PBS has censored a documentary about Art Spiegelman, author of the Pulitzer Prize–winning graphic novel about the Holocaust, Maus.
It removed a 90-second clip of Spiegelman at a public event. In the clip, Spiegelman reads aloud a few panels from a comic strip he drew for the 2017 Women's March newspaper: "I resisted drawing Trump's smug and ugly mug till now because narcissists thrive even on negative attention. I hoped he would just burn out, but now he's got his grubby little mitts on the steering wheel and seems set to drive us all off a cliff."
As reported in International Documentary Association (IDA), "Twelve days before Art Spiegelman: Disaster Is My Muse (2024) was set to broadcast on April 15 across PBS stations nationwide as part of its strand American Masters, the filmmakers were told that a 90-second sequence—which shows the famous artist discussing an anti-Trump cartoon he created for the 2017 Women's March newspaper—would be cut from the documentary."
PBS told the filmmakers that they could either buy back their licensing deal or allow PBS to run the censored version. "We were told the film still has an anti-fascist message, and the audience can connect the dots themselves," co-producer Alicia Sams told IDA. "The irony of censoring someone who is a free speech advocate is maybe lost on PBS, but certainly not lost on us."
From IDA:
A response from a WNET Group spokesperson justifies the edit "as it was no longer in context today. The change was made to maintain the integrity and appropriateness of the content for broadcast at this time."
But it's hard not to see the change, which was made well after the film was already licensed in its festival version, as some kind of form of self-censorship in the wake of the Trump Administration's attacks on public media. Disaster Is My Muse co-director Molly Bernstein calls the edits "shocking," "extremely disappointing and unnecessary." Though she remains extremely grateful to American Masters and its executive producer Michael Kantor for their support of the film and "the fact that they tried to fight the censoring of Art Spiegelman's comic about Trump," she says, "I am extremely disturbed by the censorship from the leaders of PBS and WNET and do not see any justification for their actions."
Previously:
• Witzend – groundbreaking 1960s indy comic with art by Wallace Wood, Art Spiegelman, and Frank Frazetta
• MetaMaus: the secret history of Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer-winning Maus
• Art Spiegelman responds to the MAUS banning controversy
• Exclusive excerpt from Art Spiegelman's Co-Mix retrospective
• Art Spiegelman: 'Despite the rumors, I am not the Jew in charge of all comics media'
