What would you do to defend your art?
Thu, Mar. 23rd, 2006 09:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scarlettinaOn Thursday nights as I drive home from workshop, I listen to NPR. Usually I hit the station right around the time they're airing Pacific Time, a show about issues of importance to Asian Americans.
Tonight they ran a story about a man in South Korea—a refugee from North Korea—staging a musical about the concentration camps in the north, based on his and his father's experiences. Apparently the show is graphic and doesn't pull its punches withe regard to the details of incarceration in these places. The musical is so controversial that the South Korean government has threatened him with legal action (for showing images of Kim Jong Il, among other things) and many of his original backers have pulled their financial support. He's received many private donations to keep the show up, but the money hasn't been enough.
As a result, he's mortgaged his kidney for $20,000. Either he pays, or they take his kidney.
Gives "suffering for your art" a whole new meaning. Perspective.
Tonight they ran a story about a man in South Korea—a refugee from North Korea—staging a musical about the concentration camps in the north, based on his and his father's experiences. Apparently the show is graphic and doesn't pull its punches withe regard to the details of incarceration in these places. The musical is so controversial that the South Korean government has threatened him with legal action (for showing images of Kim Jong Il, among other things) and many of his original backers have pulled their financial support. He's received many private donations to keep the show up, but the money hasn't been enough.
As a result, he's mortgaged his kidney for $20,000. Either he pays, or they take his kidney.
Gives "suffering for your art" a whole new meaning. Perspective.
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no subject
Date: Fri, Mar. 24th, 2006 05:48 am (UTC)OTOH, perhaps you fashion this into blackmail for editors...
"Publish my story....... or the kidney gets it!
no subject
Date: Fri, Mar. 24th, 2006 01:23 pm (UTC)Freedom
Date: Fri, Mar. 24th, 2006 10:28 pm (UTC)It just makes me want to fight harder to keep what we've got.