Fresh Air - Best Of: Tennis stars Chris Evert & Martina Navratilova / American Culture Wars

Episode Date: July 4, 2026

The two most famous women’s tennis champions of their generation, Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova, talk about being friends and rivals. After they had retired, they were both diagnosed with cancer. A new Netflix documentary follows their careers and friendship as they navigate their lives on and off the court. Also, we talk about religious and political attacks on the arts with cultural historian Isaac Butler. His book is ‘The Perfect Moment: God, Sex, Art and the Birth of America’s Culture Wars.’ Critic John Powers  reviews ‘Alice and Steve,’ a British comedy series  about a 50-something man who starts dating his best friend’s much younger daughter.Subscribe to our free weekly newsletter Follow us on Instagram Subscribe to our YouTube channel Check out the Fresh Air ArchivesSee pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

From W. H.Y.Y. in Philadelphia, I'm Terry Gross with Fresh Air Weekend. Today, the two most famous women's tennis champions of their generation, Chris Everett and Martina Navratilova, talk about being friends and rivals. After they retired, Everett and Everettilova were each diagnosed with cancer at about the same time. They did well, but recently Everett disclosed she'd just been diagnosed most with a recurrence. Also, we talk about religious and political attacks on the arts with Isaac Butler, author of The Perfect Moment, God, Sex, Art, and the Birth of America's Culture Wars. Even breakfast cereals or whatever have become part of the culture wars now. And critic John Powers reviews Alice and Steve, a British comedy series about a man in his

50s who starts dating his best friend's much younger daughter. That's coming up on Fresh Air Week This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, Chris Everett and Martina Navratilova, were the greatest female tennis players of their generation. They were friends, and they were each other's greatest rivals in the 70s and 80s. When Everett retired in 1989, that each won 18 Grand Slam victories, and they'd each been the top-ranked female player in the world seven times. Navratilova 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 went 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. Navratilova was diagnosed with throat and breast. 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 went a couple of weeks ago. Chris Everett, Mortina and Everettilova, what a pleasure to have you on Fresh Air. And really like 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 such a calming, you know, voice to talk to. Yeah, we have such a level of trust that we know whatever we say to each other, it stays there. We know where they give each other the best advice we know how to, and there's no ulterior motive or no playing games. And that's how we like it.

Because I think we both have had so many people, oh, you're great, this and that. 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 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 brought 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 post because I would have fallen down. I had absolutely zero strength left. But the longest thing that took was the taste, which I love to eat, so that was tough. But, you know, we're athletes, so we want things to happen right away. It was almost a year before I had full taste butts coming back, but it all came back.

But Chris was – well, you talk about what you went through. Well, I think the chemo kicked my butt, let's put it that way. You know, when you think about, you know, 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, 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 a big deal for me. and it was foreign. 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 food from Martina. She got a necklace from me. Yeah, I get jewelry from Chris. She gets food from me. But, you know, Martina's in my relationship, because we've had one for 50 years, is 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 needed to talk.

And that was that. Martina, you knew that something was wrong when you felt a lump in your sense. throat. It was my lymph node. Oh, was your lymph node? Yeah, yeah, 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. But Chris, you weren't symptomatic, but your sister, Gene had died of ovarian cancer, and she had a genetic mutation, and you wanted to see if you had the same thing. Do you want to get that right? Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you the story to that. My sister, Jeannie, was traveling with me to Singapore, and we were running to the gate, but I looked back, and Jeannie was huffin and puffin and not running. And I said, Jeannie, what's 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 just don't know. I think maybe I have a lung, you know, infection or something. And I said, well, did the doctor say that? And she goes, no, I haven't been to a doctor. So I said, Jeannie, 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 genetic testing. And believe it or not, she did not, everything turned out fine. She didn't have the BRCA gene, but she had a variant that was of uncertain significance, which means it hasn't been tested enough. You know, there's not enough case studies. And so they said, you know, she doesn't have BRCA. So you don't need to be tested. So nobody else in the family was tested. But unfortunately, Jeannie left it too long.

And when she went in, she had stage four ovarian cancer. And it spread everywhere in her body. And she ignored the symptoms because, like most 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 BRCA. So maybe, we, We recommend that you and your family go get tested. Next day I went, got tested. I had the broca gene in 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 fallopian 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 internal sonograms, I had, you know, everything that you can imagine, and nothing was detected as far as ovarian cancer. And I felt fine. I felt no symptoms. So that was my story. And it's like, you know, so I had the brocogene, and I got, I had a hysterectomy. And then later on I had a mastectomy. because you have a 70% of getting breast cancer if you have the Brockagen. My guests are Chris Everett and Martina Navratilova, 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. They were in remission when we recorded our interview a couple of weeks ago, but recently Everett disclosed she'd just been diagnosed with the recurrence of ovarian cancer. We'll hear more of our conversation after a moment. a break. This is Fresh Air Weekend. This is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to my interview with Chris Everett

and Martina Navratilova, who were tennis champions in the 70s and 80s. They spent much of their careers as friends and as their 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?

