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Subscribe to reveal wherever you get your podcasts. Chris Everett and Martina Navartolova talk about being friends and rivals. After they retired, Everett and Navartolova were each diagnosed with cancer at about the same time. They did well, but recently Everett disclosed she'd just been diagnosed with a recurrence. Also, we talk about religious and political attacks on the arts, with Isaac Butler, author of the perfect moment.

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You can listen to the wait wait don't tell me podcast in the NPR app or wherever you get your podcast. This is fresh air weekend. I'm Terry Gross. My guests, Chris Everett and Martina Neverita Lova were the greatest female tennis players of their generation. They were friends and they were each others greatest rivals in the 70s and 80s. Whenever it retired in 1989, that each one 18 grand slam victories and they'd each been the top ranked female player in the world seven times.

Neverita Lova retired in 2006. Now they're the subject of a new Netflix documentary called Chris and Martina, the final set. It tells the story of how they interacted as friends and as opponents and how their friendship won cold for an extended period when their rivalry became more fierce. When they were each retired, their friendship deepened as they both faced cancer and were able to support each other. Everett was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2021. Neverita Lova was diagnosed

with throat and breast cancer in 2022, the same year that Everett had a recurrence. When I spoke with them a couple of weeks ago, they were both in remission, but recently Everett disclosed she'd just been diagnosed with a recurrence of ovarian cancer. Here's how the interview one to a couple of weeks ago. Chris Everett, more teen than ever to Lova, what a pleasure to have you on fresh air and really like that the documentary is so good. Both in terms of your friendship,

your rivalry, but also the excerpts of matches between the two of you that are just spectacular to watch. So congratulations on that. Thank you. Thank you. I mean, what are the odds you'd have cancer at the same time and be a short drive from each other in Florida? Yeah, this is Chris. Freaky. I can't even, I can't get away from her. You know, everything happens with us. We had a 15-year career and then we got cancer, you know, at the same time and it really is

freaky, but you know, I always say if I want someone to be in the trenches with me, it's Martina,

because she has been so supportive and so understanding and so such a calming, you know, voice to talk to.

We know where to give each other the best advice we know how to and there's no, there's an

“ulterior motive for no, you know, no playing games and that's how we like it. Because I think we,”

we both have had so many people. Oh, you're great to send that. They don't, you know,

they don't give you the real story, but we've always been honest with each other on that front.

So you both have or had athletes' bodies and, you know, Martina, one of the things you, you were known for at some point in your career was basically building your body. You know, just like intense like four hour a day training to make your body stronger and then Chris, you ended up doing a very similar thing to keep up with Martina. And when you had cancer, you were really weak. I mean, it was hard to just walk. What was it like for you as athletes to live in a body

that wasn't functioning, that was very weak? Well, for me, I mean, so Chris's diagnosis and treatment was much more life-threatening than mine percentage wise, but my treatment was more

“difficult physically. I think I, I was abroad my yoga mat with me. I was in New York for seven weeks”

and I literally sat on the yoga mat maybe half an hour of the seven weeks and did some stretching. I couldn't even do the down dog pose because I would have fallen down. I had absolutely zero strength left, but the longest thing that took was the taste, which I loved to eat, so that was stuff. But you know, we're athletes, so we want things to happen right away. It was almost a year before I had full taste buds coming back, but it all came back.

But Chris was, well, you'd talk about what you went through. Well, I think the chemo kicked my butt, let's put it that way. And you know, when you think about, you know what, I don't want to use the word poisons, but the toxins, you know, it's killing the good cells as well as the bad cells. And it left me very weak, very, very weak. After chemo, I would have three or four days of intense nausea and I just would feel tingling in my body and it just wasn't nice. And you know,

I didn't have the energy, I mean, to walk six blocks was was a big deal for me. And it was foreign, you know, it felt like it wasn't my body for sure. Yeah. What were you able to do to support each other through the cancer and its treatment? You know, there are a lot of phone calls between us. And Martina, who is the cook in the relationship. I don't cook, but Martina would bake bread for me and her wife Julia would cook, make some chicken soup. So I got a lot of, I'm interested.

Yeah, I got a lot of food from Martina. She got a necklace from me. Yeah, I get jewelry from Chris. She gets food from me. But, you know, Martina is my relationship because we've had one for 50 years. It's not the type where we have to talk to each other every

day to maintain the closeness. I always knew she was there. She always knew I was there if we

need to talk. And that was that. Martina, you knew that's something was wrong when you felt a lump in your throat. It was my, my, my, uh, lymph node. It was your lymph node. Yeah, yeah. The, the tumor was in my, on my tongue, based on my tongue, but I didn't feel that. I just felt a swollen lymph node. Yeah. But, but, Chris, you weren't symptomatic, but your sister, Jean had died of a variant cancer. And she had a genetic mutation. And you wanted to see if you had the same thing.

