Seventeenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

The British-Australian counterculture magazine Oz (1963-1973) was the brainchild of a group of students who used it as a platform for discussing sex, erotica, and anti-establishment issues. Characterized by a provocative and subversive image-text rhetoric, it is considered the most psychedelic underground publication of the period. Particularly provocative and controversial was the “School Kids Issue” (May 1970), whose teenage guest editors were indicted for obscenity, and later acquitted. From a contemporary perspective, Oz may be characterized as open and activist in the spirit of the social protests of the 1960s and early 70s, but at the same time outright sexist. For example, the front page of “School Kids” features images of free and passionate lesbian sexuality, whereas its inner pages include a comic strip that depicts the violent deflowering of an objectified passive female figure. The trial dwelled on these two examples, but not from a critical feminist standpoint, but from a conservative one disapproving of the explicit discussion and visualization of sexuality as such. This paper discusses the sexual-erotic discourse in Oz from the perspective of critical pedagogy, which considers the mass media and visual culture as educational agents with a major role in shaping perceptions regarding various social issues, including gender and sexuality: Did its outrageous image-text messages educate its young readers to healthy, equal, and objectification-free sexuality, or rather reproduce sexism and misogyny? This question is examined in a contextual approach, given hegemonic and subversive conceptions of sexuality during the period under discussion.

Presenters

Ya'ara Gil-Glazer
Senior Lecturer and Head of the Education through Art Program, Department of Education and Department of Multidisciplinary Studies, Tel Hai Academic College, Israel