Like, you weren't really speaking the language. You were basically alone. I think Chris had already, like, 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, no. So the first tournament, I had to play 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 $2.50 for that sandwich. I still remembered. I 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. Was this Florida, California? Florida, this is for Laredale. So I'm picking up an orange as I'm driving down the road.

And in Czechoslovakia, we only 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 know, Alice in Wonderland for me coming to the States. Chris, you befriended, Martina. 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 won't going to do that. What the heck? Yeah, I was not a coach. I was a player trying to protect my number of. one ranking. And you were 18. I saw a very talented young Chukeslovakian player and I played her in Akron, Ohio. And you were 16 then? Yeah, 16. I was 18. I was the fourth trim and on the tour. Yeah. Which is in the same month that I met her. And I won 7, 6, 6, 6, 3. 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 went 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, female 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 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, I met in April. And then Nancy came with me to the French Open, Eastbourne, Wimbledon, and I lost in the semis in all those tournaments. And after Wimbledon, she says, what are you doing? What do you mean? You could be in so much better shape, and you're too nice to 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, I don't have to hate her. I just need to want to beat her. I was almost too friendly. But the getting in shape thing was news to me.

I thought I was in good shape. And she took me on the basketball court, had me run some suicide drills. And that's when I realized, okay, I'm not in as good of shape as I thought. So that summer I started training hard. Then during the US Open, René Richards started helping me, became my coach after the US Open. 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

distanced herself from you? A hurtful. It was very hurtful. And 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 a heck of a lot for Martina Navratilova when it came to her tennis and her fitness. Because it was a 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 a half years, you know, lost six matches. So she did her a lot of good. 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're doing it, you don't think about it.

But, yeah, that was a pretty good stretch. Chris, what it did to your identity? Because your identity was built ever since you're 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 or pride or whatever it is, I wasn't happy about it. I hadn't played anybody like that before. 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 just try to become a better athlete and change your game a little bit. You started training and change my strategy. Yeah. You took a break for a while from tennis. I think I was the first one to take a, it was a mental break at that time. Because the way I described it was like I'd wake up in the morning and I didn't want to get out of bed and the thought of competing, you know, made me, I just didn't have the burning desire. I didn't have the killer instinct. Were you burned out and were you also discouraged because you weren't winning as much? No, no, no, no, no. I was burned out. I mean, you know that they call that the seven-year itch in marriage. Well, to me, there's a seven-year itch as being an athlete. and I just was mentally drained.

And I wanted just to live life like a normal 24-year-old. Yeah, it 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, Mike Esteb, 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 Stuffy Graff comes along and starts beating, beating both of us. And so I ended up talking to Billy Jean. I said, Billy, I don't know what's going on. This is now 89 in the spring.

I said, I don't know what's going on. I'm trying hard, but the results aren't there and this and that. So she advised me to take a week off, just do nothing except what I want. 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 I can get better or improve in some ways. And I want to play. And 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, in the documentary, you talk about how Chris was like considered like the girl next door. Everybody loved her in the stands. But for you, people saw you like, well, she's the communist and she's 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 Chris did. I mean, that sounds a little demoralizing. Did that contribute to your feeling of burnout, do you think? I'm sure that didn't help because I always felt 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 to 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, then, of course, being gay didn't help either. So, and then, you know, I had visible muscles and, you know, it was physically stronger, imposing and all of this. And unapologetic, I never apologized 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 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... No, 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 until after I got my citizenship, N-81. 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're 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 come out because it would have heard the tour.

So it was always something. I was never ashamed of who I was, but I was kind of in the class. 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 Navratilova 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 Nicola Walker, one of the Queens of British Television, and the New Zealand musician and actor Jermaine Clement, 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 its best moments, and Walker, kept him avidly watching. I grew up watching episodic shows on network TV.

Nearly all of them formulaic, but some indelibly great. Then, like everyone else, I moved into the days of what my colleague David B. and Cooley dubbed Platinum TV, where series like The Sopranos and The Wire and Fleabag, aspired to something higher. What both these eras 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 Alice and 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 her 26-year-old dog. While the premise is juicy, it's also a tad yucky, and I'm mainly tuned in because its title characters are played by performers Jermaine Clement from Flight of the Concords, and Nicola Walker, whom I've 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 bray their lines, we learn that Steve's a divorced celebrity hairstylist who can't find a girlfriend. While Alice is a clothes designer, with a doting younger husband, nicely played by Joel Fry, a sweetie pie of a teenage son, that's Tyrese Eaton Dice, and of course that 26-year-old daughter,

Izzy, who's inherited her mother's willfulness. played by Yale Tople Margolite, Izzy kickstarts 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 blurts 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 hang dog, Alice drives the action. betrayed and violently angry she'll do whatever it takes to break them up no matter who gets hurt her antics unleash Steve's own malice

we're in beef territory here early on Steve and 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 work out yeah

yeah No, you're right, this is definitely a trap. Yeah. Do you think Daniel's going to punch me? Right, as 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, really loves the guy I'm dating.

