So I told him, I says, "now what would you want to be doin' that fer?"
'That' being the substitution of the faces of local figures of note for faces in a painting of The Last Supper to be used on the front page of the local newspaper.
The idea was a bit off-putting for me--partly because of religious reasons, which I considered and then set aside as not being valid. But the biggest reason was I just didn't understand the point of doing it. It didn't really make sense for me as a concept. I love it when 1 + 1 = 3, but in this case, the equation seemed to be 1 + 1 = blueberry or paperclip.
Despite my own Baptist roots, I have been (almost) dumbfounded by the storm of controversy that the image has raised within this community. I haven't seen anything like it since the introduction of French immersion nearly two decades ago--which, come to think of it, bears a close relation to this photoshopping of thepainting, since the faces of friends, neighbours and blood-kin were replaced by snarling, nasty, venom-spitting masks of virulently anti-French bigotry.
Some have found it amusing; some have shrugged it off as being in poor taste. Others have made a point of expressing God's outrage on my poor damned husband, insisting that he repent immediately. This has occasionally been amusing, as in the case of a caller who was horrified at the sacrilege, and then used God's name in vain as part of an adjective to describe the paper.
I'm pretty sure that my husband doesn't find this a blessing at the moment. I am equally sure, however, that it will become one. This is a fire to temper the metal. This is an opportunity to examine our beliefs and assumptions about ourselves, our theology, our community and our culture.
Part of me has been saying 'I told you so', while another--growing--part of me is getting its dander up to defend my life-partner. Even the thoroughly secular have an opinion on the issue, which in part, I believe, stems from the cultural assumptions we have about the role of a newspaper within society. I would bet there would have been a smaller storm had this been the cover of a magazine.
In the meantime, I await the reaction of the Artists Association. That to me would be the real issue--that they 'messed' with someone's work. No one seems to have questioned the temerity of an artist portraying the sacred in the first place.
Perhaps there are some Islamic fundamentalists somewhere finding this whole thing head-shakingly bizarre, saying, 'see? We told you so...."
