Over the last few weeks, a lithograph in a public art museum in Loveland, Colorado has drawn a lot of attention. The reason for the attention is that the lithograph, titled “The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals” and created by Enrique Chagoya, seems to have depicted Jesus Christ receiving oral sex from another man. (I say “seems to have” in describing the piece because the sections of the lithograph that depicted Christ thus were torn out by a protestor with a crowbar on October 6.)
Others, who have not used crowbars, have nevertheless ripped the display with labels such as “pornographic” and “offensive.” And while there’s no doubt such labels are well-suited in this case, I believe we miss the greater point if we fail to see the display in light of the fact that it is first and foremost an example of the ongoing cowardice of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
That’s right: the tax-payer subsidized NEA, now basking in the attention it’s receiving from “The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals,” has yet to proudly sponsor a piece of “art” that mis-characterizes Islam or depicts figures of various other religions (outside of Christianity), in a provocative, if not perverted, sexual posture.
What’s up with this feigned bravery? This propounded art-above-all-else mentality that is actually nothing more than an assault directed at the one religion the NEA trusts won’t react violently?
What a bunch of scaredy-cats.
This all reminds me of my October 13th post on Big Hollywood which pointed out the sheer hypocrisy (and cowardice) of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)’s criticism of Vince Vaughn’s line, “electric cars are gay,” in the trailer for the movie The Dilemma. It was hypocritical (and cowardly) because they chose to criticize a line in a comedy but remained completely silent about the fact that Malaysian officials were, at that very time, censoring Adam Lambert’s flamboyant homosexuality by allowing him to perform in their country on the condition that he curtail his sexuality in front of the crowd.
It just made GLAAD look like a paper tiger to hurl harsh criticism at a comic, who clearly didn’t intend to offend gays, while withholding any condemnation of a Muslim community in Malaysia that not only censored Lambert’s homosexuality, but has laws in the books making homosexual behavior punishable by imprisonment in that country.
And just as it appeared GLAAD was choosing their battles from a position of weakness by aligning themselves against an actor who probably wouldn’t threaten bodily harm the way an outraged Jihadist might, so too it appears that the NEA is brave just so long as being brave entails a crucifix in urine or a painting of Mary covered in dung or a lithograph of Jesus Christ in a sexual posture. (The gutlessness of this is even clearer when you consider that although the various subsidizes the NEA receives will net it approximately $358 million for this fiscal year, the risks they take for art will continue to be directed toward the one religion they trust is marked more by love than by retaliation.)
Call me crazy, but if enough attention can be brought to the blasphemies presented to the public by the NEA, maybe a Senator like Jim DeMint (R-SC) will push to defund them after he’s done defunding National Public Radio (NPR).
I know it’s a long shot, but it would be interesting to see how brave the NEA remained after that.
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