Dishonest PBS Can't Describe How Obscene These Dirty Mapplethorpe Pictures Are

NewsBusters.org ^ | May 7, 2016 | Tim Graham

[Bartholomew Roberts]

I didn’t see anything here regarding his connections with Son of Sam killer David Berkowitz.

At the time, there was a back story that Robert Mapplethorpe was working in conjunction with Berkowitz in some type of death cult/murder voyeur thing. Berkowitz even admitted it and provided details while in prison.

He later recanted and went back to the Son of Sam story line. But much of his Mapplethorpe testimony was supposedly verifiable.

[grey_whiskers]

Now, that haircut is *really* an obscenity.

[aquila48]

Absolutely! This is one thread that’s best left as text only.

[Glad2bnuts]

There was a movie/documentary on Showtime or HBO about the pictures of Maplethorpe.....

NO, I didn’t watch it all. There is no need to do so, I took the punishment for you.

[Billthedrill]

Hard to summon up a lot of sympathy for a fellow who committed a slow and nasty suicide from perverse sexual excess. PBS does no one, including the artist himself, any favors by Bowdlerizing the thing. Some boundaries, you push them too hard, they'll kill you, and so for Robert Mapplethorpe. A wealth of talent in a lost and weak vessel.

And he was talented. The guy could and did do more with a cheap Polaroid than most photographers do with hundred-thousand-dollar studios. The guy had the eye.

As far as not intending to shock, however, I don't think anyone can look at his work and say that with a straight face, not unless you regard a pose with a Thompson submachine gun in front of a large, wall-mounted pentagram to be soothing. Of course he meant to shock, with the same over-the-top immaturity that eventually killed him. If PBS can't bring themselves to admit that they're simply lying.

[exDemMom]

Mapplethorpe himself, this is his last self-portrait, died of AIDS, at age 42, just before the cultural tempest burst.

Hmm. AIDS can addle the brain. I wonder if that is the real cause of that "art."

[I want the USA back]

No wonder mapplethorp was loved so much by the left.

[wardaddy]

A good bit of Mapplethorpe is ok work BUT he was so dreary faggy

I prefer Helmut Newton erotica

RIP

[wardaddy]

Is geron l zotted

It would have been all over this

[Disambiguator]

In another famous photo, he sticks a bullwhip up his rectum.

And it damn near killed him.

[NetAddicted]

My husband had legs like that, from bicycling.

[NetAddicted]

I went to Cincinnati at the time, where they were displaying Mapplethorpe’s porn.

[NetAddicted]

Do tell.

[Disambiguator]

It’s just an old joke.

[hout8475]

I like this pretty hot photo he did of Sigourney Weaver.

[Talisker]

I remember when I first saw this guy’s work. The black and white photography was professional. But it was just a large penis next to a calla lily. Or some flower in a butt crack. Is this really noteworthy art that critics need to discuss?

Sigh... You just don't get it. What was the relationship of the penis to the calla lily? And it wasn't just some flower in a butt crack, it was a specific, symboloic flower in a butt crack, representing the gradually separation of humanity from the natural world, vis-à-vis the relentless growth of the middle class.

Sheesh!

[BlackVeil]

Wow. Very weird. I know that many people who studied the case believe that Son of Sam did not act alone.

[T-Bone Texan]

Thank you for reminding me that when he was young and just starting out Arnold Schwarzenegger turned tricks with wealthy homos.

That is, he was a homosexual prostitute.

[Trailerpark Badass]

Homos and there defenders scream bloody murder at even the merest hint of the realities of their activities. High rates of drug and alcohol abuse, as well as the desire for anonymity among those who take part, make clear even the most numbed conscience is disgusted by them.