AMERICAN THEATRE: Last October, I had the chance to attend the annual Freedom Awards, hosted by the National Civil Rights Museum. The 2024 honorees were civil rights attorney Sherrilyn Ifill, civil rights leader Xernona Clayton, and filmmaker Spike Lee. In all of the remarks and speeches that evening, it became even clearer to me that for every movement, there must be a countermovement. This is how we truly balance the scales of justice in the United States of America. We put pressure on systems, and practices change, then laws follow suit. It is in alignment with the order of operations of the universe: Be, do, have.
1 comment:
This article has a common, and empowering, take on the role of the arts in a social revolution, though, from my experience, the take is overly idealistic. Though I agree with all the fears and ideals that were preached in this article, and I would love to live in a world where these moral ideals were prioritized within the arts, it is important to understand the position the US is in as a nation, and the fact that, in such situations, artistic expression is not the priority. The US is at a historical crossroads right now, and we are quickly approaching an fascist autocratic state. Much like 1930s Germany, 1910s Russia, and so many others, we are reaching a point where our rights, freedoms, and lives are going to be at the mercy of a government we have no control over, and it may be decades before we can enjoy the benefits of the freedom of expression again. In such times, censorship of the performing arts tends to occur regardless of the ideals of the artists, as both a matter of safety, and of preserving more secretive methods of distributing revolutionary artwork. I say this as someone whose family came from the Soviet Union. My mother had never experienced free theatre until she came to the US, nor had my grandmothers, and my great grandparents died without ever seeing it. However, my cousins, who have never been to the US, born in the same town as my mother, have seen plenty of free theatre, as they were born in the free nation of Ukraine. I'm not saying we should succumb to censorship, and it is important to preserve the freedom of speech for as long as we can, but it is inevitable that the arts are going to be censored to a point where fighting it becomes a fatal risk, and it is important to remember that art will return once freedom is restored.
Post a Comment