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Question III
In The Soul of Sex, Thomas Moore says "religious institutions remain close to pornography, sometimes in their
art . . . because ultimately both are concerned with life's deepest meaning and mystery." Do you see any
connection between Catholicism and porn? Did Catholic artists ever purposely infuse their art and iconography with suggestions of
sexuality in order to help convey the power of spiritual ecstasy to the masses (consider such Christian-themed works as the
illustrated "O" in Bede's commentary on the Song of Songs,
Donatello's David,
Caravaggio's Doubting Thomas, and
Bernini's The Ecstasy of St. Theresa)?
And, if so, how should that affect the way we interpret contemporary renditions of Christianity such as
Andres Serrano's photograph Heaven and Hell,
Martin Scorsese's film The Last Temptation of Christ,
Madonna's video "Like a Prayer," and
Terrence McNally's play Corpus Christi (all of which many religious
fundamentalists have condemned as pornographic and blasphemous)?
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Southern
European culture never lost its paganism, which is why so much Roman Catholic
iconography seems lurid or pornographic to Northern Europeans, whom Protestantism
taught to focus on the biblical word rather than the concrete image. Italian, Spanish or Latin
American Catholics have no problem integrating semi-nudity (as in statues of the tortured
St. Sebastian) into their spiritual experiences.
Blasphemy is possible only when there are shared values held sacrosanct. Andres
Serrano's "Piss Christ" was truly stupid and has importance only for the damage it did to
funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. Madonna's "Like a Prayer" video riled
few sensibilities outside the boardroom of Pepsi-Cola, which canceled the ad featuring that
song: the scandal was caused not by Madonna's treatment of religion but by her shocking
trivialization of racial imagery, as she dances in a satin slip before the burning cross of the
Ku Klux Klan. As for Terrence McNally's Corpus Christi, the play is, to all reports,
a juvenile bore that contains less about religion than about McNally's self-pity over his own
popularity problems in jock-ruled high school.
The period when sacrilege was avant-garde is long over. Baudelaire and Salvador
Dali at least had real targets to shoot at. At the end of the century, we're looking for spiritual
values again; hence anti-religious spitballs seem sillier and sillier.
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