Don't you get that right? Yeah. Yeah. I'll tell you the story to that. My sister, Jeanie was traveling with me to Singapore. And we were running to the gate. But I look back, and Jeanie was huffing and puffing and not running. And I said, Jeanie was the matter. She's an athlete. And she said, I don't know. I just been out of breath the last few weeks.

“And I, I just don't know. I think maybe I have a long, you know, infection or something. And I”

said, well, did the doctor say that. And she goes, no, I'm been to a doctor. So I said, Jeanie, you know what? We're going to Singapore for four days. And when we come back, you are going to the hospital right

away and get this tested because something's not right. So she said, okay. So she went and first

she got her genetic testing. And believe it or not, she did not everything turned out fine. She didn't have the braka gene, but she had a variant that was of uncertain significance, which means it hasn't been tested enough. You know, there's none of the case studies. And so they said, you know, she doesn't have braka. So you don't need to be tested. So nobody else in the family was tested. But unfortunately, Jeanie left it too long. And when she went in, she had stage four of

women who are nurturers, they're caring about their kids and their husband and their family, they forget about themselves. And that's probably one of the messages I want to get out there. If you feel anything different at all, slightly, you know, go get it tested. So after my sister died

“two years later, I get a call from the geneticist. And they said, do you remember that,”

variant that your sister had of uncertain significance? Well, that has changed. And now that's

basically cancerous. And it's braka. So we recommend that you and your family go get tested.

Next day I went, got tested. I had the braka gene. And me. And that week, I got a hysterectomy and they took it all out. But the results came back. And they said, unfortunately, you have a tumor in your ovaries. And you have tumors in your philopein tube. And I was like, are you kidding me? And they said, but, you know, it's stage one. You got lucky. You got it early. And by the way, I had had blood tests. I had had internal sonograms. I had, you know, everything that you can

imagine. And nothing was detected as far as a variant cancer. And I felt fine. I felt no symptoms. So that was my story. And it's like, you know, so I had the braka gene. And I got, I had a hysterectomy. And then later on, I had a mastectomy because you have a 70% chance of getting breast cancer if you have the braka gene. My guests are Chris Everett and Martina Nevertolova, the new Netflix documentary about their friendship, their rivalry, and having cancer at the same time in the 2020s,

is called Chris and Martina, the final set. There were in remission when we recorded our interview a couple of weeks ago. But recently Everett disclosed she just been diagnosed with the recurrence of ovarian cancer. We'll hear more of our conversation after a break. This is fresh air weekend. Every episode of it's been a minute. MPRs, what's happening in culture podcast, starts by asking three questions. Who? How? Why now? If the culture's asking it, we're talking

about it. At MPR, we stand for your right to be curious and indulge your cultural curiosity. Follow it's been a minute wherever you get your podcasts. And we'll break down the zeitgeist topics that are filling your feed. I'm Jesse Thorne. This week on Bullseye Craig Ferguson on his love of all things American, including you, New York City. People have their own little things, but they somehow think New York is not America, as is the rest of America. But I feel

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maximumfund.org or wherever you get your podcast. This is fresh air weekend. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Chris Everett and Martina Nevertolova, who were tennis champions in the 70s and 80s. They spent much of their careers as friends, and as the greatest rivals, a new Netflix documentary called Chris and Martina, the final set, is about the challenges of that dual relationship and about how they supported each other when they were each

diagnosed with cancer at about the same time in the 2020s. Martina, when you played your first match

in the U.S. I think it was the first time you'd been to the U.S. from Czechoslovakia, and travel was so restricted after the Russians invaded. What was that first tournament like for you? You weren't really speaking the language. You were basically alone. I think Chris had already, you know, befriended you and was helping kind of acclimate you. But tell me what that first match was like, and was that against Chris? No, no, no. So the first tournament happened to be qualifying to get into

the draw. It was 16 draw. Chris ended up winning it, of course. But I won my first round match. I got qualified and I won the first round match and then I lost in the quarters. But I was

thrilled to be in the States. I always loved American cars. And when you order a ham sandwich,

you got like two inches of ham and two slices of bread, whereas growing up, you had thick bread and one slice of ham. So I thought I was in heaven. And it was $2 or $0 or $0 or $0 for that sandwich.

