UNT Dean Cites Politics As Reason Behind Canceled Victor Quiñonez Show

www.artnews.com: The decision to cancel a solo exhibition featuring anti-ICE art at the University of North Texas art school was an “institutional directive,” Dean Karen Hutzel said in newly leaked transcripts of a faculty meeting. First reported by the Denton Record-Chronicle, the transcripts show Hutzel declining to identify the directive’s source while warning colleagues to expect a “media storm.”

Text Messages Reveal How University of Texas Leaders Axed an Anti-ICE Show

hyperallergic.com: Weeks after the University of North Texas (UNT) abruptly axed an exhibition of works criticizing the treatment of immigrants in the United States, newly obtained internal communications show how university administrators deliberated their controversial action.

David Fincher Lashes Out Over Chinese Censorship of ‘Fight Club’

www.thewrap.com: Though the original ending of “Fight Club” has been restored on Chinese streamer Tencent Video, director David Fincher is still baffled as to why it was ever changed in the first place.

The Rise of Artistic Censorship on College Campuses Should Worry the American Public

Artsy: Artistic freedom protects high and low art alike; notions of “good taste” and artistic worthiness are the realm of the artist or curator, not the bureaucrat. But at a number of American universities, controversy has been acting as the curator, leading to the degradation of both freedom of speech and students’ ability to interact with challenging artwork.

What Is Censorship? The Tale of Michael Weller's "Buyer Beware"

www.clydefitchreport.com: Yesterday morning I read up on Brandeis University’s decision to cancel a production of Michael Weller’s new play, Buyer Beware. Or at least that’s how the Boston Globe framed its reporting, echoed by The New York Times. I discovered later, however, that while the Globe’s headline clearly aimed to do what a good headline does — quicken the pulse — to characterize the matter as “Brandeis cancels play amid protests over racism” feels more a case of spin than spleen. I write this post as we mark one year since the US elected the single greatest purveyor of false narratives since P.T. Barnum started counting suckers. The Brandeis-Weller brouhaha should remind us that narratives, whether false or shaded, don’t just bubble up from the D.C. swamp. They happen in the arts, too.

When A Censored Play Was Already In Violation of Copyright

Arts Integrity Initiative: The shutting down of a high school play at East Newton High School in Granby, Missouri last week may have set a new low in bad timing for such incidents. The show was not canceled after casting, during rehearsals, just prior to opening night or following the first performance. No, at East Newton the show was canceled roughly 10 minutes into the second act on its first night. Why? Because two parents, watching the show, demanded that their child be pulled off the stage.

IMDb Sues to Invalidate California's Actor Age Censorship Law

Hollywood Reporter: IMDb is suing California Attorney General Kamala Harris to protect its right to post actors' ages on their profiles.

A complaint filed Thursday in California federal court aims to overturn Assembly Bill 1687, which requires IMDb.com to remove the ages or birth dates of public figures in the entertainment industry on its site upon request.

Hollywood Studios Beat Lawsuit Over PG and PG-13 Films Featuring Smoking

Hollywood Reporter: The Motion Picture Association of America and the National Association of Theatre Owners have come out victorious in a lawsuit that insisted that tobacco imagery in films rated G, PG or PG-13 causes 200,000 children every year to become cigarette smokers and 64,000 people to die as a result. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg dismissed an attempt led by a California father of two to hold major film studios and theater owners legally responsible.

Why I Left My Dream Job at Second City

Chicago magazine | Arts & Culture October 2016: Just let it go, do not engage him. He cannot hurt you.

That’s what I kept telling myself as I stumbled backstage. I had less than 3 minutes to change into my costume for the next scene. A cretin in the audience had just spewed racist rhetoric, and now I had to dress in full drag and wax poetic about gender fluidity and the dangers of privilege. Lucky me.

In Oregon, Theatre and Bookstore Clash Over Free Speech & Racial Awareness

Arts Integrity Initiative: To be clear from the very start, two points. Judi Honoré, the owner of Shakespeare Books & Antiques in Ashland, Oregon, has every right to display anything she chooses in the window of, or for that matter anywhere in, her store. The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, also located in Ashland, Oregon, has every right as an organization to express its institutional opinion about events locally or nationally as it sees fit, and to align its business practices accordingly.

