The NEA gets gay-bashed - National Endowment for the Arts

J. Jennings Moss

Once again the National

Endowment for the Arts is

under attack. And once again it

is projects with a clear gay and

lesbian bent that are in

flaming conservatives on Capitol Hill.

"I was shocked that taxpayer money

had been used to support the production

of this film," wrote Rep. Peter Hoekstra

in a January 16 letter to NEA

chairwoman Jane Alexander. The film in

question--Cheryl Dunye's

award-winning The Watermelon

Woman--is one of several gay- and

lesbian-themed works cited by the

Michigan Republican as evidence of "the

serious possibility that taxpayer money

is being used to fund the production and

distribution of patently offensive and

possibly pornographic movies."

Hoekstra says he plans to delve into the

NEA's operations with hearings later this

year.

At risk is the agency's very existence.

After years of bashing the agency when

Democrats controlled Congress,

Republicans shifted to a more direct

strategy of attempting to dismantle it

when they assumed the majority in 1995.

When lawmakers were handing out

dollars last year, they gave the NEA a

$99.5-million appropriation--a far cry from its top

appropriation of nearly $176 million in

fiscal 1992. House Republicans thought

it would be the last pot of money the

NEA would get; they expected to kill the

agency during the fiscal 1998 budget

cycle.

The difference this time, however, is

that it seems President Clinton is willing

to spend political capital to save the

agency. "Instead of cutting back on our

modest efforts to support the arts and

humanities, I believe we should stand by

them," Clinton said during his State of

the Union address February 4. And on

February 25 Hillary Rodham Clinton

said that the president wants Congress to

spend more on the arts and humanities

even as he moves toward a balanced

budget. "It's something we feel very

strongly about," she said.

In his own fiscal 1998 budget, Clinton

is proposing spending $136 million for

the NEA. So far, Republicans are being

cautious with their response. "It's a new

Congress, and we have to look at what

the will of this majority is," says Barbara

Wainman, a top aide to Rep. Ralph

Regula, an Ohio Republican. Regula is

chairman of the House appropriations

subcommittee, which has jurisdiction

over the NEA.

Meanwhile, Hoekstra and his

allies are on the warpath, and they're

finding ammunition in the 25th

anniversary catalog of Women Make

Movies Inc., an independent producer

and distributor of films and videotapes

that received about $112,700 in NEA

grants over three years. Besides The

Watermelon Woman, Hoekstra's letter

cites catalog listings for Seventeen

Rooms, a comedy about what lesbians do

in bed; Ten Cents a Dance, a three-part

film that includes a segment depicting

anonymous bathroom sex between two

men; and BloodSisters, a

look at the lesbian S/M community.

"I do not believe the above videos, as

described, are the type of `art' Congress

intended to fund through the NEA,"

Hoekstra said in the letter. "In fact, these

listings have the appearance of a veritable

`taxpayer funded peep show.'"

A spokesman for Hoekstra said that

what made the projects objectionable

wasn't gay themes but depictions of

explicit sex. Indeed, one reviewer

described The Watermelon Woman as

having "the hottest dyke sex scene ever

recorded on celluloid."

To ward off such criticism, the NEA

restructured itself last year so that rather

than giving funding to arts groups to

spend on a variety of projects, it now

awards grants for specific projects. Still,

critics will be looking closely in April

when the NEA announces most of its

grants for 1997 to see if "objectionable"

items continue to receive funds.

And just as those grants are

announced, committees in the House and

Senate will be meeting to determine how

much--if any--money the NEA should

get in fiscal 1998. "For the NEA, it's a

life-and-death battle," says Matthew

Freeman, senior vice president of People

for the American Way, a Washington,

D.C.-based civil rights group. "If it ends

up being a battle where the only troops

brought to the battlefield are from

right-wing organizations, then the NEA is

going to be in for a difficult fight."

COPYRIGHT 1997 Liberation Publications, Inc.
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