John
Paul II - Theology of the Body |
Art Must Not Violate the
Right to Privacy
General Audience, April 29, 1981
1. We have already dedicated
a series of reflections to the meaning of the words spoken by
Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, in which he exhorts to purity
of heart, calling attention even to the "lustful look." We
cannot forget these words of Christ even when it is a question
of the vast sphere of artistic culture, particularly that of a
visual and spectacular character, as also when it is a question
of the sphere of "mass" culture—so significant for our
times—connected with the use of the audiovisual communications
media. We said recently that the above-mentioned sphere of
activity is sometimes accused of pornovision, just as the
accusation of pornography is made with regard to literature.
Both facts take place by going beyond the limit of shame, that
is, of personal sensitivity with regard to what is connected
with the human body and its nakedness. It happens when in the
artistic work by means of the media of audiovisual production
the right to the privacy of the body in its masculinity or
femininity is violated, and—in the last analysis—when that
intimate and constant destination to the gift and to mutual
donation, which is inscribed in that femininity and masculinity
through the whole structure of the being-man, is violated. That
deep inscription, or rather incision, decides the nuptial
meaning of the body, that is, the fundamental call it receives
to form a communion of persons and to participate in it.
The human body and model or subject
2. It is obvious that in works of art, or in the products of
audiovisual artistic reproduction, the above-mentioned constant
destination to the gift, that is, that deep inscription of the
meaning of the human body, can be violated only in the
intentional order of the reproduction and the representation: it
is a question, in fact—as has already been previously said—of
the human body as model or subject. However, if the sense of
shame and personal sensitivity is offended in these cases, that
happens because of their transfer to the dimension of social
communication, therefore owing to the fact that what, in man's
rightful feeling, belongs and must belong strictly to the
interpersonal relationship—which is linked, as has already been
pointed out, with the communion of persons itself, and in its
sphere corresponds to the interior truth of man, and so also to
the complete truth about man—becomes, so to speak, public
property.
At this point it is not possible to agree with the
representatives of so-called naturalism. They demand the right
to "everything that is human" in works of art and in the
products of artistic reproduction. They affirm that they act in
this way in the name of the realistic truth about man. It is
precisely this truth about man—the whole truth about man—that
makes it necessary to consider both the sense of the privacy of
the body and the consistency of the gift connected with the
masculinity and femininity of the body itself, in which the
mystery of man, peculiar to the interior structure of the
person, is reflected. This truth about man must also be
considered in the artistic order, if we want to speak of a full
realism.
Value of body in interpersonal communion
3. In this case, it is evident that the deep governing rule
related to the communion of persons is in profound agreement
with the vast and differentiated area of communication. The
human body in its nakedness—as we stated in the preceding
analyses (in which we referred to Genesis 2:25)—understood as a
manifestation of the person and as his gift, that is, a sign of
trust and donation to the other person, who is conscious of the
gift, and who is chosen and resolved to respond to it in an
equally personal way, becomes the source of a particular
interpersonal communication.
As has already been said, this is a particular communication in
humanity itself. That interpersonal communication penetrates
deeply into the system of communion (communio personarum), and
at the same time it grows from it and develops correctly within
it. Precisely because of the great value of the body in this
system of interpersonal communion, to make the body in its
nakedness—which expresses precisely "the element" of the
gift—the object-subject of the work of art or of the audiovisual
reproduction, is a problem which is not only aesthetic, but also
ethical. That "element of the gift" is, so to speak, suspended
in the dimension of an unknown reception and an unforeseen
response. Thereby it is in a way threatened in the order of
intention, in the sense that it may become an anonymous object
of appropriation, an object of abuse. Precisely for this reason
the integral truth about man constitutes in this case the
foundation of the norm according to which the good or evil of
determined actions, of behavior, of morals and situations, is
modeled. The truth about man, about what is particularly
personal and interior in him—precisely because of his body and
his sex (femininity-masculinity)—creates here precise limits
which it is unlawful to exceed.
Recognizing limits
4. These limits must be recognized and observed by the artist
who makes the human body the object, model or subject of the
work of art or of the audiovisual reproduction. Neither he nor
others who are responsible in this field have the right to
demand, propose or bring it about that other people, invited,
exhorted or admitted to see, to contemplate the image, should
violate those limits together with them, or because of them. It
is a question of the image, in which that which in itself
constitutes the content and the deeply personal value, that
which belongs to the order of the gift and of the mutual
donation of person to person, is, as a subject, uprooted from
its own authentic substratum. It becomes, through social
communication, an object and what is more, in a way, an
anonymous object.
As can be seen from what is said above, the whole problem of
pornovision and pornography is not the effect of a puritanical
mentality or of a narrow moralism, just as it is not the product
of a thought imbued with Manichaeism. It is a question of an
extremely important, fundamental sphere of values. Before it,
man cannot remain indifferent because of the dignity of
humanity, the personal character and the eloquence of the human
body. By means of works of art and the activity of the
audiovisual media, all those contents and values can be modeled
and studied. But they can also be distorted and destroyed in the
heart of man. As can be seen, we find ourselves continually
within the orbit of the words Christ spoke in the Sermon on the
Mount. Also the problems which we are dealing with here must be
examined in the light of those words, which consider a look that
springs from lust as "adultery committed in the heart."
It seems, therefore, that reflection on these problems, which is
important to create a climate favorable to education to
chastity, constitutes an indispensable appendage to all the
preceding analyses which we have dedicated to this subject in
the course of numerous Wednesday meetings.
Taken from: L'Osservatore Romano Weekly Edition in English 4 May
1981, page 8
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