In the comments to A 63-year-old rap song. Noel Coward asks “What’s going to happen to the children when there aren’t any more grown-ups?” a discussion over the relative merits and/or demerits of homosexuality in art emerged. While a number of commenters were on point on either side of this issue, the central discussion concerned DeWitt and Barnhardt. Both are encouraged to reply in the comments here, but all are welcome as always.
UPDATE: Barnhardt begins at her page with Art Created By Homosexuals: A Tandem Post and Discussion at American Digest Blog | Barnhardt
“I am pleased to point one and all to a tandem post between Barnhardt.biz and Gerard VanderLeun’s blog, AmericanDigest.org . This post and conversation came about a couple of days ago in a comment thread under a post GvL made of a Noel Coward song. I actually linked to another Noel Coward song, “Let’s Don’t Be Beastly to the Germans” in the show notes of Barnhardt Podcast #051, and then GvL posted “What’s Going to happen to the children when there aren’t any more grown-ups?” – certainly an incredibly prescient question and diddy from some 60 years ago.
“I leave comments on blogs hardly ever, but I did leave a quick comment making the point that it is quite a commentary on today’s culture when a flamboyant sodomite == as Noel Coward was == displays the kind of virile moral leadership in calling out the descent of western culture that we can only FANTASIZE about today. Put another way, things said by queeny, British fags of 60 years ago are now so far to the ârightâ socially that they would be characterized by the howling moonbat SJWs as “fascist” or “Nazi” or whatever the non-sensical pejorative du jour is.”
The key question is this: Is it morally licit to consume art (music, painting, dance) that we know, after the fact, was made by sodomites? My thesis is this:
Consuming art created by sodomites is permissible so long as the art in question does not have a “sodomite aesthetic”, and does not point to nor glorify sexual perversion.
FROM THE COMMENTS:
RTWT @ Art Created By Homosexuals: A Tandem Post and Discussion at American Digest Blog | Barnhardt
A NOTE ON COMMENTS– DON’T PANIC. IT HAS NOT BEEN LOST: When discussing topics in the sexual realm the spam filter here can become quite persnickety. It MAY/MAYNOT place your comment in moderation and not immediately display it. When that happens I need to approve it manually. I check for these moderated comments several times a day and approve them and move them into the stream. I regret this happens but the spam filter is an imperfect robot.
Ann Barnhardt: Noel Coward was, of course, a sodomite. When the British fags of 60 years ago are a completely unrealistic fantasy of the kind of virile moral leadership we would like to see in today’s world… well, stay confessed, and as St. Peter said, “Be sober and watch…”
Rob De Witt: It is absolutely undeniable that if you demand a life absolutely free of homosexuals, you will condemn yourself and your loved ones to a life without art. For some of us, the necessity of including art in our daily lives has meant a lifetime of struggle against the narrow-minded philistines who raised us.
I sing classical music professionally in San Francisco. Do you have any idea of what that means, or will you willfully deny the evidence of your senses? I’ve known homosexuals of every stripe for 40 years; some of them have been honorable (if horribly misguided in my view) men and women who struggled to live an ethical life having been dealt a very painful and difficult hand. Some have been bitchy assholes who lived to share their misery with others. They’ve all recognized that I like girls, and some of them just couldn’t stand it.
Because I didn’t have a good place to start, I’ve had to decide for myself what matters, and what matters is getting as close as my talents will allow to the real thing, the highest level of music. I came here with a backpack and I’ve made it all up myself. I find myself at this age able to separate the art from the artist, but it’s been a long ride.
None of this is new; Mozart and Bach had to deal with homosexuals too, you know. Guys and girls who loudly insist that they’re “normal” are always the ones you learn not to trust because their fear of themselves makes them dangerous.
