'Fire In My Belly' Is Obvious & Nauseating

In case you don’t pay attention to arts news, Fire In My Belly has been at the center of a censorship brouhaha. It was being shown at the National Portrait Gallery as part of  the exhibition “Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture,” focusing on the work of gay artists. The late David Wojnarowicz was a particularly outspoken critic of the Catholic church’s response to the AIDS crisis, and his film includes images of ants crawling on a crucifix. The Catholic League and Republican Rep. John Boehner themselves crawled out of the decaying corpse of Jesse Helms, reared up on their jointed legs, waved their antennae, and performed their God-given function of vomiting out bits of partially masticated indignation to be consumed by their hatchlings/adoring public. Faced with this nightmarish vision, Martin Sullivan, director of the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery, caved and writhed on the floor like a spineless jelly. Which is to say, the video was removed.