Back in the day, Allen Ginsberg's controversial and epic poem, "Howl", went to court for being considered obscene. Eventually, Ginsberg won the case and the poem was ruled not obscene. Hurray! Well, fast forward 50 years later and uh oh, apparently now it is. This, my friends, is very sad news indeed.
From The San Fransisco Chronicle:
Fifty years ago today, a San Francisco Municipal Court judge ruled that Allen Ginsberg's Beat-era poem "Howl" was not obscene. Yet today, a New York public broadcasting station decided not to air the poem, fearing that the Federal Communications Commission will find it indecent and crush the network with crippling fines.
Free-speech advocates see tremendous irony in how Ginsberg's epic poem - which lambastes the consumerism and conformism of the 1950s and heralds a budding American counterculture - is, half a century later, chilled by a federal government crackdown on the broadcasting of provocative language.
More here.
No comments:
Post a Comment