I’m currently shadowbanned. That's when when a user is muted or blocked on a social media platform without receiving any official notification about it. Why?
Who knows? Sexual content. Breasts. Profanities. Protests. These things can get you in trouble. And for me, as an activist and performance artist whose very work is about subverting the objectification of the female body, this can become quite the "inconvenience". Who’s writing the rules and who holds the power in this game of censorship? And why are some nipples more acceptable than others?
I guess it should come as no surprise that the title of my solo show, BATSHIT, due to debut at Edinburgh Fringe this summer, also needs to have a big old "censored" sign slapped over the offensive word in public spaces. But it was a surprise to me.
While we’re all pretty accustomed to the social media rules by now, I wasn’t quite expecting the overlords of censorship to reach the Edinburgh Fringe. I’ve been around - I know the vibe of these spaces, having donned the false lashes and little else for shows like La Clique and Little Death Club - these are the places we can be free! Precious spaces for artists to be loud, proud and unapologetic. Spaces like the iconic Traverse Theatre, which will be presenting BATSHIT this summer.
BATSHIT is inspired by the story of my Grandmother Gwen, who was locked up in a mental institution and given a cocktail of drugs and ECT, basically for wanting to leave her husband. But she was also a fierce, opinionated and inspiring woman who did things her way. It's ironic that this show, which is about the literal gagging of women within the mental health system, is now having its very title censored in public spaces.
Alongside female nipples, Good Luck Cathrine Frost from Norway - a comedic but deeply profound look at how childbirth is entirely missing from philosophy right back to Socrates and the Greeks - has been censored over a nipple. Actor and nurse Cathrine Frost’s posters feature her body, and a nipple, which has been diligently covered for posters. So, a woman talking about the exhausting, terrifying, heart-breaking process of keeping the human race going, is being told to put her tit away. I’m sorry, what? Surely this detracts from the reality of mothers, and assumes sex is the only way we can view a woman’s body. I haven’t had means to check but I will tell you there will be men’s nipples all over Edinburgh this fest, lest it be a queer body, or a woman, or a non-binary person and their dangerous nipples.
We live in an age where, on one hand, we are bombarded with imagery and language that sexualises and objectifies female bodies (often to sell us something we don’t need); and on the other hand, female expressions of empowerment, agency or sexuality are being censored and shut down left, right and centre. It’s clearly gendered (and often also racist), and quite frankly, we’re sick of it.
All of this, in a city where women were literally witch-hunted in the 16th Century. Looks a lot like the continuation of patriarchal oppression to me. Where does it end? Or where does our acceptance of women's autonomy begin?
Leah Shelton is a performance artist who has appeared on the West End in London, New York and Las Vegas and at the Edinburgh Festivals. Batshit is the final part in tryptic of theatre shows interrogating gender and identity.
Agenda is a column for outside contributors. Contact: agenda@theherald.co.uk
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