#catherine saalfield

[outweek30]

In deciding that the fertilized egg is more important than a woman, the [Supreme] Court has completely undermined a woman's right to be sexual, and her legal ability to make decisions for herself. The nuclear family is quickly becoming legally entrenched. [...]

This predicament raises other issues related to reproductive rights. Criminalization of the body is all too familiar to lesbians and gay men. If we define ourselves, even partially, by the kind of sex we have, then our very existence is against the law in many states. [...] Our rights as lesbians and gay men always get tied up in issues of bodily control, sexuality and sex. [...]

In the AIDS crisis we have witnessed the influential uses of "innocence" and "murder." The "innocent victims" in this day and age are the fetus, the hemophiliac, the child. The "non-innocents," and by not-so-subtle extension, the "murderers" are women, men who have sex with men, intravenous drug users. In this syntax, women having abortions, drug-using mothers, HIV-positive mothers, lesbian mothers, are all murderers.

[...] It is our job, as feminists, as lesbians, as gay men, as radicals, to make "pro-choice" look moderate. We want more because, as things stand, power over one's own body — if it isn't white, middle class, straight and male — is criminal.

— Catherine Saalfield, “The Judicial Body War: Lesbians, Gay Men, and Roe v. Wade,” OutWeek Magazine No. 4, July 17, 1989, p. 12.

[outweek30]

What happens when a gay and lesbian community spends years asking for regular television coverage of its issues instead of occasional "special documentaries" which tend to anthropologize or mock the subject matter? If you are asking this question in the United States, you might just have to start protesting, elect a mayor, create a coalition (call it NYCCRM), raise money for an alternative network, or program your queer media on public access and other cable channels. If you are asking this question in Britain, look no further, just get those beers or sodas out of the fridge, settle back in your comfy living room chair and tune into Channel Four on Tuesday nights at 11 pm. Then you will see Out On Tuesday, Britain's first regular lesbian and gay television series.

The series is co-produced by Clare Beaven and Susan Ardill[, who] named their production company "Abseil" in recognition of the women who had lowered themselves with ropes (the word abseil is a verb used in England to mean "lowering oneself on a rope") into the House of Lords to protest Clause 28. (Clause 28 bans any federal funding of educational materials that "promote homosexuality." [...]) The image of a woman descending on a rope accompanies the closing credits in every show of the series. [...]

Although it is programmed late at night, the series was immediately attacked by right wing bigots who called on the government to revise the Obscene Publications Act. British TV operates independently of that Act, but the whole system of regulation within commercial parameters could be overthrown by the government in the next few years. Clause 28, which governs local government and education authorities against presenting gay men and lesbians in anything but the most brutally degrading light, could ultimately have an effect on TV and broadcasting.

While it is still possible, Clause 28 is a featured topic on the very first show of Out On Tuesday. The producers decided to see if one could actually "promote homosexuality," and thus approached the world-renowned, if detestable, Saatchi and Saatchi advertising agency: Since agencies love to display their wares and benefit from mock campaigns as teaching exercises, S & S agreed to script a number of "homo-promo" newspapers ads as well as one for TV. Abseil's directors kept their distance during the "creative process." What emerged was a hilarious, but somewhat ignorant and negative, commercial with, as Merck says, "the naffest looking actresses in the world." Beaven thinks she would have modelled the show around how and why, "they came up with this garbage when they come up with great homoerotic ads for perfume, and so on."

— Catherine Saalfield, "Queervision: In England, Finding Gay and Lesbian. TV is as Easy as Pushing a Button on Your Remote Control," OutWeek Magazine No. 20, November 5, 1989, p. 42.

[outweek30]

D'Amato Gets Zapped

NEW YORK [July 24, 1989] — While over 100 supporters picketed on 7th Avenue, carrying signs which read, "No censorship of the arts!" 25 angry artists paid an unannounced visit to Republican Senator Alphonse D'Amato (R-NY) at his office near Penn Station at lunchtime on Wednesday, July 12 [1989]. They demanded a meeting with the Senator to discuss his outspoken support of art censorship following the controversy over the work of Robert Mapplethorpe and Andres Serrano.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), a federal agency, has been the target of recent attacks by conservative members of Congress for providing financial support for the two artists' work, which some members of Congress find offensive.

D'Amato began the protest on the Senate floor by railing against Serrano's Piss Christ, a photograph of a crucifix submerged in a glass of the artist's urine. According to a Los Angeles Times report at the time, D'Amato "characterized the photo as 'garbage' and a 'deplorable, despicable display of vulgarity.' He then tore up a copy of the exhibition catalogue, dropped it on the floor, and jumped on it."

— Catherine Saalfield, OutWeek Magazine No. 5, July 24, 1989, p. 15.