Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Censorship And The National Endowment For The Arts: An Analytical Look At The Enola Gay And Robert Mapplethorpe Controversies, Tamara L. Peterson

Honors Theses

This thesis is about government involvement in the arts community - how the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is affected, as well as the artists themselves. Censorship is the main focus. Selected for examination are two specific cases: an exhibition of the works of controversial photography, Robert Mapplethorpe, and the display of the Enola Gay fuselage at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C. The Enola Gay incident was more recent, with the exhibit opening in 1995 on the 50th Anniversary of the end of World War II, while the Mapplethorpe controversy began around 1988. Both of …