Massive Twits: Performative Outrage Over ‘Rude’ Art

An outraged mother tries to preserve her son’s innocence by making him pose next to the ‘offensive’ artwork that allegedly ‘ruined his childhood’.

Oh, where would we be without prudish and attention-hungry parents seeking to protect their brats from the bad influence of artistic freedom? On the first day of the year, the Brighton and Hove Argus reports on a mother who is so shocked at the appearance of the word ‘twat’ on a piece of art in a gallery window that she claimed her son’s childhood has been ruined by it. Ruined! That seems a bit of a leap, but let’s dig in further.

38-year-old Hove mum Sarah Horne, who presumably can’t recall being at school, claims that the work in the window of the Unique Art Gallery – which is a multi-coloured statement that says ‘The Neighbour’s Cat is a Massive Twat’ – screamed out at her son, seven-year-old Nathaniel, who then read it out loud. Whether Nathanial routinely reads the text of every window display he passes or simply chose to single this one out is unknown, but well… we’ve all been kids, haven’t we? I remember when I was in a religious studies class being taught about Samson and Delilah when the mention of a prostitute came up. Of course, one of the kids had to ask the teacher what a prostitute was – not because we didn’t know but because we knew it would make her uncomfortable and embarrassed. Kids are like that.

“It was extremely shocking to hear such a word come from my innocent son’s mouth. There are some kids who swear, but we are not like that,” said Horne. Well. Nathanial brought the word up later on and asked what it meant, possibly out of genuine curiosity, possibly because he’d seen his mother blow a gasket the first time and wanted to poke the bear a bit more. What to do in such circumstances? Well, Sarah decided to tell him that it “was a bad word for the female anatomy”, which frankly doesn’t seem the best way of dealing with the situation – particularly when ‘twat’ is now more used as a general insult and in many parts of the country is not even seen as a swear word at all. I suppose a less upfront explanation might have led to Nathanial using it left, right and centre as an insult (assuming that he already doesn’t), but I’m genuinely intrigued by how bringing female genitalia into the conversation made anything better.

Sarah, we might assume, is a bit of a prude. She states that she avoids taking her son to “quirky shops” that might sell products featuring “those sort of things”. We might, however, note that her desire for publicity seemingly outstrips her concern for her son’s innocence as the Argus story features photos of the two of them outside the gallery, posing in front of the offending piece – with one photo showing Nathaniel looking right at the word while covering his ears for some reason or other. Surely all this would simply compound the problem.

The gallery has been admirably dismissive of her calls for an apology. “We are satisfied that the artwork is doing what art is often meant to do – provoke thought and comment and even laughter,” said a spokesperson, while going on to explain that ‘twat’ is a word that is rarely used in a sexual context. Artists Bob and Eve were even more dismissive, stating “We are sorry to hear that members of the public have been affected by our ongoing feud with next door’s cat.” Let’s hope that this is a precedent for how people will deal with the perpetually offended in 2024.

I suspect that any trauma caused by reading a slightly rude word will be dwarfed by Nathaniel’s appearance in the Argus. I imagine that his schoolmates will have seen the piece and you know what kids are like. As someone in the comments notes, it’s not hard to imagine what his new nickname might be. I hope it was all worth running to the local paper about.

DAVID FLINT

Thanks to Angry People in Local Newspapers on X.

Like what we do? Support us and help us do more!