Apr 04 2009
En persona Bugsy
Bob Parks, an online columnist I greatly admire, posted about the Chuck Jones Gallery (Jones of Warner Bros fame) displaying a work that spoofs Leonardo’s The Last Supper. The artist Glen Tarnowski replaced the Apostles with cartoon characters. And Bugs Bunny figures prominently.
Tarnowski, an alumnus of California Lutheran University, explained that he meant it to be positive. The article paraphrases that he wanted to show that “God loves people so much that even if we all were cartoon characters, he would have come to us.”
Mr. Parks is skeptical, but I don’t think it’s an insult to Christ. No, it’s just a plea for help. This is proof positive that the good folks in Washington must pass a media/arts bailout soon.
Getting a devout Christian to do outrageous pre-Holy Week art is just scraping the bottom of the barrel. Christians always chicken out or insert lame apologetics in doing satire of religion (e.g. ”Dogma” and any Stephen Colbert Show with a priest guest).
Bugs Bunny as a Christ-figure seems rather ho-hum. Bugs has been portrayed as everything from a b-baller to a contemporary Brer Rabbit. Maybe the viewer could work up some outrage by thinking, “Bugs dressed in women’s clothes and tricked Elmer Fudd into falling in love with him!” But it’s pretty hard to see it as a scathing commentary on St. Peter’s IQ.
Last year’s gallery controversy was a larger-than-life naked Jesus sculpted from chocolate. It not only mocked the Crucifixion but also the Eucharist, since the public was invited to break off and eat pieces of the art. Tarnowski didn’t even depict Petunia Pig in the role of St. John as a slanderous reference to Mary Magdalene, a la the CoVinci Dad.
Sadly, the economic downturn has affected more than art. A recent trip to the bookstore revealed that very few magazines had covers spouting Christophobic blather. Clearly, the publishers can’t afford the quality of researchers that go to the local college’s library and look up Gnostic writings that theologians refuted centuries ag0.
That’s why a bail-out is so crucial. Without taxpayer support, how will the arts and other media bring us the controversial Lenten subjects we’ve come to expect and loathe?
END IRONY
I do suggest you take a look at Bob Parks’ site. In addition to bringing in a variety of news from around the blogosphere, he is a founder of NMATV, which features online news and commentary.
