Natural body canals. You have two on either side of your head and 3 up your nose.
First of all: Piss Christ is a photo. Not a display, not a performance art piece, a photography. So unless Beck showed a photo of his Piss Obama, he missed the mark of his parallel. And everybody who objects to Piss Christ for its concept rather than as a piece of iconography miss… art as a whole, I guess ?
Second: Piss Christ, as a photo, and should one opt to ignore the controversial aspects of its conception, is really quite intriguing and beautiful ; even when viewed as a piece of bona fide Christian iconography. The way the piss diffuses the lighting gives Christ a sort of diaphanous aura - if you whingeing Christians didn’t know about the piece’s history, I doubt you would find it objectionable, quite the opposite.
Hell, even when viewed as a pure shock piece, technically it’s impressive.
Thirdly : Fuck Glenn Beck.
Fourthly to Seventhly : see Thirdly.
Eightly : Aping Piss Christ’s shock value without using *actual *piss is so very limp-dicked and impotent. That’s hilarious to me for some reason.
Ninethly : Obama himself can soak in a jar of piss for all the majority his supporters care. Especially after the last 4 years. And that’s really the most glaring eyeroll this whole stunt provides. By and large, people don’t make sacred idols of their political figureheads (Lenin excepted :D). *YOU *DO, Beck. You and your blithering ilk. And that is the problem, or rather the fact that engaged art pieces like Piss Christ could have been hoping to undermine, to spark discussion about, or to criticize.
In a week, nobody will talk about Piss Obama any more (particularly following point #8). In ten years, the archcons of Fox would still blather on about a hypothetical Piss Reagan - and of course, Piss Christ is still controversial globally, enough to warrant regular defacement.
Sometimes more on a Saturday night.
Glenn Beck is a fucking moron, but the Piss-Christ and Piss-Obama situations are not at all parallel. Christ is a religious figure worshipped by billions, many of whom consider him their personal savior and attribute all good things in their lives to his influence. Obama’s just a politician whose long-term historical impact will not be known for decades.
Of course, Beck probably does believe the two situations are parallel, because he thinks Obama’s supporters worship him. That stems from Beck’s being a fucking moron.
What really irritates me about this is that 99% of the people offended by piss Christ haven’t even seen the work. And if it were shown to them without a title or description, most of them would probably approve of it as a pro-christian piece.
You owe me one (1) beer and one (1) screen. Good show.
This is kind of a nitpick, but also part of the awesomeness.
Glenn Beck’s piece is call Obama in Pee Pee.
Not Piss. Pee pee.
I think it’s a good attempt at satire. Ultimately, his point is stupid (nudity[sup]1[/sup] and yucky stuff isn’t art! see how you like it!) but whatever.
Actually, if he did succeed in offending you with his 7-year-old-boy’s sense of what’s offensive (pee pee!), maybe his point isn’t off.
The objections that most people have to Piss Christ were that their tax dollars were used to pay for it. People wouldn’t be so bothered if it was privately funded and in some guys living room.
I share Starving Artist’s bemusement that some of you genuinely seem to fail to grasp that Beck is obviously doing this as a parody.
No, we get that it’s a parody. It’s just not amusing or particularly insightful.
Also it’s based on the pernicious idea that lefties consider Obama to be the Messiah, which is just not correct. No, Terr, Jamie Foxx making a joke doesn’t count as evidence.
pat on the head of course, dear, it was a joke.
Stop eating stupid food for breakfast.
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2146/2279718315_e7e9efe7e3.jpg?v=0 <– from New York Magazine
https://caps-public.s3.amazonaws.com/content/3776120/THUMBNAIL_IMAGE
- Newsweek editor Evan Thomas
(I can give you more if you like) - all works of “righties”, correct?
Well, this piece that I chose at random doesn’t even appear to be the work of an American, so congratulations on continuing your proud tradition of imbecility.
Okay, in the spirit of fairness I’ll amend it to the cranks on the left and everyone on the right.
FTR I’m not offended, I’m injured. I think I pulled something, rolling my eyes so hard.
He’s laughing all the way to the bank.
Disagree: it was whether the government should subsidize art irrespective of content. That’s not the same thing as preventing someone from creating outrageous art on their own dime, which is what the first amendment covers.
Agreed.
There’s an element of parody to it, but what was he trying to parody? The original Piss Christ is 25 years old; I haven’t thought about it in almost that long, and for Beck to parody its artistic value seems a little off topic for him. He could be trying to parody the idea that liberals view Obama as a messiah, but that’s a fringe viewpoint (at best), and ridiculing it as if it was mainstream is blatant strawmanning on Beck’s part.
So, for those who say it’s a parody; a parody of what?
Just to second Long Time First Time, there was nothing original about Marilyn Manson, either musically or in their stage performance. I don’t say that out of any dislike of them; it simply wasn’t original, there were plenty of things like it going back decades.