“I still remember that couldn't believe how much ham I was getting. So I fell in love with American”

culture because it was so there were oranges on the streets. I could pick an orange. This is Florida, California. Florida, this is for Florida. So I'm picking up an orange, you know, as I'm driving down the road. And in Czechoslovakia, we all had oranges once a year. For Christmas, we would get bananas and oranges. It was a treat. Normally you just get apples and pears and maybe peaches. So it was like,

you helped her, you know, culturally, but also did you help her with her game? And did you think

she's going to become my fiercest rival soon? No, I did not help her with her game. She wanted to do that. You want to check? Yeah, I was not a coach. I was a player trying to protect my number one ranking. And you were 18. I saw a very talented young Czechoslovakia player and I played her in Akron, Ohio. And you were 16 then? Yeah, 16. I was 18. Yeah, I went in, which is in the same month that I met her. And I won 76, 63. But I remember thinking to myself, holy cow, when this

young girl, you know, gets into better shape, she is going to be a force to be reckoned with and very dangerous because she had so much talent. She, her hands were quick, you know, she had a big

first serve, she had a big forehand and she just was so powerful. So you maintained your friendship

until that kind of one cold. And the way the story is told in the documentary is that Martina

“you had become close to Nancy Lieberman, who I think it's fair to say was like the most famous”

basketball player of her era. And I think you became romantically involved too. But she told you that you had to like train harder, eat better, and, you know, trim down. And she had you training like for hours a day. And your body transformed unbelievably. But she also told you that it was time to stop being friends with Chris because it's hard for an opponent to be a friend. You have to just like not think about her feelings or anything and just see her as your rival. And

I want to know from each of you how that felt. Let's start with you Martina. How did it feel like I can't be friends with Chris anymore? Well, this happened. So Nancy and I made an April, and then Nancy came with me to the French Open, he's born Wimbledon, and I lost in the semi, and all those tournaments. And after Wimbledon, she says, what are you doing at Wimbledon? What do you mean? You could be in so much better shape, and you're too nice with Chris. I'm like, what are you talking about?

“Oh, you need to be tough, and you need to start training harder, and you need to hate your opponents.”

And you need to hate Chris. I'm like, oh, okay. And I was very, you know, naive. And again, I didn't have the skills to say, no, that's, I don't have to hate her. I just need to want to beat her. I was, I was almost too friendly. But the getting in shape thing was new to me. I thought I was in good shape, then she took me on the basketball court, had me run some suicide drills, and that's when I realized, okay, I'm not in that's good to shape as I thought. So that summer I started training hard,

then during the assault, and Renee Richard started helping me became my coach after the assault, and that's when everything kind of changed for me. The fitness, and then the coaching, because for six years after I defected, I didn't have a coach. My father was my coach, but we could talk maybe once a month. So he couldn't coach me, and I was on my own, and that's when Renee started helping me, that's when everything changed for me.

And Chris, what was it like for you after Martina following the advice of Nancy Lieberman, distance herself from you? I hurtful. I was very hurtful, and I, I don't think that was really Martina. I think she was just, you know, following Nancy's orders, and Martina, you know, was really sort of afraid to speak up to her at the same time. But in saying that, Nancy Lieberman did heck of a lot for Martina to love when it came to return us and her fitness,

and because it was 180 degree turn from the athlete that she was then until after she had worked out with Nancy, and she was just, she became unbeatable, and then for the next two and half years, you know, lost six matches. So she did her a lot of good, let's put it that way, but not in a nice way. You lost six matches. I had a stretch where I lost six matches in three

“years. That's how amazingly I played then. I mean, when I look at the numbers, now I'm like,”

wow, but when you when you're doing it, you don't think about it, but, you know, that was a pretty good stretch. Chris, what did to your identity? Because your identity was built,

ever since you were like 15 on like being amazing, being unbeatable, being number one,

and when you stopped being number one, when you were losing to Martina, who you had known before she was nearly that good, what did it do to your sense of self? You know, I mean, whether it's ego

Nobody had come along with that versatility and the strength, the power that Martina had,

and it was tough to swallow, to tell you the truth. But after a while, I kind of came to terms with it and realized she's just too good and you can continue to work hard. Go in the gym like she does, and train like she does, and you know, just try to become a better athlete, and you can do a little bit. You started training and changed my strategy. Yeah. You took a break for a while from tennis.

