Tired "provocative" art

(CNSNews.com) - The Miller Brewing Company, a sponsor of this weekend's homosexual "leather" street fair in San Francisco, has asked to have its logo removed from an advertising poster that has offended some Christians.

The advertisement portrays Christ and his disciples as half-naked sado-masochists.

"While Miller has supported the Folsom Street Fair for several years, we take exception to the poster the organizing committee developed this year. We understand some individuals may find the imagery offensive and we have asked the organizers to remove our logo from the poster effective immediately," the company told Cybercast News Service on Tuesday.

The group behind the ad said it was not intended to be either "pro-religion or anti-religion," but the poster -- a parody of Leonardo da Vinci's painting "The Last Supper" -- continued to draw fire from Christian organizations on Tuesday.

Of course the response of the Folsom Street Fair was not "to be particularly pro-religion or anti-religion with this poster; the image is intended only to be reminiscent of the 'Last Supper' painting." I wonder if somebody printed images throughout San Francisco using the half-naked sado-masochists displayed as the The Damned in Michelangelo's Last Judgment if they would not think that this was an attack?

Brian Saint-Paul at Inside Catholic had commented on this story.

Maybe I'm jaded, but these artists are running out of ideas. As far as I can tell, all they do is take some recognizable pose or staging from a famous work, and then replace the figures with a bunch of trussed-up gay guys. I mean, that's the formula here, right?

Well that's original.

I'm not overly offended, though. This is the kind of tired "provocative" art you'll find every week, in every City Paper in the country.

He is quite right. Using Jesus in images in a blaspamous way is all to common and about as surprising as seeing commercials while watching TV.

BRUSSELS Compiled from (AFP) and BBC — Catholic bishops in Belgium have protested a TV ad depicting a pot-bellied, hippy Jesus performing miracles and picking up scantily-clad girls up in a nightclub, a church spokesman said Friday.

The ad shows a long-haired hippy Jesus grooving along as he tries to get into a nightclub and is refused entry by the bouncers. Jesus makes the sign of the cross and sweeps aside the bouncers, shrinking them so they are left in his wake as dwarves. This Plug TV version of Jesus then drinks whisky at the bar and magically turns two brown haired frumpy women into blonde babes wearing bikini tops and red horns. The Jesus character then disappears into a huge limousine with the women but his attention is distracted by an advertisement for Plug TV before he is recalled by God who is standing on a cloud, wearing a T shirt with "Number one dad" written on it.

Boooor-ing. The reason that Christians don't get really realy riled up about this is that there attemps at blasphemy are all so boring. Though once again it is a left-handed compliment towards Christianity. As G.K. Chesterton noted in Heretics.

Blasphemy is an artistic effect, because blasphemy depends upon a philosophic conviction. Blasphemy depends upon belief and is fading with it. If any one doubts this, let him sit down seriously and try to think blasphemous thoughts about Thor. I think his family will find him at the end of the day in a state of some exhaustion.