A Head Too Far

June 1, 2017

So, everyone’s freaking out. Kathy Griffin, always on the leading edge of the shock entertainment genre, posted an image of herself holding a fake bloody Donald Trump severed head. So, everyone’s fucking freaking out.

The right, the alt-right, the left, the independents, even the apathetic are all shocked and aghast. Always a class act, the Donald took issue by leveraging his adolescent son’s feelings – nice touch. Even, Anderson Cooper offered his disgust, for the record. Twitter’s condemned Griffin; advertisers have abandoned her and CNN dumped her from their New Year’s Eve show. The internet, not exactly known for its excess of good taste, has taken to 7/24 shaming Kathy for her poor taste – how’s that for ironic?

So, the gentle people who didn’t mind photoshops of Obama burned/hung/shot find this picture too much? And mainstream news, the bunch who showed us an actual beheading, feel this goes too far? The apolitical and indifferent are taking a break from re-watching season six of Game of Thrones to express their self-righteous indignation?

What a crock. The only thing she did wrong was to apologize. Either we have free speech of we don’t – there’s no in-between.

I’ve got to agree with her photographer, Tyler Shields, when he said he was aware that it could make some people uncomfortable, but stated “That’s what art is meant to do. Some people look at it and they love it. Some people look at it and they hate it…. It’s a very touchy subject… but this is not real. We didn’t kill anybody…”

Good point, whereas missiles, kicking people off medical insurance and indulging Nazis does kill people.

It’s a little surprising that it took two-hundred-five days, since the election, for art to become this confrontational. Artists tend to show us what they see – in metaphor for the sake of the story, but, unlike The Apprentice, reality based.

If the republic is unhappy with what our artists show us, perhaps we should consider what we show our artists.

In Peace and Justice,
osv