“I think it was the first one to take them. It was a mental break at that time,”

because the way I described it was like, I'd wake up in the morning, I didn't want to get out of bed, and the thought of competing, you know, made me, I just didn't, I didn't have the burning desire,

I didn't have the killer instinct. Were you burned out or, and were you also discouraged because

you weren't winning as much? No, no, no, no, I was burned out. I mean, you know that they call that the seven year-inch in marriage. Well, there's this, to me, there's a seven year-inch in as being an athlete, and I just was mentally drained. And I need, I wanted just to live life like a normal 24-year-old. Yeah, I was 78, I played 21 tournaments and Chris played 10 tournaments. Martina, did you go through that seven year period? I was burned out at the end of 86,

and I did not know it either. It should have been red flags, flying everywhere, because I asked my then coach, my guest up, "How few tournaments can I play and still stay number one?" Hello! But I didn't know to take a break. I did not take any vacations. And I played for three years, burned out, and I still kept trying, and the results weren't there, then Steffi Graf comes along, and starts beating, beating Botoba's, and I ended up talking to Billie Jean,

I said, "Billy, I don't know what's going on, this is not 89." In the spring, I don't know what's going on, I'm trying hard, but the results are in there, and this and that. So she advised me to take a take a week off, just do nothing except what I want to do, and see if I still feel like the love of the game that I had when I was a little girl hitting against the wall. So I did that. I took a week off, did nothing, and I'm like, "Yeah, I still want to play. I love the game,

and I still feel like I can get better or improve in some ways, and I want to play." So that, and I played six more years after that. So all it took was one week of self-reflection, but I didn't know to take the break. I wonder if this contributed to feeling burned out. You talk about, and in the documentary, you talk about how Chris was like considered like the girl next door, everybody loved her, and the stands. But for you, people saw you like, well,

she is the communist, and she is a bully, and then at some point after you were outed, and she's a lesbian, and that you would get some booze, you wouldn't get as many cheers as, as Chris did.

“I mean, that sounds a little demoralizing. Did that contribute to your feeling of burnout?”

I'm sure that didn't help, because I was like, I was the visiting team, no matter what I played, you know, they were cheering for the other guy to win or for me to lose either way. You take it personally, and it was tricky, and playing Chris was difficult, because how can you not like Chris? It was not too admire, you know, she was like the epitome of cool, and I was not, but then coming from a communist country, coming from a slavic country, and of course being gay didn't help either.

So, and then you know, had visible muscles, and you know, it was physically stronger, imposing, and all of this, and unapologetic, unneverapologised for who I was, and you know, as a woman, you're supposed to be more

demure, and I certainly never was that. So, it was just a whole bunch of stuff, and when you really think,

think back, I was still kind of alone, because I was not getting the help emotionally, or mentally, that I could have used back then, and the pressure never goes away, really. And then there was also the pressure of not being able to come out, because it wasn't done, you know, you know, no, no, no, I couldn't come out, because it would have been a disqualifying, could be disqualifying for getting my citizenship. So, I couldn't come out into my citizenship and anyone.

Yes, it was on there. It's up to the final officer, which what I think always meant, who did the final interview, to approve you for citizenship, they can ask you whatever they want, and if they ask you, are you gay, and you can't lie, right? Because then that could be a disqualifier.

“You have to tell the truth, you under oath. And if you say yes, and if that officer deems that,”

a disqualifying answer, then you will not get your citizenship, and you're done. And so, I couldn't come out for that reason, and then once I got my citizenship, I didn't want to

of who I was, but I was kind of in the closet because of these circumstances. That's a lot to

“keep in when you're in the public eye. It is. It is. Thank you both so much for being on our show.”

And thank you for participating in that documentary because it's really good. Thank you. Thank you, Terry. Chris Everett and Martina Navartolova are the subjects of the new Netflix documentary, Chris and Martina, the final set. The Offbeat New Comedy Alice and Steve tells the story of decades old friends who have a bitter falling out when Steve gets romantically involved with Alice's 20-something daughter.

This six-part British series, which recently dropped on Hulu, stars in a cola walker,

one of the queens of British television, and the New Zealand musician and actor, Germaine Klamant,

who is in, among other things, flight of the concords, and what we do in the shadows. Our critic at large John Powers says the new show drove him crazy in lots of ways,

“but it's best moments and walker kept him avidly watching.”

