Streisand Decries Drive to Abolish Funding for the Arts

Acknowledging that she is “neither a politician nor a professor,” Barbra Streisand overcame her legendary stage fright on Friday to deliver a 14-page speech to the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Having turned down the invitation last year because of an impending concert tour, Streisand had a change of mind after the November midterm elections.

“So much of what the artist needs to flourish and survive is at risk now,” she told a packed audience of faculty and students. “ . . . Artists derided as the ‘cultural elite’ are convenient objects of scorn; and those institutions which have given Americans access to artistic works, such as the National Endowment for the Arts and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, are in danger of being abolished.”

Claiming that the far political right is “waging a war for the soul of America by making art a partisan issue,” Streisand argued that the role of the artist is to challenge and provoke.

“The presumption is that people in my profession are too insulated, too free-thinking, too subversive,” she said. “One can almost hear the question--’Are you now or have you ever been a member of the Screen Actors Guild?’ ”

While acknowledging that a “lot of junk” is produced by a profit-oriented entertainment industry, Streisand observed that violence is rarely a target of right-wing wrath. “Their candidates campaign alongside of the major practitioners of this so-called art form,” she said.

To those who contend that artists have no place in politics, Streisand retorted that they’re often ahead of their time.

“In the cases (of the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War), at least, I would suggest that the painters and performers were wiser than most pundits and politicians,” she said.

Streisand, who sang at President Clinton’s inaugural ball and who has long been an influential Democratic Party supporter, zeroed in on House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.)

“All great civilizations have supported the arts. However, the new Speaker of the House, citing the need to balance the budget, insists that the arts programs be the first to go,” she said, adding that the entire NEA budget was equal to the cost of one new fighter jet.

“The persistent drumbeat of cynicism on the talk shows and in the new Congress reeks of disrespect for the arts and artists,” Streisand said. “Art does not exist only to entertain--but also to challenge one to think, to provoke, even to disturb, in a constant search for the truth.”