The Puppet Stands Trial: The Controversy Chicago Artists Should be Paying Attention to

By Heather Higgins |

It is a truism so often repeated that it almost ceases to have meaning, but we are living in very strange times. I failed to fully comprehend the height of absurdity reached by this moment until I was sitting in a Chicago City Council committee meeting watching grown adults shout at each other over a puppet.

This meeting was called after a letter was signed by over half of Chicago’s alderpeople demanding the removal of a puppet from an exhibition being held at the Chicago Cultural Center. The exhibition entitled “Potential Energy Chicago Puppets Up Close” was created to accompany the annual Chicago Puppet and Theatre Festival. 

The puppet at the center of this chaos is an anti-war spectacle puppet built for a protest at the 2024 DNC. The express purpose of the demonstration was to call for a ceasefire in Gaza and an arms embargo against the state of Israel. The puppet features likenesses of Uncle Sam and Benjamin Netenyahu, both of which have large bloodied hands. Uncle Sam’s mouth is dripping with blood and Netenyahu holds an overflowing bucket labeled “tears.”

Below is an excerpt from the letter signed by a majority of Chicago’s alderpeople, demonstrating their anti- position on the piece: 

“The piece is extremely offensive to the United States and to Israel and crosses into unprotected hate speech. Such representations normalize anti-American sentiment and promote hatred and bigotry against the Jewish community.”

The puppet is a construction by Sunshine Puppeteers, of which Abby Palen is the creative director. On a blustery day in early February, Palen sat in City Hall wearing a bright taxicab yellow beret with a matching jacket. They stood out among the beige nothingness of the oval room built to contain the – what I can only think to describe as – rage orgies, which occur when bureaucratic chaos meets civic democracy. 

Some critics drew a direct connection to this representation of Netenyahu and the antisemitic stereotype of Jewish “puppet masters” controlling word events. The words written on the base of the puppet like “child killer” and “murderer” have also been interpreted as referencing the anti-semetic blood libel conspiracy. Those on the other side see the puppet as a legitimate piece of protest art which criticizes the U.S. and Israeli Governments and shows solidarity with the Palestinian people. 

According to Palen, the critique being made is purely political: “We have an insanely incomprehensible industry based around violence and weapons and funding atrocities, that was my intention as an artist.”

The panel in support of the puppet included Palen and Grace Needleman, who curated the exhibition and identified herself as Jewish during the hearing. “Plus, [Needleman is] a Jewish woman who teaches classes on antisemitism, a rabbi and a Jewish theatre maker. All of us were there to talk about how the puppet is not antisemitic and that it criticizes governments and not people, and they didn’t let us talk,” Palen said.

Until this point, Palen had remained anonymous as the creator of the puppet and chose to revoke their anonymity in order to make a statement at the hearing. However, their statement remained unheard as they were as they were cut off only a few words in and were not called to speak again throughout the entire four hour hearing.

I will not be the first to point out that there has been intentional obfuscation in this debate. There is a conflation occurring which cannot be ignored, to be concerned about the fate of the Palestinian people is to be pro-hamas and to be critical of Israel is to be anti-semetic. It is also crucial to note the larger context in which this controversy is occuring, there is currently a presidential administration which is seeking to suppress all criticism of Israel.  

Here is the central point, that needle in the side of the American psyche which has been roiling this country for over a year. These questions about the basic meaning of words and symbols, our societal inability to cope with nuance or converse on topics which we find unpleasant. Our lack of empathy for those who stand on the other side of an invisible line, a refusal to understand those people over there.

These are the kinds of feelings which art, in all of its forms, is so adept at portraying. According to Palen, it is these very conversations and bringing attention to such discourse is what makes the piece successful. 

Palen said that if they encountered someone who felt genuine fears of this piece being an expression of antisemitism, they would try to engage in meaningful conversation. “I think I would just invite them to talk, and tell them what I see and I would tell them about the Jewish curator [of the exhibition] and the people who helped me make it who were Jewish. If they still felt upset by it I would respect that, ultimately art is going to produce a wide variety of responses,” Palen said. 

As things stand now, it would appear no tangible moves have been made to remove the offensive piece as it has remained for the entire run of the Exhibit. Once the meeting was finished and the op-eds were written, it seems that this crusade has been largely abandoned. So that would leave one to believe that either the vocal critics on city council are completely toothless, or that maybe this wasn’t really much about the puppet at all.

Palen worries that this controversy was in part whipped up for the sake of devaluing the arts. 

“It was very apparent from this meeting that it's not about the puppet, it's not about antisemitism, it's about cutting funding for DCASE. It’s about cutting funding for the arts in this city, it's about making a movement for censorship and sending a message that if the people who run the city don’t like what you have to say they will shut you down,” Palen said. 

In the end, this meeting got nowhere, and proved to be a complete and utter waste of time. For over three hours, both sides bickered and shouted, and not an iota of constructive communication took place. 

What was accomplished was the transmission of a chilling message to anyone involved in arts in the city of Chicago. If you step out of line, do anything controversial or that some people in power just personally don’t like, you could face harsh scrutiny. The workers of DCASE now know, if they want to avoid similar situations going forward, it might be better to steer clear of displaying politically critical art. 

And who gets hurt in all of this? Usually the smallest people in the chain of power. 

“I definitely have lost jobs because of this, I have been fired by a few companies that I work for because they don’t want to be surrounded by controversy,” Palen said. “The large feeling I have walking away from all of this is I feel a little defamed.”

This should be something which all artists in this city should be paying attention to.