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"In the late eighties and early nineties, American artists found themselves in the crosshairs of an ascendant conservative coalition. As the Republican party increasingly aligned itself with the religious right, politicians like Jesse Helms, Pat Buchanan, and Pat Robertson took it upon themselves to root out alleged deviance in both avant garde and popular art, particularly when the artists involved had received government funding. This wasn’t limited to controversial photographers and painters such as Robert Mapplethorpe, Andres Serrano, and David Wojnarowicz but also affected a great number of important filmmakers, from major Hollywood figures like Martin Scorsese to fierce independent voices on the rise, like Todd Haynes, Cheryl Dunye, Marlon Riggs, and Gregg Araki. Naturally, in the midst of the AIDS crisis—and the Reagan administration’s callous response to it—many of these films were queer themed.
This new screening series was programmed in conjunction with Isaac Butler’s new book The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America’s Culture Wars (Bloomsbury Publishing), which reexamines this vital—and sadly influential—historical moment, highlighting films that provoked the ire of these wannabe censors. Butler will appear in person, both in conversation and to introduce some of these landmark films—all of them “dangerous” and wildly entertaining."–Museum of the Moving Image