Excuse me!?
Join me, close your eyes and imagine a beautiful painting of the one and only Jesus Christ. It is the most extravagant painting you have ever seen of Christ portrayed. What you failed to picture in your head was this painting of Christ in all His rightful glory, was actually a painting of Him covered with ants!
This indeed happened in reality! On January 11th, 2011 the great Smithsonian yanked a painting of Christ covered with ants out of their gallery. This resulted with the painting’s admirers complain that art shouldn’t be held hostage to those it might offend. They said, “its purpose is to make us uncomfortable, to offend the orthodoxies which imprison our minds”. To which I ask, to what extent is this ok to do? Is there ever a time where one should not be offensive?
I disagree with this statement to a certain extent. I do not believe that art should “make us uncomfortable, to offend the orthodoxies which imprison our minds”. Rather, I would say that the purpose of art is to inspire and provide an outlet of the talents God has given to us, for others to enjoy and be blessed by as well. It is not to offend others or evoke them to anger, but quite the opposite. Now, don’t get me wrong. It does not have to be fanciful and not depict real life at all, but I would argue that can be done in a way that is inspiring rather then rude. This balance of reality and rude has been questioned recently with almost all of social media.
On the other hand it is impossible to not offend or make anyone feel uncomfortable. It is like trying to decide where to eat with a group of people, there will never be a completely unanimous consensus. It always requires compromise, communication and understanding. I would say the same applies to art and media. It will always make someone feel uncomfortable, however it should not be your intention behind the art. It should be looked at from others point of view before being published. It should demonstrate pure motives and strive to empower and encourage its admirers.
Lets take a look into Mark Twain’s book Adventures of Huckleberry Fin. It is a classic and almost any middle school or High school teaches it. However, some people have taken offense to the use of certain words within the novel. An example would be the use of “Niger” in reference to an African American. People are lobbying to have these words, along with some others removed so that it is less offensive. I find it almost pointless to try to censor every source of entertainment from the past. In those days these things were different. It was a different culture and different things were more or less offensive then to us today. To me this is like trying to take out the word “gay” from everything even though it had a completely different meaning back then. It is simply pointless to try and do. It has been around like that for how long now? Why does it just now need changed to be more acceptable?
This begs the question what is ok and what is not? Some people take offense to the pledge of allegiance and the use of the phrase “one nation under God”. So, should we take that out, or prohibit people from saying the pledge of allegiance altogether? On the other hand, you will have people highly offended by taking out said phrase in the allegiance. So now do we keep it the way it has been?
Liberals argue that using such words as in Mark Twain’s book, simply reflects an accurate depiction of real life. This really bothered me, because media has a huge influence on life. More than most people give it credit for. Why then do you think some people act or talk that way? Ever think that just maybe it is because of your movie that they saw it on, and thought it looked cool or would make them more accepted? Maybe it is the way the celebrates hold themselves that serve as a model for the way some people conduct themselves. To say it should be acceptable or even justified due to the standards of the world we live in is a weak argument. I wonder if our world would be more wholesome and clean like it was just a short 30 to 50 years ago, if we held ourselves (individuals, groups, media, clothing stores, art, etc) to a higher standard.
It seems that today our media has been shaped around what is currently accepted. I think of the new Beauty and the Beast movie coming out that has a feminine male character, Lefou, that comes out of the closet, so to speak, and sings an entire song about how attractive he finds Gaston to be. Lefou is Gaston’s sidekick and in the classic version of this movie Disney portrayed him as wanting to be Gaston and all the wonderful advantages that came with being him, not wanting to be his “partner” as the 2017 version of this movie portrays.
The authors talk about how they wanted to show the real struggle of someone who is just experiencing these emotions for the first time. Lefou, is a character they can relate to and figure it out along with him. I would argue this is bringing in and showing a complete role strain. Lefou is supposed to be Gaston’s truest friend and confidant, well now his feelings of possibly liking him are getting in the way of that. He is pulled in both directions and has to decided which path to take.
What are we to do with this then? Should we allow it to happen now, then years later if this goes out of style, have the movie makers rewrite the whole character of Lefou?
This material can and has been very offensive to some people, but a seemingly more acceptable. It is a popular issue to keep confronting and bringing up in media and news. Over President Obama’s reign as president, the LGBTQ community was able to make huge leaps of progress in “raising awareness to their issues”. They now are seen to have a voice that was forgotten. However, that voice comes with a cost to someone else voice. So which group is right? Should we choose the people who are for or against this new movement of the 21st century?
In my opinion, this seems to simply be a matter of relevance. If it is offensive to me it does not seem to matter. However, if it offends someone with influence in our economy or someone higher up it should be changed immediately! If it offends the minority groups, again it gets dismissed. However, when that minority becomes a majority, the then seem to have a voice in what is acceptable to society and what is not.
Our world is fickle. That is why the Bible teaches us to be in the world, not of it! John 15:19 says, “As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world.” Also, in 1 John 4:5 it talks about people who have negative influence. It says, “They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them.” This is a great thing to keep in mind. The world is not our home, and the people in it, if they are not a child of the kingdom, do not care about the kingdom. I think too often we try to force our beliefs on others expecting them to abide by them as well, when in reality they do not comprehend the way we live our lives.
I think this sums all we talked about today up perfectly. Weather something is acceptable to be offensive or not seems to be subjective, and contingent on who exactly it offends. Therefore, as Christians we are to love God and love others. We can still hold to our beliefs, but remember that those around us are made in God image too, they are not the enemy here. The battle is much bigger and in fact unseen. Spiritual warfare is going on all around us every day. We need to focus on the real enemy and not get caught up on others around us as much as we tend to do.