I grew up watching episodic shows on Network TV, nearly all of them form your leg, but some indelibly great. Then, like everyone else, I moved into the days of what my colleague David B. and Kooley dubbed Platinum TV, where series like the sopranos and the wire and flea bag aspired to something higher. What both these areas had in common was that their shows were carefully crafted. They had an internal logic and a tone that held them together.

In recent years though, there's been a proliferation of shows that possibly obeying some algorithm, care less for coherence than sensation. They lurch among tones, from cuteness to sentimentality to meanness, stirring in random plot twists along the way. Bouncing all over the emotional map, these shows depend on compelling actors and a few memorable scenes to make us overlook their loose

“construction. A great example is Alison Steve, an entertaining but sometimes”

exasperating six part British comedy on Hulu, about two 50-something best friends who turn on each other after he gets involved with their 26-year-old daughter. Well, the premise is juicy, it's also a tadyyucky, and I mainly tune in because its title characters are played by performers Germaine Clement from Flight of the Concords, and Nicola Walker, who might have raved up on this show more than once. The series starts poorly, with Steve and Alice going on a cutesy bender

after a friend's funeral. Now, I always hate drunk scenes, which are an invitation to overact.

As Clement and Walker brave their lines, we learn that Steve's a divorce celebrity hairstylist who can't find a girl friend. Well, Alice is a closed designer, with a doting younger husband nicely played by Joel Frye, a sweetie pie of a teenage son, this tadyy's eaten dice, and of course that 26-year-old daughter, Izzy, who's inherited her mother's willfulness. Played by Yale Topo Margulite, Izzy kicks starts the plot by flirting with Steve.

Predictably, he succumbs. Almost immediately, they think they're in love. While the weak-willed Steve wants to hide their romance, he knows it's inappropriate. Izzy just blurt out the facts to her mom. Alice flips. And from here on in this series where the women are as alpha as the men are hangdog, Alice drives the action. But trade and violently angry should do whatever it takes to break them up, no matter who gets hurt.

Heretics only steaves own malice. We're in beef territory. Here, early on, Steven Izzy are walking to a dinner party organized by Alice, who's pretending to have buried the hatchet. You do realize this is probably a trap. Oh, she could be trying to walk out? Yeah. Yeah.

No, but you're right, this is definitely a trap. Yeah. Do you think Daniel's gonna punch me? Right, so if Daniel would ever punch anyone. Maybe we could show her that this is a good thing.

I like her best friend. And how nice that she already really loves the guy I'm dating.

You know this. Yeah. Terrified. At its core, Alice and Steve hinges on the way that platonic friendships

are often richer and more powerful than romantic ones.

It's a fascinating subject, which may be why I found the script by Sophie Goodhart so frustrating. I wanted her to dig deeper. While the show's got some very funny bits, Alice's sharp tongue mother is a blast. It's often annoyingly lacks. If Steve really does the hair of Charlie XCX, how come he's a clueless older guy who's

“pop culture references are really Nelson and Woody Allen?”

If as he truly adores her mother as she claims, why does she keep a rubbing her relationship with Steve and her mom's face? Halfway through, one character nukes the other's career. But this life-shattering event has no real weight. It's barely even mentioned for the rest of the series.

That said, Alice and Steve as we're seeing for scenes like the one in which Steve spinously sells Izzy out. Or the lasterating discussion between Alice and her husband when he fully grasped that he adores a woman who views him as a reliable but dull concierge. Not a man she likes hanging with.

Most touching of all may be the lovely sequence when Alice, why is for once? Smooth romantic crisis between her son and his would-be girlfriend,

“a pair who are the show's emblem of hope.”

For once, we understand why people love her. Well, most viewers will find Steve more likeable than Alice. The show takes pains not to make him a pure predatory or creepy. The role doesn't give Clement a whole lot to do, except play variations on shambolic dread and discomfort.

The show gets its galvanizing zim from Walker,

a beloved star in England with amazing luminous eyes.

Her Alice is the kind of complicated volcanic heroine that you don't see in movies and rarely see on TV. One who shows her apocalyptic rage freely and in many different forms. At least once in every episode, something would lead me to say, "Man is this show a mess."

But that wasn't a deal breaker. I kept watching. After all, life is messy too. John Powers reviewed the Hulu series, Alice and Steve. Coming up, we'll talk about the Christian rights attacks on books and the arts

that launch the culture wars. With Isaac Butler, author of the new book The Perfect Moment, God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America's Culture Wars. This is Fresh Air Weekend. This week on Wayway, don't tell me we talked to bestselling author,

Carrow Clare Burke about how it feels to write the hit book of the summer. I've been very dissociative, so that's a problem for my future therapist. Yeah, I say, let's talk about the fact you're not in therapy, that's fascinating. Don't miss our full conversation and the rest of our games, listen to the wait wait don't tell me podcast and the NPR app or wherever you get your podcast.

