Thus declared English literary critic William Hazlitt once. Which just about sums up how some feminist and lesbian-themed works have gained notoriety.

Take, for example, the recent movie, Imagine Me and You, a story about two people who meet for the first time at a wedding and fall in love. The twist: They’re both women.

Its clichéd storyline raised the ire of critics like Eric Lurio, of the Greenwich Village Gazette, who said: “Had it not been for the homosexual content, this script would have been considered too crappy to film.”

In my opinion, this romantic comedy would have been overlooked but in these post-Brokeback Mountain days, Imagine Me and You managed to garner much publicity due to its controversial subject matter.

This is the approach taken by some feminist artists such as Tracy Emin and Sylvia Plath: If in doubt, create controversy.

Emin was a young British artist who gained notoriety with her infamous – and self-explanatory - piece, Everyone I Have Ever Slept With (1963 to 1995). The work was an installation piece that consisted of a blue tent on which was written the names of all the people she had slept with.

However, according to Emin, the work has been misinterpreted. She insisted it was more about intimacy as she had also included the names of relatives and her two aborted children. Still, this work drew intense media and was so successful that it was bought by Charles Saatchi, an avid art collector and owner of the Saatchi Gallery.

Emin’s work was also included in the prominent 1997 Sensation Exhibition at the Royal Academy of London. At that time, this exhibition was a launching pad for many British artists such as Damien Hirst and Rachel Whiteread.

As a result of the trail of publicity surrounding her in-your-face work, Emin subsequently created many artworks that reflected life as seen from a very female, yet scandalously unfeminine point of view – works that were not considered appropriate for women during her time. It’s debatable whether her installation pieces like My Bed (1999) would’ve been well-received if Emin hadn’t courted controversy early in her career.

Another woman who produced controversial work was Sylvia Plath, one of the most distinguished feminist poets of her time. A free spirit who refused to be restricted by the gender-based constraints imposed by conservative 1950s America, Plath battled mental illness much of her life. She also had to tolerate the infidelity of her husband, British poet Ted Hughes.

Still, that didn’t stop her from churning out volumes of poetry and the novel, The Bell Jar (1963). This was a controversial semi-autobiographical story as it dealt with taboo issues like lesbianism and suicidal tendencies.

Plath’s alter-ego, the main character Esther, rebelled against the hypocritical social traditions. One of the controversial points was when Esther learns that her boyfriend had cheated on her and she sees hypocrisy in the fact that promiscuity in a man is acceptable while in a woman, it is not. Feminists thus champion Plath as an icon because she raised questions about double standards in morality.

So, on the surface, it seems that controversy does generate interest. But how far can that take you? It might be a case of striking when the iron is hot but do artists really want to rely on controversy to sell their ideas and pieces?

At the end of the day, the proof of the pudding is still in the eating.

Cheryl Noronha is a second-year student under the BA (Hons) Arts Management programme at LASALLE College of the Arts.