Megan Mullen writes [regarding a NYT article I transcribed and posted last night; I'll send it to anyone who missed it by e-mail] >Why "no comment," Doug? The NYT article you refer to certainly does >*not* speak for itself; in fact it strikes me as being shamefully >manipulative. In *today's* NYT I read about Michael Moore's new film, >*Canadian Bacon* -- a futuristic political satire in which Canada is >the United States' new post-cold war antagonist. Moore apparently is >incorporating fictional red scare-reminiscent propaganda that sounds >eerily like yesterday's NYT "news" to *spoof* the ways in which wartime >paranoia is generated. Canada, like any other country, has its >bureaucratic hypocrisies. This particular anecdote seems to me to have >a parallel in the fact that Americans wishing to read *Cine Cubano* film >journal must receive it *via Canada*. That's *my* commentary. Well, I can only tell you why I found the article noteworthy for members of this group. I did not state that the article "spoke for itself," whatever that means. Censorship of "offensive" media & works of art has been increasing recently in both the U. S. and Canada. This censorship takes many forms and comes from many quarters. (At UW-Madison last year, we had an uproar when several students in a film/video production course complained to the Dean about having to watch another student's "offensive" project in class.) As academics who teach various types of audiovisual media and artworks, I think that we need to be aware of this threat. The Trent University/Duras case struck me as a particularly egregious, though hardly isolated, example of a disturbing trend, one that all film/TV/media teachers/scholars should know about. I also found this article strong evidence for my belief that efforts by progressive intellectuals to endow the state with ever greater power to censor "offensive" media & works of art in the name of "protecting" oppressed groups are both misguided and dangerous. Such laws usually get used in ways that those progressive intellectuals did not intend. I received an e-mail message from a Canadian friend last night thanking me for sending along the article and pointing out to me that Canadian anti-pornography laws have been widely employed to target gay and lesbian bookstores. Many screen-l participants may not share this view, and I would be glad to debate it via e-mail. My posting was not intended to belittle Canada and, by implication, laud the United States as a bastion of enlightened tolerance and free artistic expression. As countless recent cases (the Mapplethorpe exhibit in Cincinnati & the UW video production class, to take two widely removed examples) have shown, this same crackdown on "offensive" or "obscene" art continues apace in the United States. Those who know me will, I hope, be amused by this apparent accusation that I am an apologist for United States government policy. Doug Riblet University of Wisconsin--Madison [log in to unmask]