Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
I thought Sen. Jesse Helms, the unreconstructed Southern ultra-conservative culture warrior and unapologetic redneck racist from North Carolina, died in 2003? Apparently his spirit is alive and well in Tucson.
"Senator No" was a culture warrior who excelled at wedge issue politics. One of Helm's favorite targets was federal funding for the National Endowment for the Arts.
I read in today's Arizona Daily Star that Tucson's Museum of Contemporary Art is defending itself in a preemptive press release against an attack ad apparently set to run soon against council members Nina Trasoff and Karin Uhlich. The attack ad focuses on an art exhibit that ran three years ago that allegedly featured "phallic imagery that some might consider pornographic." Art museum defends itself against critics of exhibit 3 years ago:
Richard Studwell, a local developer who has contributed funding to a campaign committee running independent ads against Trasoff and Uhlich, said the exhibit and the lease just show what's wrong with the current City Council.
"That's a really inappropriate display, and I don't know that that's necessarily the appropriate thing to be doing with taxpayer funds," he said.
What Richard Studwell (and Michael Goodman) are really upset about is that the Tucson City Council did not approve their plans to build mini-dorms in University of Arizona neighborhoods (which were strenuously objected to by neighborhood residents) – an important detail that Rhonda Bodfield failed to include in her report. Apparently Mr. Studwell doesn't see the irony in being a total dick and complaining about phallic symbols.
Ward 5 Republican council candidate Shaun McCluskey said:
"[T]he council needs to set better spending priorities. "I have an issue with some of the things being displayed openly in public. Is that something you want a 9-year-old to see?"
I am not aware that Mr. McCluskey has a 9-year-old. (Is he talking about that damn dog of his again?) The art exhibit presumably was indoors, inside the Museum of Contemporary Art. You had to take your 9-year-old inside to view it. For McCluskey to imply that the alleged "phallic imagery that some might consider pornographic" was "displayed openly in public" is disingenuous. If it had been, I am sure we would all have heard about it before now – at the time of the exhibit.
What's next Shaun? Are you going to put fig leafs on nude male statues, like Michaelangelo's David? Or put tunics on nude female statues? Or hide them behind a curtain like Attorney General John Ashcroft did with the statue of Justice? There are a several nude or semi-nude statues of public art in Tucson, so you had better get busy, Shaun.
The fall-back complaint is that the Museum of Contemporary Art has a lease for $1 a year from the city. There are several businesses downtown that have subsidized rent leases downtown. It is an economic incentive for businesses to locate downtown. Republicans are now opposed to economic redevelopment downtown? Republicans now want to chase businesses out of downtown?
What this attack ad is really all about is "culture war" wedge issue politics. Emulating Jesse Helms will only turn Tucsonans against the Republican candidates.
UPDATE 10/17/09: The Tucson Weekly weighs in with this blog post City Council Race: What's All This About Big Dicks?:
ArtNet checks in on Tucson's Big Dick #1 art scandal that's become a swelling controversy in this year's City Council race:
It is easily the most pathetic attempt to restart the Culture Wars yet. Republican politicians in Tucson, AZ, have put the local Museum of Contemporary Art in their crosshairs, attacking what they call a "sweetheart" deal the museum has with the city as it prepares to move into a new space in a repurposed firehouse. To whip up conservative ire, these same critics have resorted to that old standby, demonizing contemporary art as "pornographic" — though their chief example is a single work in a group show featured at the museum more than four years ago.
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Dr. James Dobson, popular conservative evangelist and child rearing “expert” on showing phalluses to children:
“…the boy’s father has to do his part. He needs to mirror and affirm his son’s maleness. He can play rough-and-tumble games with his son, in ways that are decidedly different from the games he would play with a little girl. He can help his son learn to throw and catch a ball. He can teach him to pound a square wooden peg into a square hole in a pegboard. He can even take his son with him into the shower, where the boy cannot help but notice that Dad has a penis, just like his, only bigger.”
From a newsletter produced by Dobson to help Christian parents determine if their sons were showing signs of budding homosexuality.