Jacob Ogles
Gov. Ron DeSantis defended vetoing virtually all funding for arts grants, saying he didn’t want state funds supporting sexual-themed festivals. He singled out Fringe Festivals, which draw thousands to Florida each year.
“We didn’t have control over how it was being given. So you have your tax dollars being given in grants to things like the Fringe Festival, which is like a sexual festival where they are doing all this stuff,” DeSantis said at a press conference. “How many of you think your tax dollars should go to fund that? Not very many people would do that.”
While DeSantis didn’t single out a particular festival, several were set to receive arts grants this fiscal year before DeSantis vetoed $32 million in arts funding,
The biggest such festival was the Orlando Fringe Festival, which could have received more than $70,000 in state support, according to the Daytona Beach News-Journal. The Alliance for the Arts in Lee County, which organizes Fringe Fort Myers, expected more than $61,000, and more than $7,000 was going to the Tampa International Fringe Festival.
Molly Rowan-Deckert, Executive Director of the Alliance for the Arts, considered DeSantis’ remarks “horrifying.” She also said they were grossly inaccurate. For her organization, no state grants directly benefit the Fringe Festival, which sustains itself on ticket sales, but the loss of grant funding threatens staff positions and the economic foundation of the arts nonprofit.
“He’s talking about wanting to expel woke ideology from the state of Florida, and I think he’s conflating the arts with woke ideology,” she said.
She voiced a concern that DeSantis judged Fringe Festivals without ever attending one. Acts aren’t chosen to be provocative — and certainly they are not exclusively sexual. For Fringe Fort Myers, various artworks that struggle to find other avenues apply to be part of the festival and organizers draw the entries at random.
“It’s a dangerous assumption, and unless you have experienced it, how do you know what an arts festival is?” she said. “But also, if you don’t like a show, don’t go.”
That said, programming at festivals certainly includes controversial and risqué acts. Fringe Fort Myers featured a TransMasculine Cabaret and a show called “Cock Talk,” a male version of the “Vagina Monologues.” That said, it also included banjo performances and a family art lab.
The Orlando event will include a presentation of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Programming often is more experimental than edgy. The event will also feature PitchBlack, a play about a blind jazz artist, performed with audiences in total darkness.
Rep. Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, said regardless of taste, the festivals also serve as an economic engine.
“I attended Orlando Fringe this year and do almost every year — it’s a popular international event that attracts tens of thousands of people from across the country and state,” she posted on X.
“It features independent artists, drag performers and other forms of artistic expression that DeSantis has wanted to censor despite courts telling him otherwise. DeSantis once again shows his true colors and disdain towards the LGBTQ+ people and First Amendment. This veto also impacts economic growth for all communities. By the way, just because arts groups are approved for funding doesn’t mean they even get funding! Depends on where they score and what money the legislature allocates.”
Indeed, organizations must still undergo a rigorous application process that validates the need for spending and demonstrates benefits to the state.
But DeSantis said this is as much about the state having to verify that the money supports worthy projects.
“I have to be the one to stand up for taxpayers and say, ‘You know what? That is an inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars,’” he said.
“I think the Legislature needs to re-evaluate how that’s being done. To say that somebody who is working hard and paying taxes, I can go to you and say we have a very small budget compared to our state’s population and we have a low tax burden and all of this, but these roads are important. I can sell that. Education is important. I can sell that. Preserving our natural resources is important. I can sell that. I can’t sell the Fringe Festival to taxpayers, nor would I want to try and sell the Fringe Festival to taxpayers.”
16 comments
Cheesy Floridian
June 27, 2024 at 5:54 pm
DeSantis is looking out for our tax dollars? Let me hawk tuah on that. This man is hiding public records about where our tax dollars are being spent, using tax dollars to send people to Martha’s Vineyard and fight his stupid legal battles. He is taking our tax dollars and giving them to lawyers that are charing hundreds of dollars an hour to fight his battles. Yet he says he is looking out for us? Give me a break. This is the lame excuse he gives is because a show might be sexual? My gosh the man is a prude. I’m surprised he was able to have 3 children.
