Courtesy of the Orthodixie website, the picture above comes from an edition of The Dallas Morning News. As he points out some have found the picture to be quite offensive, as it is the traditional Orthodox pose by Jesus Christ. And, not surprisingly, there are the opposite commenters who are, uhm, offended that anyone is offended.
What Father Orthoduck has come to realize is that giving offense, taking offense, and defending the putative offense have become mini-industries that certainly sell newspapers, get viewers, and keep bloggers busy blogging about something. [And, Father Orthoduck guesses he has just become part of that. GRIN.]
But, let’s see how one of these cycles goes:
1. The artist who gives offense. The artist always claims that he/she did not mean to give offense but rather to illustrate an IDEA THAT WAS IMPORTANT THAT WE ALL UNDERSTAND. Once in a while the artist will explain that he/she meant to be offensive but only to make their point about the narrowmindedness of whomever they were busily offending. That is, they knew they would give offense, but only to THOSE WHO NEEDED TO BE OFFENDED. I have never heard an artist admit that they might have known they were giving offense and that this was their purpose in order to gain needed publicity and maybe sales.
2. Those who are offended. There are things about which we truly need to be offended. But, Father Orthoduck has noticed that there is a mini-industry in being offended. And, if there is nothing to be offended about, then one simply twists the words that one has heard until they sound like offensive words, and then one proceeds to be OFFENDED AND DISTRAUGHT. Often in all this there is little discussion about whether any truth was spoken, or whether a common sense person would take the statement as being offensive. Oddly enough, any art or discussion that contradict’s one’s views and opinions is, of course, OFFENSIVE. And, of course, there is no forgiveness of the OFFENSE unless the supposed OFFENDER not only “repents” but repents using the exact words that the person who is offended requires of them. Often the words required go far beyond any reasonable interpretation of the offense given. Father Orthoduck would not wish to have one of these persons as a neighbor, as he would be bound to OFFEND them sooner or later.
3. Those who defend the artist against those who were offended. This is a particularly strange and hard to describe crowd. Sometimes this appears to be a crowd of people who is offended at nothing. FREEDOM OF ART AND SPEECH are so important and predominant that they must be defended at all costs. Father Orthoduck has noticed, however, that this crowd only ever seems to strongly defend the right of people to OFFEND THE ESTABLISHMENT.
4. But, then there are those who defend those who were offended. This is another hard to describe crowd because they also use the language of TOLERANCE just like the previous crowd. But tolerance apparently means that you cannot say anything that would OFFEND someone else, particularly if those OFFENDED are defending some type of supposed status quo.
Most people do not belong to any of the four groups named above. And so, they never make it into a newspaper cycle or a blog post. But, they have the opportunity to read about the latest offensive art, the latest people who took offense, the latest defenders of those who gave the offense, and the latest defenders of those who took offense. Father Orthoduck thinks that this is all rather sad.
That is pretty insulting. I went to the Dallas News but couldn't find the offensive art. It was a long opinion piece about the religion of Harry Potter. But putting him in an Icon in the pose of Christ the Teacher is a tad over the top. But as you indicate it is about selling papers or blogs more or less.
sad indeed. it seems many now view not being offended as their unalienable right
Art should be subversive sometimes. It’s goal should not be to ‘mirror’ ‘reality,’ but to show forth truth (sometimes the ‘truth’ is a false truth but that’s another story).
There is a real way in which Potter as a ‘figure’ draws heavily on Christian imagery. The (seemingly) weak ‘chosen one’ comes willingly, selflessly, abandoned of his support, and offers himself for the sake of the people, killed by the ‘powers of the world,’ who is then bodily resurrected to confound and defeat the enslavers and evil or death itself in the figure of Voldemort.
I can’t wait to read the books to my girls.
Fred, interestingly enough, the icon picture was only in one of the print editions, but was removed in later editions of the same day. It is unclear whether the top editors ever saw it before it ran in the first edition.
Fred, interestingly enough, the icon picture was only in one of the print editions, but was removed in later editions of the same day. It is unclear whether the top editors ever saw it before it ran in the first edition.
the picture would like to tell us that harry potter is like Jesus Christ and we all know that jesus is the savior of man kind and in fact harry potter is only a story of a wizard that save the world of wizard.
Very true!