Speakout: Creative Censorship

1 Oct 2009 in Festival, Highland

Creative Censorship

JOLLY ROGER is appalled at the power of a single complaint to force the removal of a promotional gambit for the Inverness Winter Festival, and wonders where it will all end?

A WORRYING problem facing the Highland artistic community in the run up to Christmas 2009 is the growing influence being exerted by people who have appointed themselves defenders of those mysterious members of our community who go by the name “people who might be offended”.

Nobody knows who they are, nobody knows where they live, but whatever happens we must ensure that we do everything in our power not to offend them.

In Inverness the launch of the 2009 Inverness Winter Festival caused a bit of a stir recently when the Pirate Flag that the organisers had arranged to be flown from the Town House flag pole to promote their Blackbeard’s Haunted Ness Islands Halloween Show was hurriedly taken down following the receipt of one complaint.

By the time the story reached The Sun newspaper, it was being reported that “locals were p-irate”, but the truth is that judging by the blog at the www.invernessfestivals.com website the only thing that locals were irate about was the power that a single complainant had been given by the Highland Council.

Think about it. The 71-year-old complainant somehow managed to get offended by creatively linking the Jolly Roger, famous for being the flag of pirates hundreds of years ago and much loved by children everywhere, with the activities of modern day†pirates operating off the shores of Somalia, and the Council felt it had to act.

The Jolly Roger

The implications for the creative sector in the Highlands are alarming if they now have to ensure that they do not get a single complaint whenever they create something – and let’s make no skull and cross bones about it, flying the flag because pirates were supposedly coming to Town was witty and creative.

Following the rule of “one complaint and everything stops”, it could be argued that the following events in the Inverness Winter Festival programme are now theoretically under theat.

Halloween because it celebrates Pirates, Pagan Rituals and could cause offence to those of us planning to sail around the world. The Civic Bonfire and Fireworks Display because it has roots in the Old Firm Brand of Religious Intolerance featuring most of Scotland and also upsets those animals who may be woken from their nap in front of the fire.

Inverness Fireworks 2008

The Charity Chinese Lantern launch planned for Inverness Castle, because anything to do with China must be offensive due to the problems in Tibet – unless, of course, you are a member of our Chinese Community, in which case it is a hate crime to think that way.

Everything to do with flying reindeer because it could be argued that misleading children is unhealthy, and let’s not even start to think about the minefield that is caused by encouraging them to sit on the lap of an elderly male stranger and have him whisper in their ears and give them presents.

Hogmanay 2008

The traditional music programme in the Winter Festival is also on dodgy ground because it discriminates against modern musicians or offends the musical tastes of our Goth, Punk, Heavy Metal, Acid House and Swing Band population.

The Hogmanay Party must also go because of the carbon footprint of the folk who are travelling to Inverness from Aberdeen, which is having no Hogmanay Party, is completely unacceptable. Also, people might be offended by the news that it is planned to see in the New Year with Cathedral Bells sounding, which will upset our pagan, aethiest, agnostic and non-Christian populations.

Live from New Zealand at Hogmanay celebrations

Of course, it could be argued that there are some folk wandering the streets of Inverness who are looking for reasons to get upset, and that the Inverness Winter Festival might be offending them if they did not give them something to be offended about.

While there is a considerable distance between pulling down a flag erected to bring a smile to the face of a child and throwing books on a bonfire, they do have one thing in common.

Somebody should be offended when these things happen.