Elvis Pitts "LIFE COACH" American
June 27, 2024 at 6:58 pm
Good evening Sage Patriots along with the Dregs of Florida the Dook 4 Brains Leftys,
Its a shame the Dooks ruined Florida’s Funding for The Arts by putting on those Dook Drag Queen Events and trying to Groom our youngsters into the Perverse Homer Testical Life Style of Sin.
You Dooks are why we cant have nice things in Florida.
Thank you,
Elvis Pitts American
TJC
June 27, 2024 at 5:55 pm
Bullshit political pandering to the holier-than-thou right.
Michael K
June 27, 2024 at 6:11 pm
As a taxpayer, I am deeply offended by this.
Obviously, the governor has never been to a Fringe Theater Festival. He has no idea what he’s talking about. But his mind is stuck in the gutter if all he sees is sex. I almost feel sorry for him.
We’ve been through this before, so here we go again. Jesse Helms tried to shut down the NEA years ago. Helms failed, and DeSantis will certainly fail. He should leave theatrical stunts to the professionals.
Petty totalitarian leaders shut down the arts because they feel threatened by ideas and need to control everything about people’s lives, including what they read, and who they love.
Such a tragic waste of time and resources. This is a lame excuse to punish a vibrant sector of the creative economy just to score a few cheap points with the fringe of radical right-wing extremists. It’s sefish and irresponsible.
Bill Pollard
June 27, 2024 at 6:17 pm
Sometimes the point of art is to get the viewer to think about something different. I have seen art that I did not initially like, but once I understood that it was supposed to be controversial I respected it.
Cheesy Floridian
June 28, 2024 at 11:29 am
If art doesn’t make you feel something, is it art? It should make us look at things differently and challenge how we feel.
Elvis Pitts "LIFE COACH" American
June 27, 2024 at 7:05 pm
Michael K and Newby Dook Bill Pollard,
You are both very confused and in need of redemption.
Lets begin with each of you reading outloud my post of Sage Wisdom (above) out loud 100 times each …. there now you both feel 100% better now thanks to Elvis Pitts American.
What the heck
June 28, 2024 at 10:18 am
Stupid, just stupid. First erase blacks, then erase lgbt, then erase arts. Baby Trump deathsantis continues the hitler invasion. Right wing ideology. Can we be done with this please
Cheesy Floridian
June 28, 2024 at 11:29 am
We gotta vote these people out.
Dr. Franklin Waters
June 28, 2024 at 12:02 pm
Ron DeSantis is a fascist. This is exactly what they do.
Collective punishment.
Paul Passarelli
June 28, 2024 at 11:51 am
To anyone and everyone that believes the “Fringe Festival” (and tll the rest) is important, I suggest you go pay your fee to attend or make a private donation to the organizers. I have no problems with that. ICYMI: Neither do *most* conservatives.
Where we’ll stand in opposition to your idiotic ranting is when you try to use the might of *GOVERNMENT* to make US support the “Fringe Festival” (et.al.)
tl;dr — Keep your grubby mitts off of our wallets!
Capisce?
Michael K
June 28, 2024 at 11:57 am
OK. You keep your hands off public school funding so I don’t have to watch my tax dollars go to unaccountable religious schools that discriminate and teach hate.
PS: I pay taxes too, like millions of other arts attendees.
Dr. Franklin Waters
June 28, 2024 at 12:01 pm
I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this Paul, but you’re a f*cking moron.
Dr. Franklin Waters
June 28, 2024 at 12:01 pm
Collective Punishment is one of the hallmarks of a fascist.
Because of this, even zoos and children’s museums across the state are losing funding. This will cost jobs, tourism revenue, and have long lasting, deep negative impacts across the state for years.
If you’re still a Ron DeSantis, I don’t know what else to tell you other than you’re probably a f*cking moron.
Former Democrat Voting Trump
June 28, 2024 at 8:27 pm
All Democrats should look into your hearts and free yourselves from your wromgfull past. Please joim me in voting Trump.
It just makes sense.
Larry Gillis, Libertarian (Cape Coral)
June 28, 2024 at 1:40 pm
The government should not be in the “values business” at all. Arts festivals are an improper use of taxpayer money.
Vote Libertarian. http://www.lpf.org