Time Immortal

Especially since they don’t seem to notice the soft, subtle “censorship” (by their definition) of artist-run peer-review grant funding groups:

Independent filmmaker Garth Pritchard is having some fun dreaming up gag titles for his next documentary on Canada’s troops in Afghanistan. So far he’s had to find his own funding, but other Canadian filmmakers making soft porn seem to be getting government grants.

“Maybe if I called my next film Red Light Districts of Kabul or Young Soldiers F-ing, I could get a government grant,” jokes Pritchard, referring to films that received taxpayer funding entitled Red Light Districts of the World, where viewers are treated to the spectacle of prostitutes shooting bananas from between their legs, and Young People Fucking. And while Pritchard chuckles at his own joke, the reality of what he’s saying is not funny.

Arts funding has become a huge federal election issue, particularly in Quebec. Artists and opposition politicians have been attacking Prime Minister for cutting arts and culture funding, despite increases for the major arts agencies.

The artists and the politicians say the Harper government is “censoring artists” by cutting $45 million from some programs. Obviously, not funding something is not censorship. The artist is free to find another donor and create art.

But if cutting off or not providing public funding is their definition of censorship, let’s use it. What none of these artists ever mention is that perhaps the biggest censors of all are the “artists” who dole out taxpayers’ money.

What most Canadians don’t recognize is that many government grant decisions are made by artists who sit on various boards. For instance, in the case of the Canada Council for the Arts, grant decisions are peer-reviewed, which means incestuous relationships often develop between grant clients. One peer doesn’t want to turn down John’s wonky idea because John might be sitting in judgment the next year. So there is a tendency for outsiders like Pritchard who don’t fit the artsy template to get excluded.

This is especially true if Pritchard wants to portray Canadian troops in a positive, or even just in an honest, light. “Art” is a broadly-defined category at the best of times, but the majority of Canadian ‘artists’ seem to accept and promote the funding of only a very narrow range of views. That which doesn’t fit the narrative is not funded.

Now, the denial of funding, as Licia Corbella (the columnist) points out, is not the same thing as censoring. But then, Canadian artists really haven’t the first clue what censorship looks, feels, or tastes like. Few if any of them have had to put up with the same sort of persecution that artists in other countries — Denmark, and various states in the Middle East and Africa — have faced. Few if any of them have lost their lives for producing something “controversial”…mostly because they only attack “safe” targets in the first place (or as others have said: “Rome doesn’t issue fatwas”).

But if Canadian artists — or, at least, the vocal, politically active ones — want to equate “not funding” with “Censorship,” they might do well to look in the mirror.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!