A PBS executive pushed for the removal of an anti-Trump cartoon in a documentary about famed artist Art Spiegelman.
Stephen Segaller, of parent company WNET, said that his rationale was not to get in the good graces of the president, who has attacked PBS for pushing “left-wing propaganda.” Rather, the comic’s inclusion in the documentary feature, Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse, was a “breach of taste,” The New York Times reported.
The cartoon “portrays what appears to be fly-infested feces on Trump’s head,” according to the Times. The depiction of Trump was for the 2017 Women’s March newspaper, RESIST!
Trump signed an executive order on May 2 axing public funding for NPR and PBS, which he accused of “spread[ing] radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news.’”
The call from American Masters executive producer Michael Kantor came in April about two weeks before the documentary was set to air. Filmmakers ultimately agreed. (A portion of the segment can be seen on Instagram.)
A post shared by Art Spiegelman: Disaster is My Muse (@artspiegelmandoc)
“We were told the film still has an anti-fascist message, and the audience can connect the dots themselves,” producer Alicia Sams told Documentary Magazine, which first reported on the decision. “The irony of censoring someone who is a free speech advocate is maybe lost on PBS, but certainly not lost on us.”
Sams and the other filmmakers questioned PBS’s motives. They noted that the documentary had already been approved to air, and to do so in the 10 p.m. slot to allow for obscenities.
“If PBS cannot protect the free speech of its content creators and subject matters without fear of retribution from members of the government who may find their views displeasing, then how can it strengthen the ‘social, democratic and cultural health’ of the American people?” Sams and four other producers and directors wrote in a letter to executives at PBS and WNET, citing PBS’s mission statement, according to the Times.
“Rather, your actions will have a chilling effect on the free speech of artists, filmmakers, and journalists who have long looked to public media as a platform for all Americans,” they wrote.
Spiegelman, who won the Pulitzer Prize for the graphic novel Maus, sharply criticized the scene’s removal in a statement attached to the filmmakers’ letter.
“It’s tragic and appalling that PBS and WNET are willing to become collaborators with the sinister forces trying to muzzle free speech,” he said.
Segaller claimed that Trump’s pressure on PBS—and on any institution that doesn’t fall in line with his demands—was irrelevant.
“I don’t think we’d have made a different decision if it had been a year earlier,” he told the Times.
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