Censorship

(Open Casket by Dana Schutz)

The controversial topic of censorship has been around with people always having the argument of a piece of art, film, musical piece, and other forms of media. Mainly censorship is wanted for media being too sexual, crude, or violent, but rarely have I seen art wanting to be taken down due to the claims of racial injustice. Dana Schutz is a white American painter who painted the photo above depicting the open casket of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy in 1955 who was accused of whistling at a white woman in Mississipi. Emmett was kidnapped by the woman's husband and his half-brother and mutilated, such as gouging his eyes out, beating him, gunshot to the head, and other body mutilation. Emmett's body was found three days later in the Tallahatchie River where his body was tied to a cotton gin by barbed wire. The biggest controversy was when the killers were tried, they were found innocent even though all the jury was white which could be how they were able to get away with the crime. The painting is relating to Emmett's mother who wanted to have an open casket funeral to show everyone the true horrors of racism.

So the controversy is coming from the painting in the Whitney Biennial Museum by a white woman, Dana Schutz. The argument is that a white person is profiting off the death of Emmett Till. Brittish Artist Hannah Black wants the painting removed from the Whitney claiming that this is a white woman benefitting from the hardships of racism, even though Schutz has claimed that this painting will never be for sale, and she also has two other paintings in the Whitney, trying to relay the message that she is not using this painting for fame. Protestors have been coming to the museum to block the painting with the shirt reading, "Black Death Spectacle".

My Opinion

I don't exactly know how I feel about this controversial painting. I know using the death of Emmett Till for self-gain is wrong, but I'm not sure Dana Schutz was going for that approach. I feel that she was using this painting to raise awareness of the true horrors of racism as if she wanted the world to see the possibilities of racism and how barbaric the human race could be just 61 years ago. The real question I wanted to ask is how this painting would be if the artist was black? Would there be protests? Would there be a belief that the artist was trying to benefit off racism? I feel that this painting should stay because of the message it was trying to send. When I mentioned this controversy to my friends some of them didn't even know Emmett Till's story. I believe that if we take this painting at face value, we would see the lesson that we all should learn from Emmett. This isn't the first time Emmett Till's death has been formed into media. One of my favorite books of all time, Harper Lee's, "To Kill a Mockingbird", has many ties with the injustice Emmett's mother received when the killers were found innocent.

In Conclusion

I believe that the painting should stay just so people will be more educated on racism. I've always had difficulty defining what should be censored when viewing art, film, music, plays, and literature because that form of media was created by someone and silencing someone's creativity due to an outside party looking in and deeming it unacceptable would be an injustice to freedom of expression. As always, feel free to share your thoughts and opinion on this topic and if you enjoyed reading this share with your friends to find out their opinion on this matter.