MINISTER DENIES HOMOPHOBIA
Lulu Xingwana
The Minister of Arts and Culture, Lulu Xingwana, has denied that her recent walkout of an art exhibition was motivated by homophobia.
In a statement, Xingwana described media reports on the incident at the Innovative Women exhibition in Johannesburg as “mischievous, deliberately misleading and avoiding the facts”.
She said that her reaction to the photographic images – which she described as “crude misrepresentations of women” – at the exhibition “was guided by the view that these ‘artworks’ were not suitable for a family audience”, adding that she noticed that there were children as young as three in the room.
“I was not aware of the sexual orientation of the pictures or the artists and my reaction was not based on anti-gay sentiments as implied in some media reports on the matter,” said Xingwana.
“I …would not, for any reason, be part of any tendencies that undermine the rights of people. I accept and respect the rights of people of different sexual orientation. The claims that I am homophobic are baseless and insulting to me,” said the minister.
She added that she had “not imposed censorship on any artists and the funding polices of my Ministry and Department are very clear”.
Finally, Xingwana called for a “long overdue debate” on what is art and where the line between art and pornography should be drawn.
“South Africans last engaged in such a debate before the democratic era. It is time that we open this discussion in the context of moral regeneration, social cohesion and nation building,” she concluded.
Well-saved. I think that sometimes people are over-sensitive and jump to conclusions too eagerly.
The original report only had the ministress claiming that the artworks were ‘pornographic’, nothing more, nothing less. How this equates to homophobia I don’t know.
Unfortunately, as is sadly the case for journalism these days, the full context is not given; only that quote. The general public thus has to trust that the journalist’s conclusion is indeed what the ministress meant.
Later in the article, an uncited report is given that the department tried to stop the display of naked lesbian images. One needs to ask why? Was it because they were images of naked people, images of lesbians or because they were pictures of lesbians who were also naked. There is not enough information to decide.
If you take the Ministress’ comments in this article, then she doesn’t have to be homophobic to be offended. There’s nothing unconstitutional about being offended by nudity. And in the ministress’ defence, if the exhibition was intended to be viewed by members of all ages, then the artist should have been a bit more conservative in her choice of art works.
Back to the original press-release though, I fail to see how nudity is “immoral, offensive and going against nation-building”. At most, the ministress could only say that the art was in bad taste considering the age of some of the audience.
Rob
Raise your hands if you believe her…… Thought so.
hahahahaha good point
homophobia or????. she just imposed her views not only on what is art and wht is suitable for children,…
i see a judgement in morality,sexuality and what art is,…
this is very scary!