One of the local wingnut blogs that’s usually at the forefront of outrage brought this controversy to my attention:
The art in question is a piece titled “The Misadventures of the Romantic Cannibals” by Mexican-American artist Enrique Chagoya.
Protesters say it contains an explicit depiction of Jesus Christ engaging in oral sex.
The only image that I could find is too small to really see what our savior is up to, so it’s hard to say whether “Blowjob Jesus” will be this generation’s Piss Christ, but I’ll bet that the NEA is going to get its budget cut, if that agency still even exists.
Update: HRA found a bigger image. Fairly tame, though God’s only son does seem to be enjoying himself.
John Cole
But I thought offensive drawings of religious icons was the highest form of free speech and political statement? Isn’t that what we learned in the Draw Mohammed affair?
mistermix
John, you missed the Jesus exemption to that rule. And the people protesting are good Merkins, unlike those terrorists who were protesting the Mohammed cartoons.
beltane
This controversy will quickly blow over. Now if it was a matter of “blowjob Reagan” we’d be seeing some real outrage.
The right-wing has so thoroughly trashed Jesus that it’s almost like they perform a daily crucifixion of him. If there was a god, he would smite these people.
El Cid
Apart from wondering why it may be considered so fascinating by some artists to still make risque images of Jesus, there are sentiments like this:
Should we prefer the pre-modern secular world? The modern religious world? The pre-modern religious world?
MeDrewNotYou
Jesus fucking Christ! (VERY NSFW)
Dennis SGMM
Mr. Chagoya would now be the resident art critic at Fox News if he’d just portrayed the prophet Mohamed delivering that holy honk job.
Smurfhole
“Reagan’s Death-Cops Hunt Pope:
‘Our Only Mistake Was Not Winning!'”
Keith Haring newspaper headline mashup, circa 1982.
cleek
seems to me that the religious world loves this stuff even more: it gives them an excuse to march around and scream and wail and rend their garments and indulge in that sweet sweet victimhood that they love so much.
… even if they have to invent a reason to do it.
attention-seeking loudmouths receive what they desire. film at 11.
cleek
no. i did not do that.
Cris
This reminds me of the LOLChrists that PZ linked to yesterday.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Meanwhile, male prostitutes in the area report a 90% increase in business. The clients claim they’re paying upwards of $50 to gobble a stranger’s knob in front of a mirror for research purposes and they don’t enjoy it at all.
Nylund
@mistermix:
What happens if you draw Mohammed giving Christ a BJ?
WereBear
Seems like some Catholic, some rabid Catholic, made a movie that was two hours of torture porn centering on Jesus, and I thought that was a LOT worse.
But I’m just a secular humanist…
El Cid
@Nylund: Not permitted. Now, an American Eagle buttfucking Mohammed raising guns over its head and yelling “THIS IS FOR 9/11 MOTHER FUCKER”, that’d probably be all right.
jwb
Look what this post has done to the sidebars: ads for “JESUS LOVES YOU” and the extremely kitschy “FREE DISPLAY OF FAITH SCREENSAVER.”
El Cid
@WereBear: After imagining someone walking out of Mel Gibson’s “Moses,” I can imagine him or her saying ‘I never knew that they beat Moses so much.’
New Yorker
Oh good, it’s almost 9 am and I was afraid I wouldn’t have something completely trivial to be outraged about today.
Kryptik
I find this ironic, honestly.
Most of the Christians that obsess over this and talk about the ‘modern secular culture’ tend to promise to stay faithful to Jesus while fellating Mammon behind Christ’s back.
daveNYC
Not only will they demand that the NEA be defunded, they’ll also claim that doing so will totally help balance the budget.
beltane
@Cris: When my husband sent his fundie, wingnut creep of a brother a picture of a laughing Jesus with the caption “Ha,Ha, Jesus thinks you’re a dumbass”, a miracle happened: wingnut brother no longer speaks to him. Who says the Lord doesn’t work miracles any more.
HRA
I found this larger one. I can’t see anything as described. Then my eyes have already been quite a bit of print here at work.
http://jockohomo.tumblr.com/post/1244102530/the-misadventures-of-the-romantic-cannibals
artem1s
there’s no indication that the gallery or the exhibit was funded by the NEA so why should they take a hit? The NEA doesn’t fund individual artists anymore.
FREE MARKET BABY! Like the Mapplethorpe show, I’m sure now this will be their best attended event ever. so shaddup.
also, sadly, one viewer testified there were no genitalia depicted. I’m guessing this is some vague image of Jeebus on a toasted cheese sandwich scare?
Kiril
@HRA: Bottom right panel. Jesus has a woman’s body and is getting licked. Someone alert 4chan.
Matthew B.
@Kiril: He’s getting his knee licked, as far as I can tell, with “ORGASM” written in the background.