Ann Barnhardt: This question of homosexuals in art is a very good and worthwhile discussion. Might I recommend to GvL a separate post? It certainly isn’t limited to the 20th century – Tchaikovsky, Michelangelo (probably, but repented), really half of Renaissance Florence. I would submit that the moral licitness of consuming art created by sodomites (male and female) is contingent on the work itself – specifically, does the work put forward a “homosexual” esthetic or glorify sexual perversion in any way? The trouble with Noel Coward was that he was flamboyantly camp, and inspired “West End chorus boys” to act out in public. Does Dusty Springfield singing “Son of a Preacher Man” present or glorify a “lesbian esthetic”? I would say no, but it is worth discussion.
Rob De Witt: First of all…..
Ann, I’m flattered to begin a possible colloquy with you; I have long admired your work and your insistence on the truth. I too have become a Catholic – at age 66 – and your writing was a powerful influence. I completely agree that Noel Coward and his ilk are/were the perfect example of the English glorification of flamboyant homosexuality. It’s mostly just superficial and distasteful to me, and keep in mind this is the opinion of someone who has undoubtedly known more homosexuals than anybody you’ve met.
Beyond that, to all of you: I have been rescued from a life of pain and abuse by the music of J.S. Bach, a composer who dedicated his life and work to worship. When Johann Bach was satisfied with a piece of music, he wrote the letters SDG at the bottom of the page – Soli Deo Gloria – For the Glory of God Alone. Frankly, to compare this work and this world to the likes of Noel Coward and Kevin Spacey in any way is to resoundingly miss the point. It pleases me see that Paul Bois, in the piece linked by Bunny, sees this distinction clear, and has the humility to cite both St. John Paul II and the medieval artists who literally created the world we hope to save.
In my adult life, wherein I have become apparently the only self-taught musician in a world of family-supported, conservatory-trained artists, I have known a great many dedicated Bach proponents who were homosexual. What I know about singing Bach is that it only takes everything you’ve got, and no serious practitioner is superficial in any way I’ve been able to identify. Art on this level has saved my life, which was founded upon a childhood that more than one psychologist has told me was destined for self-destruction – “You have the background of a serial killer” was the final characterization. I thank God hourly for the ability and opportunity to hear the truth and to recognize the fraudulence of modern “culture,” which most certainly includes any and all television and any and all “music” since the dawn of rock-n-roll, which is transparently the glorification of the worst of Negro culture.
If Orwell’s notion that “all art is propaganda” is correct, then it’s necessary to recognize that the purpose of the “propaganda” of the Renaissance and the Baroque was to advertise and glorify the existence of God and the truth. Catholics recognize that some human beings are born with problems to address, among which is homosexuality. The issue is how that problem is expressed and hopefully solved. It’s a knotty problem, and one I’m grateful I don’t have to deal with.
Gerard Van der Leun
(Cross-posted at Barnhardt.biz with video citations)
The first point that needs to be addressed is the notion that almost no art today is produced without the involvement of sodomites or other sex perverts, whether it be in production, set building, backing or orchestral musicians, etc. My answer goes directly back to my original thesis: the issue is whether or not the art itself projects an aesthetic of sexual perversion, or points to or is perverse and obscene. Can I promise you that every contractor or laborer that worked on the building or remodeling of the house I live in was sexually normal and pure? Of course not. If the man who installed the bathroom tile were a sex pervert, how could I know that, and even if I somehow did, does that mean I should move out of my house? Well, not unless he arranged the bathroom tiles in the shape of a phallus. In exactly the same way, we can’t know who every orchestral musician or set builder was, but what we can know is whether or not the ART ITSELF points to or glorifies sodomy.
And, as an aside, this is why you get your house blessed by a priest early and often – at least once per year at either Epiphany or Easter. Not only is the sacramental a conduit of grace, but it also gives one peace of mind. And, may I just ask, have you ever slept in a hotel? At this point, every hotel room in the western world is pretty much guaranteed to be a crime scene – because remember, sodomy is a crime.