Hi, it's me Peter Segal, host of Wayway, don't tell me it's summer,

“and if you want to turn your pool party into a nerd fest, check out our news quiz.”

We got comedians, we got celebrities, we got games to help you laugh about the week's news. Yeah, that news. It'll be just like, "Whoa, hangin' out at your backyard barbecue." Listen every week to Wayway, don't tell me on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. This is Fresh Air Weekend, I'm Terry Gross.

The culture war never seems to end.

My guest Isaac Butler takes us through part of its history in his new book the perfect moment. God, sex, art, and the birth of America's culture wars. Butler says the conflict had a transformative effect on him, because at the same time the culture wars hurtled toward their climax, art saved his life. His new book begins in 1974 in West Virginia with the banning of many books and accounties new

school curricula with the power of the Christian right behind the ban. There were also behind the attacks on Martin Scorsese's film, The Last Demtation of Christ, and the taboo-breaking artwork of Robert Mapletharp, and David Warner-Ovich, who were accused of creating pornography, and Andreas Serrano, who was accused of creating blasphemous art. The story continues with attacks on the NEA's federal funding for the arts.

Isaac Butler, as the author of the previous books, the world only spins forward about the play angels in America, and the method about the history of the acting technique known as the method. The day after we recorded this interview, the Texas Board of Education approved a new curriculum

reading. Many parents and teachers have objected as the culture wars continue. Isaac Butler, welcome back to Fresh Air. Thank you, Terry. It's great to be here. So one of the main characters in your book is one of the leaders of the attacks on the artists who are in your book, and I'm thinking of Donald Wildman, and he's one of the leading figures

behind the first attack where your history begins. So let's start with who was Donald Wildman?

Donald Wildman is a really fascinating eccentric character. Unfortunately died right as I was starting doing my interviews for the book, so I didn't get to talk to him, which is unfortunate. But Wildman was a pioneering media advocacy activist,

“and he was an evangelical Christian reverend and tuplo who kind of found his calling that's how”

he describes it in his memoir in trying to make American culture less blasphemous and less sinful. In the '70s, this looked like leading boycott campaigns against these conglomerates, because at that point, you know, like TV studios and movie studios were owned by these companies that

also owned department stores and tin mines and literally coffin manufacturers and stuff like that.

So he would do these consumer boycotts to get companies to either stop advertising on shows that he disliked or to pull shows or change the content of shows that he disliked. That was where he started. He was very successful at it and built a really, really huge mailing list. And in the '80s, he and sort of coalition of other evangelical Christians take on Martin Scorsese's last temptation of Christ. And they pivot from that to taking on, you know, often quite unknown

“American so-called high art. That's not really a division. I believe him, but, you know,”

American high art because it was funded by the government and that created an opening for them to say,

essentially, you know, you're wasting our taxpayer dollars on blasphemy and sin.

Well, let's go back to 1974 in Kanawa County, West Virginia, where there was new school curricula from the school board and there was one person who held out on some of the books, on many of the books that were in this new curricula. Her name was Alice Moore. She was married to a Church of Christ's Minister and she also opposed sex education. So she's one person on the board but how does Donald Wildman enter the act? Well, Alice Moore is a really, also a really fascinating

thing. You know, the Kanawa County textbook war, which is what it sort of came to be called,

“was the thing I just discovered during research and it blew my mind because all of the factors”

in, you know, what was going to become the culture war are present there. You have a evangelical Christians, you know, using direct action, organizing, and stuff like that to really change the direction of the government. In this case, it was a legal mandate that curricula had to be diverse and reflect diverse perspectives on American life and they were going to approve a new, you know, K through 12 curricula for the public schools to do that. And Alice Moore, who, as you said,

had been elected to the school board on an explicitly anti-sex ed platform, got them to delay that vote. And while they delayed that vote, a number of Christian organizations and churches, both within the county and without came and lent their support. And so there's, you know, sort of evangelical, the evangelical movement really comes into West Virginia. And they, the situation spirals really far out of control over the course of the year. I mean, to a point where

people are starting to try to bomb schools to keep schools from opening, you know. And the end result is they actually wind up kind of, you know, vetoing this rule. They, they managed to cause such a fuss that to get it to go away. This county and the school board eventually agree to not have these books come in and to change the rules about what books will be adopted. And within a few years there's creationist textbooks in classrooms in Canawa. So it's this, you know, that really

created a kind of template that religious right figures like Donald Wildman would use again and again and again. So if they created a template, what was the template? Well, it starts with a really intense sense of grievance or performance of grievance that other people expressing their rights essentially. Other people's speech is oppressing you. That other people's point of view that you're,

