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When the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) censored performance artist Karen Finley, she became a cause celebrity. Attacked by Jesse Helms for her live performances which involve partial nudity, political satire, social criticism and the exploration of sexual taboos, she replied, "I use certain language that is a symptom of the violence of the culture. If I talk about a woman being raped, I have to use the language of the perpetrators." The content of her performances (dealing with child abuse, wife-beating, sexism, suicide, abortion, homophobia, racism, dysfunctional families and addiction in general) was generally overlooked, as was the seriousness of her commitment to exposing moral, cultural and social decay -- always, however, with irony and black humor.
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