Viewpoint Furor over painting reveals conflicted
attitudes towards the body, sexuality
By GEORGE WILSON
Dung. Female genitalia. The Virgin
Mary. Each of these images, all by itself, can evoke powerful movements in the
spirits of American Catholics. Juxtaposing them in the same physical
presentation at the Brooklyn Museum of Art was sure to set off at least a minor
explosion.
The reality is that, for all its emotional shock, the painting
may actually provide what religious educators call a teachable moment. We need
first to lower the level of the rhetoric and begin by asking some very direct
questions.
First, is the painting obscene, as many (including
some church leaders) have charged? Simply put, no. Obscenity, as the term is
used in moral theology, turns on whether a particular depiction incites its
viewer to illicit sexuality.
There are graphic representations of female sexual anatomy in the
painting, but I submit that no one would find these detached, free-floating
images sexually stimulating. There is more possibility of illicit stimulation
in much of what passes for harmless advertising in our society than in Chris
Ofilis work. We may not be used to graphic presentations of labia; some
may be disturbed by them, but that does not make them obscene.
Moral theologians distinguish between the genuinely scandalous --
that which directly incites to sinful behavior -- and what they
nicely refer to as scandalum pusillanimorum, which might be freely
translated as that which is shocking to the faint of heart. They are hardly the
same thing. So lets agree that the painting may be shocking or disturbing
or disorienting to some or perhaps many. It is not obscene. (Unless
obscene is simply a high-decibel synonym for deeply
upsetting; but in that case the language provides no help for critical
assessment, simply shutting it off.)
Those who charge the painting with being obscene have
the burden of explaining why the exhibit caused no uproar at all in Great
Britain. The English, Catholics and Anglicans alike, are quite capable of
outrage over sexual matters. Did they just miss the point? Doesnt the
dramatic difference in the two responses compel us to dig a little deeper, to
discover the possible origins of the hyper-American reaction?
Perhaps the work may not be obscene in the technical sense, but
dont we have to conclude that it is sacrilegious or
blasphemous? Doesnt it attack a holy icon of our faith? Or to
adopt the rhetoric of another segment of our leaders, isnt it a part of a
concerted campaign to denigrate Roman Catholicism?
Those who would level such charges must explain what Ofili, who is
a believing Roman Catholic, would have to gain by attacking his own tradition.
It would seem more probable that he sincerely believes his work conveys some
truth about Mary to him and to those viewers willing to work at understanding
what he is trying to capture. Whether or not, measured in artistic terms, he is
successful is a different issue, one for the critics. But should not a balanced
critique first ask what he is trying to convey, before immediately convicting
him of blasphemy?
But the dung! And the genitalia! How can they possibly express
esteem and honor for the mother of God?
Now we are getting closer to the issue and to the possibility of
some serious religious education, the teachable moment. To approach the matter
from a religious perspective, I presume that as Christians we need to turn to
our foundation, the teaching of Jesus. Does the work stand in opposition to
what Jesus was about?
If we are to reach a possible new insight into the teaching of
Jesus, we need first to examine what people are really naming when they declare
their revulsion at the use of dung and genital organs in a work focused on
Mary. Do we Catholics really believe dung and genitalia are dirty?
(For if we listen carefully to the commentary of the attackers, that is what is
coming through.) And if so, is that what the Christian view of human sexuality
and the body is all about? Is that what we want to transmit to our youth?
To answer such questions we need first to uncover within
ourselves any vestiges of the Monophysite heresy condemned by our church in the
momentous Council of Chalcedon. If I may bypass the technical language of its
decree, the point is that Jesus was not some divine essence, but rather that he
was fully human. Any presentation of his divinity that waters down or denies
the full implications of that truth is heretical.
Jesus humanity, like ours, was situated within the
Israelite people, and their culture shaped his existence on our earth. His
prayer forms, his images, his language, the rituals that shaped his
consciousness, all the stuff within which he made his choices and became the
uniquely individuated man he eventually revealed in the laying down of his life
came out of that culture.
Once we take seriously the full humanity of Jesus and its roots in
the culture of his people, a new possibility emerges: Perhaps the disgust that
people are expressing does not have its origins in Jesus view of life but
rather in strains of thought not only different from but even quite opposed to
the mentality he brought to his earthly journey.
In the Jewish world that was the matrix of his development we are
confronted with a world-view that is diametrically opposed to the
body-disdaining and sexuality-denigrating view that would hold that dung or a
womans genitals are in any way objects to be viewed as dirty or
degrading. The Hebrew world-view was grounded in the dignity and goodness of
the physical, including all aspects of the body, and including its
sexuality.
If we examine critically the beliefs that occasion feelings of
disgust at the portrayal of the sexual character of the human body or the
products of metabolism and elimination, we will find that their origins are
quite unchristian. They are grounded in Manichean or Stoic world-views that
have no foundation in scripture. They have cropped up across the ages to
distort the goodness of all aspects of creation, proclaimed by Jesus as the raw
material of Gods reign
In Ofilis culture, elephant dung is not something to be
scorned but rather a profound symbol of life, vitality and our dependence on
the nourishment coming from our earth. Without that precious dung, the soil of
his land would be depleted and made barren. (It is worth noting that in the
descriptions of the painting the material is quite accurately referred to as
dung, after all; it is not called shit, an ugly expression
characteristic of our asphalt culture.) Dung is a natural product of vital
processes, created and used by God in the great mystery of life. A womans
genital organs play an important role in the transmission of that same
incredible gift. Why not ponder the mystery of life and vitality and
procreation represented in the rich mystery of Mary, the mystery of our ground
in the fertility of this lovely earth, instead of construing the work as
disgusting?
Which takes us to what could be another unacknowledged
motivation: It may be OK for Ofili (and those African tribals) to use those
kinds of symbols in their world; we just dont want them in ours. Honest
self-criticism should make us consider at least the possibility that
unacknowledged racial chauvinism could be lurking at the edges. It would not be
the first time that deep plague came on stage dressed in lofty religious
garb.
The whole situation reminds me of an event that took place in the
Tyrol shortly after World War II. An artist was commissioned to paint a mural
of the crucifixion on the wall of a small church in the hills above Innsbruck.
When it was unveiled, the soldiers and bystanders at the crucifixion were
clothed in Tyrolean garb. The audacity of that painter, to suggest that the
good folk of the Tyrol might be contributing by their actions to the
contemporary crucifixion of Jesus! The outrage was such that the painting had
to be covered for 10 years.
Because people didnt want to deal with the deep feelings of
revulsion and shame at their personal responsibility, which the mural was
asking them to confront, a rich potential for conversion was lost. So, too, in
the present case. It would be sad if we allow perfectly understandable feelings
to close off a graced opportunity for critical reflection on the full
implications of the Good News and the kinds of conversion to which it calls
us.
Jesuit Fr. George Wilson is an ecclesiologist who does church
organizational consulting out of Cincinnati.
National Catholic Reporter, December 10,
1999
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