YIKES: For the First Time Ever, The Government Is Attempting to Censor Art!

by Edward Precht. @#pertoltprecht.

WASHINGTON, DC – Earlier this week, it was announced that the White House plans to close the Kennedy Center for two years to undergo, quote, “renovations.” Experts speculate the move is a direct response to public outcry – and the subsequent cancellations of several high-profile artists’ shows – after the President’s self-renaming of what many see as one of America’s premier theatrical organizations. 

Such blatant censorship, hot on the heels of cuts in arts funding and the firing of several high-level arts reporters, comes as a huge shock, since this is the first time the government has ever had a problem with the arts.

“Theatre’s not nice to us anymore,” said a White House representative, after pausing to pick his nose. “When they said art was ‘transgressive,’ we thought they meant ‘trans aggressive,’ or just plain ‘aggressive,’ but turns out it’s a bunch of woke cuck crap. It’s starting to feel like the theatre doesn’t like us, and that makes us want to shut those loser babies down forever.”

Indeed, politics and the arts used to go hand-in-hand, like church and state or guns and state, but this is the very first time the government has tried to directly interfere with how and which artists are allowed to speak.

“It’s reactionary,” another White House staffer agreed, tripping over his untied shoelaces. “Theatre has never had an issue with us before. We used to have plays with simple messages that weren’t trying to push any kind of woke agenda.”

He busted himself out of the locker he had been stuffed in, and continued.

“You know, shows like All My Sons, Angels in America, A Bright Room Called Day, Building the Wall, Cabaret, Catarina and the Beauty of Killing Fascists, The Crucible, Cullud Wattah, The Designated Mourner, An Enemy of the People, Hadestown, Hair, Indecent, Julius Caesar, King Charles III, Les Misérables, Lysistrata, Václav Havel’s The Memorandum, Miss Saigon, Mother Courage and Her Children, Network, 1984, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Rhinoceros, Spring Awakening, Sweat, The Trojan Women, Watch on the Rhine, or Nerdy Prudes Must Die. Easy stuff.”

“Oh no, what a new problem!” said Any Artist Worth Their Salt. 

“What are we supposed to do? Continue to write inflammatory anti-fascist pieces and perform them wherever we can find a space, however small, however hopeless it may seem? Are we supposed to understand that every piece of art is an act of revolution, and that even the smallest trickle of water can bring down a mountain? Damn dang it, what a pickle!”