Debate about what constitutes obscenity and how -- if at all --
it should be regulated has been at the center of the "culture wars"
of the past two decades. While literature abounds on the
contemporary politics of obscenity, there has been little inquiry
into the historic origins of these issues. Focusing on New York
City in the first half of the twentieth century, Andrea Friedman's
"Prurient Interests" considers the ways in which the evolution of
obscenity debates in decades past has significantly affected
today's controversies.
Exploring motion pictures, burlesque, and Broadway theater --
three forms of entertainment that were regularly condemned by
anti-obscenity activists in the early 1900s -- Friedman traces the
creation of a modern system of obscenity regulation in New York
City. Friedman also shows how the rise of the concept of
"democratic moral authority" -- the idea that obscenity should be
regulated according to the standards of the "average person" and
that the mechanisms of regulation should themselves be controlled
by the people -- displaced middle-class women as anti-obscenity
crusaders. At the same time, it offered inroads to male religious
figures who were able to portray themselves as representatives of
the people.
As "Prurient Interests" vividly illustrates, many of the
elemental arguments that censorship advocates still employ today
were first delineated in this period: the capacity of certain forms
of entertainment to encourage violence against women, to corrupt
the minds of young audiences, and to spread homosexuality.
Friedman's innovative study enriches our understanding of the
obscenity debates still raging at the close of the millennium.
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