters. It's bizarre to me to think of somebody reading my comic and saying "it's dangerous for people to read this!" when there are legitimately people who think it's for children, but there are countries where that'd be the case.

I'm not sure what I'd say is the best course of action for managing sensitive content. I'm not sure I'd necessarily fall on the "just let everyone publish literally anything and let anyone access it" extreme end of things, but I also think the puritanical censorship Apple imposes on Tapas is ridiculous and discriminatory in how it seems to disproportionally target queer creators and content, and prioritises censoring sexual content over violence or harmful themes and rhetoric or misinformation.

[Stargazer31]

I don't believe in censoring art, but I do think that gory stuff and erotic art/ other nsfw things should have a mature content warning, so you have some idea about what you're about to see, in case you're sensitive about it.

I don't like how books with LGBTQ+ content are censored for being "inappropriate" for just having LGBTQ+ people living their lives in them either. It's a nasty double standard.

[AlydaB]

Hmm... this isn't an easy question :I

I'm torn between 1: believing- as a matter of principle- that people should be allowed to freely express themselves without fear of being silenced and 2: my own personal opinion that some things shouldn't exist and should never be seen by anyone, least of all children.

As darthmongoose said, it'd be ideal if people knew how to protect themselves from everything they might stumble across on the internet and were wise enough to take things with a grain of salt, but that isn't the case and never will be. Especially for kids.

However, if you try to impose a set of rules for what can be shown and said, you run into another problem. Who gets to decide what needs to be censored? You're giving this entity/person a ton of power in allowing them to control the message, and they very well might use it to establish a "ridiculous and discriminatory" standard for what's acceptable.

I can say with certainty that kids shouldn't be able to so easily access stuff with sexual content, graphic violence, or harmful messages. As an adult, I'd like to be given fair warning so I can avoid this content as well. Everything beyond that in terms of censorship isn't so clear-cut to me.

Edit: (And even to that, one could ask, 'But what constitutes sexual content, graphic violence, or harmful messages?' My definition for these probably isn't going to be the same as yours. So.. actually, nothing is clear-cut after all -_-)

[CommissarTarkin]

That raises the question "what is censorship?"
Is disallowing the demonstration of certain art in public places and for a general audience censorship?
Is requiring to display a warning message before viewing something also censorship?
If so, then my answer is probably "yes".

But it's going to be extremely hard to decide what should be censored and how, that's true. Obviously, it should not be based on religious or ideological sensibilities - but what is left then? I guess, as a rule of thumb, art depicting explicit sexual acts and graphic violence should be censored, but even I can think of something that technically doesn't qualify as either yet still might make people want to tear their own eyeballs out. So I guess a clause like "something that causes severe psychological distress in the majority of the population" should also be added, to be applied on a case-by-case basis.

And I don't mean that all art should pass some sort of panel of censors to be released, I mean that if the overseeing body (some sort of municipal or regional committee perhaps?) receives way too many letters stating "X's paintings drove me to binge drinking in an attempt to forget what I saw in them" and "People cannot keep their lunch down and throw up all over the gallery", then maybe this art has to be examined.

[simonitropunk]

No, it shouldn't.

Art or any other types of work should never be censored. We all enjoy different things in-terms of artwork whether in drawing, movies, games etc... it's a deal-breaker for me if you censor things.. That's why I'm on the fence buying a PS5 since there have been games that were censored and that's a big no-no for me.

Just because you like a certain type of art that has nudity, sex, gore, violence etc... that doesn't make anybody be a bad person. To me, to each of their own. We played plenty of violent video games when growing up especially in my case playing the original Mortal Kombat when I was 8 and that didn't affect me in the long-run.

There's an art form for everybody to enjoy in different spectrums and personally, it should be free to do whatever type of artwork without restriction and you can always put warnings in-front just to let people know what's going to happen.

For me, I do show the bad things in my stories in front because hey, life itself doesn't censor itself. We always see bad things on the news whether in wars, crime, this and that. I'd rather have my art be upfront in all its context rather hide anything. I want my art to be honest more than anything. That's all I'm asking for and if there's a hint of censorship, there seems to be a lie somewhere so, I cannot accept that.

[ratscout]

Unless it is child porn (which some pervs might try to excuse as art), I don't think it should be censored. There is art out there that I'm personally not fond of or that offends my morals personally, but I wouldn't censor it. XD I think bad idea speak for themselves and that people being able to view them can only expose the idea for what it is LOL. But in general, I think putting an M rating on a videogame or putting an R rating on a movie should be enough to warn people away who won't enjoy it, and if the person still watches it, it's on them, not on the movie/videogame.

[Legendofgenii]

I don’t think nipples should be censored. I’m not even sure why that’s a thing really? We all have em.

[TroyVSTheWorld]

It really is up to the subject matter. Some forms of censorship are absurd: How can 4 letters, used in a specific string from a 26 letter alphabet, require censorship? Why is it that in most circumstances a male nipple is fine when a female nipple isn't?

On the other hand, there's forms of censorship I'm not opposed to. I mean, kids shouldn't be subjected to images of absolute horror, right? And I mean things worse than video game gore, you know. Things that can terrify kids psychologically.

