A while ago, I had a memorable lecture. I sat down in a medium-sized lecture hall and at the front stood a man. He was a retired animator and had come in to tell us about his experience in the industry. One of his projects particularly stood out to me. He had been commissioned to make a mostly stop-motion animation about the life of a Russian composer. The project was fairly flexible, however he had been instructed to leave out two controversial details about the composer’s life.
He was told not to mention how he died (it was through suicide) and to not bring up that the composer briefly had a fling with another man. At this point, a faint smile appeared on his face and he remarked “So naturally, I included both”.
The man told us how the team who had employed him didn’t seem to notice this as they were happy with his final video. It was fairly subtle since he didn’t want to push his luck too much. This was still a fairly bold move though, considering that the composer was a significant historical figure and the homophobia in Russia.
He alluded to the suicide by including a glass of water on a stand. The composer died by deliberately drinking contaminated water. During a sequence of the video, pictures of those the composer held dearly in his life were shown and the composer is seen holding a rose. A picture of the man he was interested in was briefly visible in the video.
It got me thinking about how often parts of history are edited out for the sake of fitting into a more culturally acceptable narrative. Unfortunately, I can’t remember the name of the composer. I’ve been unable to find the animation, but if anyone knows the video I’m talking about- feel free to share it on this thread.
Plus, it would be nice to use this thread as an area to discuss historical figures who didn’t fit the culturally accepted mold and had their stories changed. I want to know about the women who were recorded as being lonely spinsters but had female lovers. Men who were thought to have died alone, yet moved away with their best friend and suspiciously lived in a cottage together for twelve years. Women in science or literature who lacked recognition because men claimed their work as their own. I want to hear about those stories.
One story comes to mind, a rather famous painter. Margaret Keane. Her husband, Walter Keane claimed her art as his own, threatening her into silence. Eventually she stood up to her husband, divorced and sued him for art fraud. In court, the trial consisted of the two painting against each other to prove who was the real artist. Walter declined, claiming that his shoulder was sore, and Margaret finished a painting.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesig ... ton-biopic
Quote:
“He had me sitting in a corner,” she tells me, “and he was over there, talking, selling paintings, when somebody walked over to me and said: ‘Do you paint too?’ And I suddenly thought – just horrible shock – ‘Is he taking credit for my paintings?’”
He was. He had been telling his patrons a giant lie. Margaret was the painter of the big eyes – every one of them. Walter might well have seen sad children in postwar Berlin, but he hadn’t painted them, because he couldn’t paint to save his life.
Quote:
Their first two years were happy, but all that changed the night of the Hungry i. “Back home he tried to explain it away,” she says. “He said: ‘We need the money. People are more likely to buy a painting if they think they’re talking to the artist. People don’t want to think I can’t paint and need to have my wife paint. People already think I painted the big eyes and if I suddenly say it was you, it’ll be confusing and people will start suing us.’ He was telling me all these horrible problems.”
Walter offered Margaret a solution: “Teach me how to paint the big-eyed children.” So she tried. “And when he couldn’t do it, it was my fault. ‘You’re not teaching me right. I could do it if you had more patience.’ I was really trying, but it was just impossible.”
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Support human artists!
Near the spectrum but not on it.
Last edited by Lost_dragon on 02 Sep 2020, 3:07 pm, edited 2 times in total.
02 Sep 2020, 2:47 pm
