Inspired by the NEA 4 arts controversy, eager censors in Cobb County, Georgia, objected to a 1994 performance of Terrance McNally's Lips Together, Teeth Apart. They argued that public funding should not support what they deemed objectionable art. Today, Cobb County is again in the news after the firing of Katie Rinderle for reading My Shadow Is Purple under the auspices of the state's “Divisive Concepts” law and the removal of dozens of books from public-school libraries. As the national panic over LGBTQ+ content in books and schools continues, this article reconsiders the NEA Four controversy as a prelude to the political and administrative strategies adapted to silence artists and writers, deprive them of funding, and legislate morality. Tracing the shift from the debate over “obscenity” and “decency” in the 1990s to the “divisive concepts” of today, it reveals how activists, politicians, technocrats, and administrators exploit institutional mechanisms to resist the power of popular culture and considers how artists have and might continue to confront censorship.
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