I don't want my child to even know what they are. You know, so it's this idea that's really key to

the parents' rights movement that, you know, parents have absolute control over their children and to teach them things that they don't want is a form of discrimination against those parents. So you start with that kind of grievance. And then you move there to, you know, organizing these direct action campaigns with petitions and letters and stuff like that. The end goal is to capture a kind of non-largely non-partisan group like a school board or a regulatory committee or whatever

it is and staff it with people who will then use it to perpetuate your ideological goals.

“So that's what they're always moving towards is capturing these the decision makers or”

pressuring the decision makers and threatening the decision makers in such a way that they are

going to help you pursue your ideological goals. So what were some of the books that were removed from the curricula as a result of this pressure campaign? I mean, it's there's hundreds of them right and it's everything from essays by James Baldwin to there's a picture book of Jack and the Beanstalk that someone objects to because there's a, you know, a black kid and a white kid playing together on the cover. So it really runs the gamut. It's hundreds of books that they pull

and follow Jesus, especially of poetry and essays that are meant for, you know, the equivalent of like AP or baccalaureate juniors and seniors, you know, like upper-level people doing adult-level English literature work, that kind of stuff often has a lot of adult themes, right? And so a lot of those books wind up getting pulled. Some of which are, you know, books we might take for granted today like the autobiography of Malcolm X, you know, that was one that got a lot of strikes against it.

Do you see similarities between this 1974 case and what's happening now with the banding of books and don't say gay? Yeah, I absolutely do. The difference now, of course, is that they're in charge. You know, you know, Ron DeSantis and the Republicans have a firm grip on the government in Florida. They have gotten those school boards staffed with, you know, people who are ideologically and lockstep with them. So it's much easier. You just have to pass a bill, right? But it's absolutely

the same stuff, which is that, you know, we don't want our children to have to learn that

“there are other ways of looking at the world. That's what's really at the heart of it. And a lot”

of the other ways of looking at the world that they don't want their children to learn about of course, focus on sex gender and sexuality. So let's jump ahead to the late 80s and early 90s when transgressive art was very popular and it was very unpopular on the religious right and Donald Wildman again becomes a main character in this story. So let's start with Andre Sorano who is best known for his photograph, Piss Christ. And it was a part of his series that he

called Immersions in which the images were based on body fluids, either from animals or from people and it could range from blood to milk. In this case, urine. So I want you to describe the image and then we'll hear an excerpt of my interview with Andre Sorano in which he talks about it. The image, if you didn't know the title of the image, you would just think it was sort of this beautiful holy tribute to Christ and Christ's sacrifice. It is a crucifix that has angled a little bit towards

the viewer. So the end of one of the arms is sort of disappearing into nothing. And it is in this

murky kind of field visual field. It's not even clear that it's a liquid when you first look at it

“and it's backlit. So it has this kind of spectral kind of holy power to it. And I think part of what”

caused all the controversy is the image is so beautiful and so holy seeming. And then, you know, it's contrasted with this title that is extremely blunt and potentially, although that is not how he intended it, blasphemous. And so it's those two things happening at once that I think help give the work of art, it's power. There's something almost celestial about it because there's no ground, there's no sky. It's Christ, like on the cross, kind of blurry, who seems to be like floating

in this ethereal space. And it's very unearthly looking. It's almost as if like Christ is rising on the cross and is kind of celestial looking, especially like if you don't know how it was made.

like I'm a Jew, I still, but I still think that that that photograph is is unbelievably moving and beautiful. And, you know, Serano was raised Catholic considers himself, you know, a Christian, he met Pope Francis. You know, he, he is, he is wrestling with his faith and he belongs to a long history of Catholic artists. I mean, Graham Greens, the power and the glory comes to mind to me, wrestling with their faith and the symbols of that faith. So let's hear an excerpt of the

interview that I recorded with Andreas Serano in 1993, and it starts with him describing it.