Sometimes censorship does help in comedy, but for awhile I've been asking myself what its like being someone with the job of being a censor: There are people who get to hear the absolute best jokes you'll never hear on TV. And then there's the guy who has to stare at everyone's butts all day when censoring out the imagery in Naked & Afraid. You know, we all like to pretend that guy's job really sucks, but, I'm pretty sure that guy loves going into work every day.

[RobertBMarks]

I live in Canada, which is a country where free speech is protected, with the exception of hate speech. So, there are limitations. I am also the father of two children (my daughter is 3, my son is a newborn).

And my answer is no. Just, no.

Behind censorship is this distrust of the reader or viewer, and in my experience it is almost never warranted. Aside from which, it is my decision what I consume, and curating material for my children is my job as a parent, not some government agency's.

That said, curation is important. There's been a rash of pedophiliac books making their way into school libraries, and pedophiles have been trying to push the victim narrative in an effort to gain acceptance (and I pray to God it doesn't work). And, there is no world in which a school library should be used to groom future victims for pedophiles. But there's a big difference between deciding that a work is not appropriate for a school library and that nobody should be allowed to ever read it at all.

That further said, freedom of speech means that somebody can't prevent you from saying something - it doesn't mean that anybody is required to help you. Publishers have the right to nope out on content they find objectionable, and that does not constitute censorship.

And that's what I think.

[deesparta208]

This is one of those questions where you answer one way or another and you can go down a slippery slope. Censoring art silences the voice of an artist. When would it be appropriate to silence someone? Hate crimes and bigotry are issues that shouldn't be encouraged. Yet if you silence hate crimes and bigotry, those who use art to speak against it could be silenced for their portrayals of how evil hate crimes are.

Art can be controversial and make an impact in society. Art can challenge people and their beliefs. It can be used to uplift and to harm. Who decides if it is uplifting or harmful?

In 2017 in Little Rock, Arkansas, USA, there was a protest of a 2015 policy that allowed for a monument of the 10 commandments. The Satanic Temple brought in a statue of Baphomet to protest the state government allowing for the 10 commandments be placed at the state capital.

If evangelicals wanted to have their ten commandments on a state monument, the Satanists said that they too can provide a monument that represents them. No matter what your personal religious beliefs are you can't have only one side represented and silence the other. Allow both or remove both, that is really the fair option. So do you silence the artists who made both monuments or accept that both belong?

In the southern states in America there is controversy over monuments and statues of people who supported and fought for slavery. Protestors have forcefully removed some. Some cities and states are leaving these symbols of slavery and oppression up, and others are removing them and putting them in like a museum.

I feel that there is a place for these confederate monuments. No they shouldn't be celebrated or treated like heroes. However we need to remember our past and hope we learn from it. So these monuments should be kept some place safe away in like a museum.

All in all I feel that we should accept that there is art that we may or may not like or approve of. Censoring Art is not good.

[BoomerZ]

Just going to throw this out there to the people that in this thread said they support free speech but not hate speech. You don't support free speech. Speech you agree with doesn't need protecting, the stuff that is disagreeable does. And before anyone uses the "what if you threaten some one or call for the death of someone" example. That is a call to action, that is assault. That is covered by the law already. That is why nazi, black panthers and the like can have parades, their freedom of speech is absolute just like yours. (this is an american thing. no country other than america has this absolute)

[NickRowler]

Hate speech isn't "stuff you disagree with".

So it's difficult because of the "tolerance paradox". I don't want people to be marching around on youtube wearing swastikas and encouraging people to oppress others, because I fear what tolerance of that intolerance would lead to...

This statement.
People should not have to tolerate people who are intolerant. This isn't Merry Christmas vs Happy Holiday disagreement, it's people who speak ill of social minorities because they don't want those people to have rights or even exist.

Nazis are not good people at all, that is not a difference of opinion. Why should people tolerate them if their whole platform is hating everyone.

[BoomerZ]

In other words "free speech for speech I agree with". That's a slippery slope you are living on...

[TheLemmaLlama]

We associate the word 'art' with positive connotations and 'censorship' with negative ones, so I feel like a lot of us have the instinctive reaction of 'no, art should never be censored!' that we wouldn't otherwise have if it were phrased differently ^^; But yeah, it depends on what you count as 'censorship' - and I don't believe art (however you define it) should be given special treatment above any other forms of information.

I'm pro content warnings, like most people who commented this far. Some people say content warnings is censorship and bad for free speech, but I think content warnings can save free speech. We can apply content warnings liberally with little to no consequence if we go overboard and mislabel something (we can just unlabel it) - the same cannot be said if we destroy content that didn't need to be destroyed. If we label potentially harmful content clearly with the ways they might be harmful, then we don't need to destroy the content or prevent it from being created. It will protect information from being lost.