New Yorker
Um, no. This member of the “modern secular world” would prefer to look at the depiction of Jesus as presented by Caravaggio or by the countless anonymous medieval artist who created stunning altarpieces.
But acknowledging that wouldn’t allow you to wallow in the victimhood you crave, would it?
Kiril
@Matthew B.: That’s not his knee. Look closer (if you dare!)
Matthew B.
@Kiril: Ah, so what I thought was a pink bedspread isn’t actually a pink bedspread. Weird perspective on that leg, though.
So okay, he’s getting his inner thigh licked.
Kiril
@Matthew B.: Yeah, and Jesus is still wearing his panties. It doesn’t seem like oral sex to me, but that might be what fundamentalists think it is. They’re probably just as mad that Jesus is a woman, but whatever.
Fergus Wooster
@mistermix: Extra extra extra points for the Tom Waits reference.
quaint irene
I’m surprised the old ‘Proctor & Gamble’s logo has hidden satanic images’ rumor hasn’t been resurrected lately. That usually surfaces every ten years or so.
Hawes
And Jesus said, “Take, eat, this is my body, do this in remembrance of me.”
Maybe we had the translation from Aramaic wrong…
“Take, eat me, this is my body, do this because it’s AWESOME!”
Jules
I like Jebus riding the bike in a bathing suit and the bikini clad dancin’ pigs.
Sly
Speaking of Tom Waits and eating Jesus…
New Yorker
@quaint irene:
Eh, Satanism is so passe. We need to find hidden messages of submission to Islam in Dunkin’ Donut ads, the Flight 93 Memorial, Obama’s hand gestures, etc.
Ash Can
I just want to say that this post and all of its comments have me howling with laughter. Great way to start the day. You guys are the best.
Uloborus
@Cris:
I like the cut of this man’s jib.
someguy
@Dennis SGMM:
Fail. He’d be hiding underground and pissing his pants with that witless “Draw Mohammad Day” cartoonist girl, actually. Of course Fox would be lionizing him, but still.
debit
@Nylund:
Dude, that would be hot!
Rick Massimo
I wonder whether they identify the ethnicity of every artist they write about.
I wonder whether they specify that certain artists are Mexican-American when they have complimentary things to write about them.
I wonder how long I can go on pretending that I don’t know the answers to these questions.
Punchy
@debit: Add in the FSM’s noodly appendage and 4 or 5 of Buddah’s many arms/fists, and you’ve got a religious orgy of epic proportions.
geg6
If I had a barn, I’d have a mural of that painted on the side. And the Mapplethorpe right on the other side.
Fuck these assholes and their phony piety and gods.
TaMara (BHF)
Well at least it’s keeping the local pols out of the news cycle. For that I’m grateful. Between this and the husband and wife who IGNORED all warnings and decided to jet ski across the Mexican border and get shot, we’re all the rage nationally this week. (FSM save me).
debit
Punchy: Tentacles. It’s probably already been done somewhere in Japan.
Randy P
@Cris:
You people and your links. Do you have any idea how much of my life I’ve lost to Hyperbole and a Half since some BJer posted an innocuous-looking link to it?
Randy P
@TaMara (BHF):
Maybe.
The word “allegedly” gets overused, but this case is one that cries out for it every third word.
The authorities aren’t outright calling the woman a liar, but they are rather cautiously saying it’s hard to believe her statement is an accurate reflection of the facts.
debit
Ok, I just looked at the picture. Jesus had breasts?
Brachiator
The artist on his work:
The ignorant, uninformed response:
J. A. Baker
Is it wrong of me to admit that when I first saw the image in question, I thought it depicted Jesus with a vagina?
kommrade reproductive vigor
So it isn’t scary brown messicans beheading people in the desert. It’s scary brown messicans GIVING head in the desert.
Someone alert Angle!
fucen tarmal
if jesus asked christine o’donnell for a blow job, would she give it to him?
i mean its casual sex and very wrong, but it is jesus after all, why won’t they let me into any of those town hall meetings? i have lots of questions.
Brachiator
@fucen tarmal:
Jesus is incapable of casual sex. Even a one-night-stand with Him would presumably make a woman a true Bride of Christ.
wengler
In order to conserve freedom in the face of tyranny, I do declare a contest for the best depiction of Jesus having sex with Mohammed.
Let’s let these two great world religions make sweet love to each other in cartoon form to show how united our religious people are in the West to the concepts of tolerance and religious freedom.
Gustopher
It’s ok, Jesus’s semen is transmuted into good, wholesome milk on the way down.
MarkJ
@Fergus Wooster: +1 – Got to be a chocolate Jesus. Great song.
b-psycho
@fucen tarmal: …and then upon firing a triple-X quality (and quantity) load into her still gaping mouth he’d whip off the disguise, say “SIKE, bitch! It’s pronounced hey-soos!!” & run away laughing.