A Fire In My Belly

Once again Christians are shooting themselves in the foot by seeking to get art which they don't like banned. This time it is the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights who are the culprits having successfully pressurised the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC into removing a video by David Wojnarowicz from their current HIDE/SEEK exhibition.

"A Fire in My Belly," Wojnarowicz's 1987 video, is, in the words of a New York Times editorial, "a moving, anguished reflection on the artist’s impending death from AIDS." The video "shows very quick glimpses of challenging and, at times, disturbing images, including masks, a meatpacking plant, various objects on fire and the artist undressing himself." One of these images features ants crawling over a crucifix and it is this that has drawn "an outraged denunciation from the Catholic League."

There are multiple issues with the action taken by the Catholic League in this instance. First, there is no attempt on their part to engage with the work itself. Their action has been taken in relation to 11 seconds of a four minute video which is intended as a response to the reality of Aids. As such, the theme of the video is not Christ or Christianity and the imagery of the ants and crucifix needs to be understood firstly within the context of the video and its flow of imagery instead of being taken out of context in order to be misinterpreted as an attack on Christianity. Wojnarowicz said that the ants were a metaphor for society. In context, therefore, it would seem that Aids victims are being associated with Christ and experience additional suffering as society swarms all over those who already suffer (something which could be said to be happening all over again as a result of the Catholic League's intervention).

This has been an unfortunate aspect of many Christian protests against works of art. For instance, many Christians tried to prevent the film The Last Temptation of Christ from being made and protested against it once it was made. Central to these protests was the content of the last temptation dream sequence with Jesus marrying and sleeping with Mary Magdalene and later fathering children by Mary and Martha. Yet the whole point of this scene in the film is that it is a temptation which Jesus rejects and that the visible rejection of the temptation makes the necessity of the Jesus’ death all the clearer.

Second, the Catholic League exaggerate and misinterpret for effect in claiming in two of their press notices that the crucifix was being eaten by the ants, which is not the case. A similar case was that of the invective used against Monty Python’s Life of Brian. Rabbi Abraham Hecht, president of the Rabbinical Alliance of America, declared, "Never have we come across such a foul, disgusting, blasphemous film before." Robert E.A. Lee of the Lutheran Council, spoke about "crude and rude mockery, colossal bad taste, profane parody.” Malcolm Muggeridge, without having seen the film, claimed it was “morally without merit and undeniably reprehensible.” While, on the same discussion programme, Mervyn Stockwood, then Bishop of Southwark, declared that the Python’s would get their thirty pieces of silver. But it is difficult now to establish exactly what is was that people were up in arms about as the film patently makes no attempt to satirise Christ.

Third, the Catholic League are claiming that they have a right in US culture for Christianity to be respected and not mocked but, in this instance, the exercise of their right can only be at the expense of the artist's right to self-expression and the right of other US citizens to see the artist's work. In other words the League are calling for their rights to trump those of others. They want rights but only for themselves. A more consistent position is that of gay rights campaigner Peter Tatchell who criticised a Scottish court for fining an American Baptist evangelist touring Britain, for telling passers-by in Glasgow city centre: "Homosexuals are deserving of the wrath of God – and so are all other sinners – and they are going to a place called hell."

Tatchell argued: "Shawn Holes is obviously homophobic and should not be insulting people with his anti-gay tirades. He should be challenged and people should protest against his intolerance. However, in a democratic, free society it is wrong to prosecute him. Criminalisation is not appropriate. The price of freedom of speech is that we sometimes have to put up with opinions that are objectionable and offensive. Just as people should have the right to criticise religion, people of faith should have the right to criticise homosexuality. Only incitements to violence should be illegal."

Fourth, this third point reveals that the Catholic League are yearning for a return to a Christendom model where Christianity had power and could both decide and enforce what was acceptable and what was not instead of engaging with the reality and opportunities of a Post-Christendom world. As Simon Barrow has written: "That Christians do not rule others in the way they once did, in the fading Christendom era, does not amount to "persecution". Rather, it is an invitation, in the midst of some pain and adjustment no doubt, to rediscover patterns of church life in a plural society which show the heart of the Christian message to be about embracing others, not isolating ourselves; multiplying hope, not spreading fear; developing peaceableness, not resorting to aggression; and advancing compassion, rather than retreating into defensiveness."

Fifth, to call for an offending item to be banned is to avoid or rule out debate which suggests that the arguments being made do not actually stand up. If the arguments of the Catholic League had substance they should be keen for them to be heard and debated instead of simply trying to close down all debate through censorship of the offending item. The approach of seeking to have an offending item banned actually always has the opposite effect to that intended by making people more interest in seeing the item itself. This is so in this case too, where the co-owner of the PPOW Gallery which represents Wojnarowicz’ estate, Wendy Olsoff told ARTINFO: "The controversy is exposing a lot of new people to the work … It's a lot of young people who are involved with this, new people who don't have experience with activism, but are outraged."

Finally, the League are playing up to the stereotype of Christians as kill-joys forever seeking to prevent others from self-expression. Again, the same was the case in relation to protests against Life of Brian. Eric Idle said that it became clear to the Pythons early on in writing the script that they couldn't make fun of Christ since what he says is very fine but the people around him were hilarious and still are. John Cleese agrees. "What we are is quite clearly making fun of the way people follow religion, but not religion itself.” This was, perhaps, the real reason for those religious protests; it was us being satirised in the film and we weren’t able to laugh at ourselves or to deal with the accusation of unthinking gullibility. Protest and invective as the Church’s response to Life of Brian just seemed to reinforce in many people’s minds those depictions of unthinking gullibility that run throughout the film.

None of this means that Christians cannot protest against depictions of Christ or Christianity which may be offensive to us. What it does mean is that we need to think carefully about when and how we do so. A positive example is the response of much of the Church in the UK to The Da Vinci Code book and film.

Dan Brown uses the same storyline in The Da Vinci Code as appears in the dream sequence in Last Temptation; the idea that Jesus did not die but married and fathered a bloodline which continues to this day. When The Last Temptation of Christ was released this storyline, although it was clearly depicted as false, led to major protests but when The Da Vinci Code was released, although the book (and by implication the film) claim that this storyline is historical fact, similar protests did not occur.

Like Life of Brian, The Da Vinci Code also criticises the behaviour of Christians. Life of Brian portrays the followers of religions as unthinking and gullible and the response of Christians to that film reinforced this stereotype. The Da Vinci Code portrays Christians as scheming hypocrites knowing the truth but covering it up in order to sustain organised religion. But the reaction of Christians to this film did not reinforce that stereotype.

Finally, it seemed that the Church had learnt that the way to counter criticism is not to try to ban or censor it but to engage with it, understand it and accurately counter it. The Da Vinci Code events, bible studies, websites etc. that the Church has used to counter the claims made in The Da Vinci Code have been reasoned arguments based on a real understanding of the issues raised and making use of genuine historical findings and opinion to counter those claims.

Unfortunately, the Catholic League has done the reverse in responding to A Fire in My Belly.

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