Is it art? Is
it pornography? Is it both?
A sex-filled
music video by Australian musician Brendan Maclean, "House of Air,"
has sparked a storm of controversy and left viewers asking where the line
should be drawn.
Blurring the
boundaries between the educational and obscene, the video, which bills itself
as "an anthropological study of gay semiotics, taxonomies, and sexual
behaviours," shows acts of oral sex, anal sex, anilungus, piss play, and
scat performed by adult film actors.
Interspersed
are textual lessons from the handbook Gay Semiotics by Hal
Fischer, which explain the rules of queer cruising and the meanings of the
"hankie code" — a secret sartorial language in which gay men
communicate sexual preferences by the color of the handkerchief they display.
Brian Fairbairn
and Karl Eccleston, who directed the video, released a project in 2015 that was
similar in style. The short film Polari educated viewers about a
secret language used by gay men in England, although it was far less
explicit.
YouTube has
deemed "House of Air" more pornographic than artful. The social media
platform removed the video this week for violating its policy
on depictions of nudity and sexual content — but not before it had racked up
around 700,000 page views since its release January 30.
However,
Maclean is defending the piece as art. In an op-ed for The Guardian, Maclean recalls asking himself "not,
'Have I taken this music video too far?' but instead, 'Have I taken this far
enough?'"
And for those
"pearl clutchers" who asked "why" he would push the
envelope as far as he did, Maclean responded, "Well ... why not?"
Citing
unabashedly queer pioneers like George Michael, Maclean argued that it is the
purpose of art to push against the rules of decency as well as the
squeaky-clean image of LGBT people advanced by social movements like the fight
for marriage equality. To ignore sex, he maintained, is to be dishonest about
LGBT history.
"There are
some queer artists who would find it easier to shave off the rough corners of
our history, to wave our flag but leave out some of the colours that don’t sell
to a straight crowd," he said. "But frankly, anything beyond the
whole truth sanitises our history, and makes it boring. And if there’s one
thing queer history isn’t, it’s boring."
Maclean, who
claimed he has received "five email hacks, two death threats and one
online protest video from Brazil" in response to the video, asked viewers
to put their priorities in perspective.
"Tell me
what’s really more upsetting, my film clip or the fact Donald Trump is the
president of the United States?"
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