“It's very mysterious image, I think, as as many people have pointed out, without the title,”

it would have been seen as a very reverential treatment of the crucifix and, you know, fit the, uh, hanging the church, probably. This was a photograph. Yes. But the crucifix was actually immersed in urine. Yes. Yes. Yes. Now, when you put those two together, a lot of people see

it as blasphemous. Well, you know, I never saw it that way. And I remember when I first showed

the work in New York, that, uh, this woman, she was married to a, uh, Reverend, she said to me, you know, when it comes to religion, my husband and I don't agree about anything, but we were both very moved by your picture. And, uh, you know, that essentially was the reaction at first. Now, when, uh, you know, paid much money, except after, you know, the American Family Association got into the picture more than two years after the picture was first made. What were you saying

about religion in that piece? Well, I would say that, uh, it's probably a reflection of my own ambivalent feelings about my Catholic upbringing. Aside from that, there's nothing specific, you know, also, which of claims I've been made for that piece. And I, I remember at the time that I was embroiled in the controversy, the Southeast and Center for Contemporary Art, which was the sponsor of that very controversial grant. And the arch show said to me, you know, the NEAs breathing down

on next for an explanation. And, uh, can we say it's a, uh, protest against the commercialization, a religion and religious values? And I said, you know, well, that's not language that I would use,

“but, you know, if you want to say that, that's fine. What was it like for you to be at the Center”

of a national controversy? To have your art addressed on the Senate floor? It was very strange.

I mean, at the first, I couldn't believe it when they first told me that this was going on,

that thousands of people, you know, at the request of the American Family Association, we're sending in protest letters to Congress. And then I saw my soap being announced, you know, on TV and in the congressional record. That was the artist, Andre Serrano recorded in 1993 on fresh air. And my guest is Isaac Butler, author of the new book, The Perfect Moment, God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America's Culture Wars. So it's so interesting because Serrano was like a total

unknown. Yeah. Until he was in this touring show because he was, I think he'd won a kind of competition and all of the winners were in this group show that was touring. So he mentions in the

“exit that we just heard the American Family Association. That's Donald Wildman's group,”

we've been talking about. So how did Wildman pick up on this? I mean, it's a very weird set of circumstances. Someone saw the photograph in Richmond, Virginia, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and they wrote a letter to the editor of the Richmond Times dispatch about it. And somehow Wildman learned about it through that letter, as far as I can tell. There's been accusations that he,

you know, put that person up to it or whatever, but I've never seen any evidence of that. And so

then he, you know, started turning on the outrage machine about it. He was writing his list and they were, you know, writing the Congress and all this stuff about this artwork, which at that point, he hadn't seen. And I don't think anyone who was writing Congress about it had seen it because that show had been closed as Serrano said for quite some time. And, you know, it wasn't like the Sika touring art exhibit is not like a major art thing. And then it got picked up by Jesse Helms,

Senator Jesse Helms, who's from North Carolina, which is where Sika was based. And was a major opponent of the arts and arts funding. And was always on the lookout for stories like this to make hey out of. And then there's this weird thing where they have a copy of the catalog of the exhibit and Aldo Mado, Senator of New York, asked them to borrow the catalog and he brings it on to the Senate floor. And he denounces Serrano. And he literally tears a page out of the, out of the

catalog in the midst of his kind of rant about it. And after that kind of, you know, all hell kind of breaks loose for the NEA, especially, and to some extent for Serrano, who

helped put him on the map. And in fact, a few years after you did that interview with him,

“he wrote Jesse Helms a thank you note for making him famous. So yeah, he's a, he's a, he's a”

mischievous guy, you know, and so yeah, he ends with worth so much more. His gallery wanted to decline doing another show with him because in his previous gallery show, he'd only sold like one photograph.

But after the controversy, you know, he was selling a lot and he was, you know, it was, it was a

bone to his career. It was a bone to his career. It reunited him with a daughter. He had had

“previously that he wasn't, you know, in contact with. I mean, it was, it was a really life-changing”

event for him. Well, Isaac Butler has been great to have you back on the show. Thank you so much. Terry, thank you so much for having me. Isaac Butler is the author of the new book, the perfect moment. God, sex, art, and the birth of America's culture wars. Fresh air weekend is produced by Teresa Madden. Fresh air's executive producer is Sam Brigher.

“Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today is Adam Stannishewski.”

Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Philis Meyers and Reboot Anato, Lauren Crenzel, Monique Nazareth, Thayachaliner, Susan Yucundi, and Abelman, Nico Gonzalez-Wisler, and Heidi Samad. Our digital media producer is Molly Sivine Sper, our co-host is Tanya Mosley, I'm Terry Gross. you

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