Hmm. Yeah. You know this? Yeah. 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-tonged mother is a blast.

It's often annoyingly lax. If Steve really does the hair of Charlie X-XX, how come he's a clueless older guy whose pop culture references are Willie Nelson and Woody Allen? If Izzy truly adores her mother, as she claims, why does she keep rubbing her relationship with Steve in 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 is worth seeing for scenes like the one in which Steve spinelessly sells Izzy out. Or the lacerating discussion between Alice and her husband, when he fully grasps 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, wise for once,

smooths a 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. While most viewers will find Steve more likable than Alice, the show takes pains not to make him appear 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 zing 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 launched 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 is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Terry Gross. The culture war never seems to end. My guest, Isaac Butler, takes us through part of a... 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 a county's new school curricula with the power of the Christian right behind the ban. They were also behind the attacks on Martin Scorsese's film, The Last Demptation of Christ, and the taboo-breaking artwork of Robert Mapplethorpe and David Voinerovich, who were accused of creating pornography, and Andres Serrano, who was accused of creating blasphemous art.

The story continues with attacks on the NEA's federal funding for the arts. Isaac Butler is 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 for students K through 12, mandating each grade to have at least one Bible passage as required 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 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, who unfortunately died right as I was starting, you know, doing my interviews for the book. So I didn't get to talk to him, which is, which is unfortunate. But Wildman was a pioneering, you know, media, advocacy activist. And he was a evangelical Christian reverend in Tupelo 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. And he was very successful at it and built a really, really huge mailing list. And in the 80s, he and a 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 in. 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 Canawa 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 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 also a really fascinating figure. 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 evangelical Christians, you know, using direct action and 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 movement really comes into West Virginia. And they, the, the situation spiral is 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, to, you know, to, you know, 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 Kanawa. 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, you know, Alice Moore says this flat out. It's not that I don't want my child learning X, Y, and Z. 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 nonpartisan 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, there's hundreds of them, right? And it's, it's everything from, you know, 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. Anthologies, 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 banning of books and don't say gay? Yeah, I absolutely do. The difference now, of course, is that they're in charge. 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 in 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 André Serrano, who is best known. for his photograph Piss Christ. And it was a part of a 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 Andrei Serrano 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, you know, 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 its 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. Yeah, I find the photograph unbelievably moving, even knowing how it's made. You know, like, I'm a Jew, but I still think that that photograph is, is unbelievably moving and beautiful. And, you know, Serrano was raised Catholic, considers himself, you know, a Christian. He met Pope Francis. You know, 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 Andres Serrano in 1993,

and it starts with him describing it. It's a very mysterious image, I think, 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 to hang in the church probably. This was a photograph. Yes. But the crucifix was actually immersed in. urine. Yes. Yours. 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 this woman, she was married to a 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, you know, that essentially was the reaction at first. No one, you know, paid much mind, except after 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 it's probably a reflection

of my own ambivalent feelings about my Catholic upbringing. Aside from that, there's nothing specific. All sorts of claims have been made for that piece. And I remember at the time that I was embroiled in the controversy, the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, which was the sponsor of that very controversial grant and the art show said to me, you know, the NIA's breathing down on X for an explanation,

and can we say it's a protest against the commercialization of 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 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 myself being denounced, 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 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 excerpt that we just heard, the American Family Association, that's Donald Wildman's group who 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, at 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 to 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 hay out of. And then there's this weird thing where they have a copy of the catalog of the exhibit. And Al Damado, Senator of New York, asked them to borrow the catalog,

and he brings it onto the Senate floor and he denounces Serrano and he literally tears a page 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 NIA, especially. And to some extent for Serrano, who becomes a little bit more reclusive out of it. Although he has always said that that controversy 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 mischievous guy, you know. And so that. His paintings are 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 it was a boon to his career. It was a boon 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 a really life-changing event for him. Well, Isaac Butler has been great to have you back on the show. 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 Brigger. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our engineer today is Adam Stanishefski.

Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Anne Reboldinato, Lauren Crenzel, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Yucundi, Anna Bauman, Nico Gonzalez Whistler, and Heidi Saman. Our digital media producer is Molly C.V. Nesper. Our co-host is Tanya Mosley. I'm Terry Gross.