Famous movies that have been banned around the world

Business Insider: If you ever question the power of cinema, all you need to do is check out the movies that have been banned in different areas of the world over the past 100-plus years to reaffirm the grip the medium has on people. Whether it be for political reasons ("The Great Dictator," "Zoolander"), religious reasons ("The Last Temptation of Christ"), or just because of the use of specific colors ("The Simpsons Movie"), all kinds of movies have been blocked from being shown based on some perceived offense

California Censors IMDB Because of Hollywood’s Alleged Ageism

Hit & Run : Reason.com: California Gov. Jerry Brown has only a couple of days left to decide whether he's going to sign or veto an important reform bill that would seriously reduce the ability of local law enforcement agencies to abuse the asset forfeiture process to seize and keep millions of dollars from citizens without having to prove they've committed a crime.

New California Law Attempts To Fight Hollywood Ageism By Censoring Third-Party Websites

Techdirt: Actress Junie Hoang may have lost her legal battle against IMDb for revealing her age, but the California Assembly is ensuring she'll win the war. Hoang sued IMDb for $1 million, claiming the publication of facts without her permission had resulted in her being a victim of Hollywood ageism. IMDb won the lawsuit, but Governor Jerry Brown has just signed a bill into law that will prevent sites like IMDb from publishing actors' ages.

“Offend and Apologize” Doesn’t Benefit The Arts

Arts Integrity Initiative: In recent years, it’s been suggested that some companies and organizations have intentionally caused upset through a statement or product, only to quickly recant, for the express purpose of getting two press “hits” out of one incident, in the process demonstrating their responsiveness to their customers or the population at large. As a one-time publicist, admittedly in the lower-stakes world of not-for-profit theatre, I’ve never been entirely convinced that this is a valid or even calculated strategy, or that it benefits the “offender” in any way.

How “N*W*C” Became Drama Non Grata On A California State Campus

Arts Integrity Initiative: To start at the end, or at least where we are today: Michele Roberge, executive director of the Carpenter Performing Arts Center on the campus of California State University, has resigned, effective yesterday. Why? Because the school’s president, Jane Close Conoley, insisted upon the cancelation of Roberge’s booking of the comedy N*gger Wetb*ck Ch*nk, a show that has toured extensively for more than a decade to performing arts centers on and off college campuses. In fact, it played to a sold out house of more than 1,000 seats last year at the Carpenter Center. When Conoley raised a red flag earlier this year, Roberge made it known that if Conoley forced the cancelation, she would resign on principle. And so when the axe fell, she did.

If You Build A Censorship Machine, They Will Come

Electronic Frontier Foundation: If you have the power to censor other people’s speech, special interests will try to co-opt that power for their own purposes. That’s a lesson the Motion Picture Association of America is learning this year. And it’s one that Internet intermediaries, and the special interests who want to regulate them, need to keep in mind.

Studios Focus on Opinionated Nature of Movie Ratings in Smoking-in-Films Lawsuit

Hollywood Reporter: The Motion Picture Association of America is offering a full-throated defense that movie ratings are protected under the First Amendment. On Thursday, the trade association and their member studios discussed in a court brief the way that ratings are registered as trademarks and emphasized the subjective nature of ratings. The filing is the latest in a putative class action that blames Hollywood for smoking-related deaths and demands that any film featuring tobacco imagery not be given "G," "PG" or "PG-13" ratings.

Marc Jacobs NYFW Controversy: Full Story, Must-See Details

collegecandy.com: A Marc Jacobs fashion show has once again come under fire due to claims of cultural appropriation. Are we sensing a trend yet? In the past, at Jacobs’ Spring 2015 show, the models walked the runway sporting Bantu knots. They were said to be inspired by singer Bjork, completely ignoring the fact that Bantu knots have been a staple in black hair culture for years.

Theater Director at Cal State-Long Beach Quits After Racially Charged Play Is Canceled

The Ticker - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education: Michele Roberge resigned this week as theater director at California State University at Long Beach after 14 years in the post, the Long Beach Press-Telegram reports. Her resignation followed a disagreement with administrators over whether the university’s performing-arts center should host the racially charged play N*gger Wetb*ck Ch*nk.

From the Executive Director: Dirty Words

Theatre Bay Area: Early in the spring, conversations began to circulate around a local upcoming production of The Mikado by Lamplighters Music Theatre. In the past few years the Gilbert and Sullivan favorite has become a touchstone for protest and controversy. A Seattle production in 2014 inflamed and bitterly divided the city's artistic community, drawing attention from the national press.