SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
J. W. M. THOMPSON
Even before it opened one could have predicted two things about Mr Kenneth Tynan's pornographic entertainment in New York. One was that it would make a great deal of money for Mr Tynan and his fellow businessmen; the other was that some solemn cleric would soon follow it up with a sermon of the weightier trend- spotting variety on the subject of sex in the theatre. And, of course, all has gone ac- cording to the pre-ordained pattern. Evi- dently the profitability of the commercial venture exceeds expectations; and so far as the sermon is concerned, the Sunday dis- sertation in Westminster Abbey on whether or not entertainers should copulate in public must also, I suppose, rank as a jackpot of another kind.
To me, the only element of surprise lies in the widespread ability to discover in all this something startlingly novel, something that can be described as a 'breakthrough' or even as a 'revolution'. In the recent past, it is true, such spectacles were usually to be found in brothels or night clubs; in- tending visitors often had to seek direc- tions to the appropriate premises from hotel porters or taxi drivers. But the elimin- ation of these small middlemen is not of the first importance, I would have thought. It does, of course, reflect certain economic changes; but we ought by now to be well accustomed to seeing the mass market supersede commercial arrangements favour- ing smaller groups of consumers. This is, after all, the century of the Common Man.
There is something new in the readiness of serious drama critics to treat this kind of spectacle as an art form of a sort, even if they didn't like it—and of serious news- papers to devote space to their reviews. But even that is a pretty trivial innovation.
A la mode
The whole history of sexual diversion is one of changing fashion, which means, very largely, changing commercial arrange- ments to supply a constant demand ex- pressed in different forms. Even today there would be disapproval of the facilities pro- vided at one famous theatre in Victorian London, where a sort of market place for prostitutes was openly held as part of the service to the theatre-goer. Public opinion turned against this in the end; the vendors of that particular commodity had to find other retail outlets, which they did (and do) without difficulty. The changes are by no means all in one direction. Even as the New York entertainment for voyeurs was being staged, the inhabitants of that city were voting for mayoral candidates—and those who were successful had notably vied with each other in proclaiming the virtues of law and order' and 'discipline. That unpleasant word `backlash' is just as likely to be heard in . connection with public sex as in any other sphere.
Moreover, it is sad but true that an attachment to 'permissiveness' has no necessary link with tolerance in a wider sense. Indeed, that very vogue-word has itself a faintly authoritarian ring to it. The selectivity of professional broadmindedness was, I thought, perfectly illustrated in this week's quarrel between Franco Zeffirelli and his colleagues in the Italian film in- dustry. He annoyed them very much by complaining publicly that they were mainly concerned with producing a flood of cheap and bad sex films: whereupon the Italian film writers' association, with many noble protestations about the crime of censorship angrily expelled him from its membership. As so often, the verb `to censor' seems to have been declined: 'I must have free- dom, you have no right whatever to sa:, such things . .
Life and letters
State-financed intervention in the arts is not invariably the sunlit progress towards utopia that Miss Jennie Lee's speeches would suggest. I've just heard of a collision between Mr Kingsley Amis and the Arts Council, for example, which indicates the problems which crop up on the way. The Arts Council wishes to encourage visits by ,writers to schools, and sent out a circular letter to likely subjects asking if their names could be put on a list for local education authorities: the fee mentioned was 'not less than £15' per visit. Mr Amis's reply to Mr Eric W. White, Literature Director of the council, was as follows: `I have received your faintly uncivil cir- cular.
'The Arts Council is, or should be, con- cerned with improving the conditions of art, and hence the conditions of artists, rather than with things like providing a "service" to schools and colleges. A writer is not an electrician or a plumber, and it is particularly culpable in people like you to regard him as such.
'The minimum fee of £15 (which I take to be the standard fee, since you do not mention a maximum fee, nor any indication of under what conditions the minimum might be exceeded) is derisory—far less than a reputable journal would pay for a review or article of equivalent length, which can be written without having to go any- where. It should have been part of your task to persuade education authorities that writers, being important people who make a unique contribution to society, must not be sweated. No self-respecting writer should take part in your scheme; and I will not.'
What was it Doctor Johnson said—'No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money'?
Royal salute
I too enjoyed the royal family film on television: and I suspect that those who fear that this degree of frankness about royalty must damage the institution are forgetting that it somehow survived infinitely greater frankness in the past. If the sight of the Queen making a salad is thought to dissolve the magic of monarchy, what about this sort of comment: 'His late Majesty, though at times a jovial and, for a King, an honest man, was a weak, ignor- ant, common-place sort of person . . . Notwithstanding his feebleness of purpose and littleness of mind, his ignorance and his prejudices, William Iv was to the last a popular sovereign, but his very popularity was acquired at the price of something like public contempt.' That was from the obituary tribute to the late monarch by a ,.predecessor of mine, in the SPECTATOR in 1837.
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