This reminds me of the heresy of Donatism, which is a MASSIVE problem in The Church today. Many very pious people are tempted to believe that the interior state of the soul of the priest determines whether or not the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is offered. Hence, many people fall into the heretical trap that all Masses and sacraments performed by sodomite priests (or heterosexual fornicator priests, etc.) are invalid, and that any priest in the state of mortal sin is incapable of confecting the Eucharist. This is, of course, TOTALLY WRONG. Considering that it is, by definition, impossible for any of us to know the state of the soul of anyone else, much less a priest, how IN THE WORLD could Jesus Christ hold us responsible for that, and how could Jesus Christ establish His Church and His Sacraments such that they would be not just illicit, but INVALID a non-trivial percentage of the time with it literally impossible for the faithful to know either way? This argument maps closely to what we are talking about with art. How could people be held responsible for what Tchaikovsky did, or whatever sodomite Renaissance painter? Can one determine from the 1812 Overture that Tchaikovsky was a sodomite? Of course not. Nor can one determine from da Vinci’s Annunciation what da Vinci’s sins were.
I’d also like to revisit a point I made not too long ago, namely that up until just a few short decades ago, many people literally did not know about sodomy, homosexuality, transvestitism, pedophilia, bestiality – none of it. At all. Lots and lots of people in the Christian world went through life never knowing that there were people who engaged in same-sex sins. I cited a clip from the 1980s sitcom “The Golden Girls”, in which the promiscuous, Jezebel character Blanche, confuses “Lesbian” for “Lebanese” and has to have it explained to her. It got a huge laugh not because it was implausible, but because it WAS plausible. THIS is why the flamboyantly gay pianist Liberace was as popular as he was, and with the demographic that he was popular with – old women. When Liberace came mincing out out on stage in a pink sequined tuxedo, it literally NEVER OCCURRED to most of the elderly women in the audience that Liberace was a sodomite because a non-trivial percentage of them were totally unaware that sodomy existed on earth – and I’m not exaggerating. And THIS ties back to the piece I just wrote on how Diabolical Narcissists (when all sex perverts, by definition, are to one degree or another) derive their greatest satisfaction from watching people watch them as they act out. Liberace got his biggest rush from the fact that a bunch of old women who went to the United Methodist church every Sunday and probably taught Sunday school were his biggest fans, and that he was rubbing his sexual perversion in their faces, and they were too “stupid” and “unsophisticated” to even realize it. Should they have at least been off-put by Liberace’s aesthetic, especially when he stopped wearing normal black tuxedos in the 1960s and started wearing the ridiculous outfits that he did? It is hard to say. Given how jaded and steeped in perversity we all are, it is pretty much impossible to revert back to a mindset innocent of all of the filth we now know. This is a perfect example of how only Christ can judge the soul of man.
The next point is the notion that ONLY sodomites are good at certain types of art. Again, this is false, and the best example of this is ballet and dance in general. First, ballet. It is taken as axiomatic that all male ballet dancers are sodomites just by virtue of the fact that ballet is intrinsically graceful. But this notion is false – a product of the fact that sodomites infected, were tolerated and then pretty much took over ballet. But isn’t it interesting that the two best male ballet dancers of the 20th century were totally heterosexual – Mikhail Baryshnikov and Fernando Bujones. Both were incredibly good dancers, graceful yet powerful and almost preternaturally athletic, and also compelling in their roles as male leads, interacting romantically with the ballerina, as almost every ballet entails. Isn’t is telling that in a field as saturated with sodomites as the ranks of male ballet dancers is, that it was the heterosexuals that were head and shoulders above the rest.
Two other great male dancers of the 20th century also bear mentioning: Fred Astaire and Gene Kelley – both straight. Astaire projected masculine elegance, and was at his best serving as a mobile stage decoration for Ginger Rogers, while Kelley was the all-American athlete-dancer. Donald O’Connor gets an honorable mention here, too.
In my next entry on this topic, I will specifically deal with Michelangelo, who seems to always be cited in conversations about this subject.