I'm generally against destroying content. I said somewhere else that I think all content should be allowed to exist, even if some of it should be buried under a mountain of content warnings, but on second thought I think there are some exceptions. If the content was created by harming real people, I think it should be destroyed if the victim(s) request it.

cw: pedophilia, CP

I'm against preventing people from or attacking people for creating content, as long as they're not doing something else that's harmful even if they weren't creating content. Exploitative photographs of real children should never be tolerated, even if it's just, say, from a nudist colony. If you want to make art of nude children, draw them yourself and make sure it doesn't resemble any real child you've seen.

Illustrated/simulated CP depends on what the science says about whether or not it makes pedophiles more likely to offend. I disagree with antis that say it shouldn't be allowed and anyone who makes/consumes it needs to kill themselves and it doesn't matter if they never hurt real children because it's still gross. But I also think people who say 'illustrated CP is okay because real children weren't hurt from making it' are being a bit irresponsible; we're just not sure what effects it has on people. Everyone's just shouting 'it causes CSA' and 'it prevents CSA' and I feel like both sides have an agenda. What does the science actually say? We need to study this WAAAAY more.

And by the way, 'pedophiles pushing the victim narrative for acceptance' is mostly about non-offending pedophiles who never want to hurt a minor (or put books featuring CSA into school libraries) trying to tell people they're not monsters because bad thoughts go through their heads. Even if you disregard the 'victim narrative' (honestly though, how would you feel if you were stuck with an attraction that's never okay to act on?), acceptance of them would allow more of them to come out to and let researchers and scientists study them, which will allow us to lean more about pedophilia. If protecting children is more important to you than hating on bad people, then you should support this.

Curation/what people allow in the spaces they control is a bit muddier, in a world where everything is owned by someone. In my ideal world, everyone will have a small space they have complete control over, where they can banish anyone for doing anything they find objectionable for any reason, where they can feel secure. And the rest of the world will be owned by no-one and anyone can say anything (provided they warn others of what they're about to say beforehand if it's something that could hurt people). But when all our public spaces are owned privately, 'their platform their rules' can very much end up being suppressive in practice.

For instance, I think nazis etc can have parades as long as they are surrounded by people holding signs that say something like (CW: nazism, antisemitism, homophobia, [whatever else nazis yell about at their parades idk I've never watched one]). Which I think by itself will eliminate harm caused by nazi parades just as effectively as outright banning them, because who's going to take them seriously with that preamble?

[UrMom]

Anti-censorship for pretty much any art, I couldn't care less what kind of fictional stuff people make because it's such a grey area, and I'm not a mental health professional having direct sessions with that person to determine their mental state. It's absolutely none of my business what anyone draws and writes about. I've also already wrote a good chunk on my thoughts revolving around more transgressive fiction. On the other hand sexual and violent stuff involving real people (Referential drawings and photography) who are not consenting, children always being non-consenting, I'm on the fence about. Yeah, it's actual exploitation material and shouldn't exist, but it's existence can also be used as evidence to help convict the crimes being committed. People don't realize that if you dogpile a piece of legit dangerous content into obscurity you make it harder to catch the criminal, which makes an already difficult thing to get the pigs/cops to care about even harder, allowing the person to continue their crap in a more hidden location.

Again, I don't want that stuff to exist, it's terrible and disgusting! But policing it by just now allowing it to be shown won't help the bigger issue, people like that always find ways to distribute their stuff in that case.

[Ordinaryaverageguy]

Well, one might ask what, exactly, does your question mean by "censored". Often the word means something as common as preventing small children from viewing material they cannot deal with. Or it can be as extreme as book burnings and jail time for the artist. Each person answering your question has their own idea of what they think you're asking & what they think others are answering, but they may be wrong.

[river121693]

here's no broad "should" or "should not" for art censorship. You need to look at specific cases-- it's an issue of artistic meaning, context, institutional power, and platform. I work in the Museum field and the conversation surrounding how monuments of racist leaders were being vandalized by protesters in the US a few years ago really highlighted the complexity of "censorship."

In my opinion these vandalized monuments would, ideally, be removed from public spaces and re-contextualize within museums with the vandalism and protest as a part of its new meaning. I wanted this to happen because as public monuments to racists, these artworks empowers White Supremacists while at the same time disempowers marginalized people. If taking the statue away from a public place and/or recontextualizing an art piece is "censorship" then I am pro-censorship in this case.

Which leads to a more important point-- censorship is also often an issue of platform/ space. Unlike some people who saw the irreparable damages done to these statues as another form of "censorship." I am ok with their vandalism because 1) these monuments belong to dominant history; U.S institutions have given the stories behind these monuments so much platform tat their destructions do little to erase their story. Eeryone knows who Columbus is; tearing down his statues won't change that. 2) These monuments take up space that could belong to other stories that were "censored" by virtue of being left out of histories. People were up in arms about how protesters were destroying the "histories" represented by these monuments, but they never considered that these protesters' histories weren't represented by any monuments. Their act of vandalism is an act of monument-building in itself.

To be straight forward, these monuments were given their platform by a bunch of powerful White men a long time ago to forward a White Supremacist agenda. These men also actively deplatform stories of any marginalized groups, which in itself is an act of censorship. When talking about censorship, it's important to consider what power gives the art platform, what has already been platformed, and what has already been censored.