Professor Chagoya’s lame Jesus lithograph - or is it? (see note)

A lithograph by a Stanford University professor depicts Jesus getting oral sex. Professor Enrique Chagoya was desperate to show his students he is on the cutting edge, but he was too stupid to deliver.

I’m sure his students are snickering already:

“Ooooh, Chagoya really broke ground here. Ooooh, he took on the most repressive religion in the world, what courage!”

Safe target. As Don Surber said, “Try it with Mohammed.” If you save your most clever cuts for targets that won’t hit back, you’re just a weanie. Professor Chagoya has just been awarded the Weanie Chair in the school of art.

Try it with Mohammed, weanie, or apologize to your family for being the worst kind of coward.

Frank Warner

* * *

Update note: Days into this controversy, Uzza reports that, in a panel attached to the painting of Jesus in a sex act, Professor Chagoya depicts Mohammed in a sexual setting with two pigs. That picture received virtually no press coverage. (We have to wonder how the Loveland, Colo., gallery would have reacted if the Mohammed image had attracted attention.)

But Chagoya's Mohammed picture, as posted by Uzza, seems to be on a similar level of offensiveness as the Jesus picture. And as I and others said to Chagoya, "try it with Mohammed" or apologize for being a coward. It appears Chagoya did try it with Mohammed, and if he included such a panel in his exhibit and gave it equal publicity, I apologize. That sort of equal opportunity outrage is the work of an artist with real cojones. -- FW

Comments

[CJW]

He's a sack of shit.

[Kevin]

Dang. I was going to write a scathing paragraph or two about this guy, but CJW summed it up too succinctly :(.

[Kevin]

Ouch. I just realized something. Frank doesn't talk to me anymore.

[Will le Fey]

This just proves that you people can't be trusted to defend freedom of speech when you're the ones being offended.

[Frank Warner]

Speak for yourself, Will. I'll defend to the death the professor's right to offend, just as I'm sure you'll defend my right to offend the professor.

Freedom of expression is not the question here.

[Frank Warner]

Hi Kevin. I'm talking!

[Will le Fey]

Muhammed is passe. Try it with Geert Wilders giving a blowjob to Hitler.

[Frank Warner]

Ooooh, that's daring ... not.

[CJW]

Woman Uses Crow Bar While Destroying Sexualized Artwork of Jesus

If it were Islam-related, violence to the artist would have ensued.

[Frank Warner]

Neither violence nor censorship should be tolerated in response to harmless offensive expression, even if that offensive expression is stupid and mean-spirited.

[Kevin]

Frank talked to me! All is right with the world again.

[What?]

The thing is, if it was Mohammed. They would be ticked about his image. The BJ, not so much, as Mohammed was kind of a sex freak who probably loved a good blow job.

[Frank Warner]

Maybe not, What.

Few Muslims care whether Mohammed's image is shown, if it is shown with respect. There is no Islamic law against it. In fact, there is an image of Mohammed on the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., and there has been no protest against it since the building went up in 1935.

[CJW]

Art Critical of Islam Censored at Penn State

[Frank Warner]

The Penn State story raises all the critical points on the debate over freedom of expression.

First, we all have every right to be harmlessly offensive. Second, we all have every right to harmlessly criticize those expressions that we consider offensive. And third, the government must never censor or punish any harmless expression, no matter whom it may offend.

As individuals, each of us should condemn expressions we consider to be hate. But we must never let government outlaw any harmless expression, no matter how hateful that expression may seem.

It's government's job to outlaw democratically the use of sticks and stones to break innocent bones. Government has no right to try sorting out hate from humor, ire from irony, criminal intent from parody. It certainly has no right to punish the words that never hurt me.

[Let's All Draw Mohammed]

Free Kathleen Folden.

[Frank Warner]

Sorry, Kathleen, but physical violence isn't allowed. Violence against property is wrong in itself, and it can accidentally lead to violence that hurts people.

[uzza]

Hey genius, the panel just to the left of the one she tore up is a picture of Mohammed.

[Frank Warner]

Good point, Uzza.

[uzza]

What's this? A guy who admits he was wrong? Even apologizes? In what alternate universe have I found myself? And even after I wasn't even polite in my comment, too.

Kudos to you, for being man enough to do all that, and also my apologies for being a jerk.

[Frank Warner]

Thanks for pointing out Chagoya's other picture panel. I've been waiting for an equal-opportunity American offender (in the harmless artistic offense category) for years. I certainly don't want to condemn Chagoya when he delivers.

That said, I also am not encouraging everyone to offend everyone else. But I am pointing out that it's a lot easier for artists (and I'm thinking mainly about our timid movie industry) to go after safe targets than to upset those who punish such free expression with beheadings.

Sometimes we offend to make people angry, and sometimes we offend to make a point about freedom. And because none of us can read minds, we must never respond with personal violence or government censorship. We have to assume on a basic level that every harmless offense serves the cause of freedom.

[Gregj]

The purpose of good art is to make people think and feel. Obviously this made the crowbar wielding trucker feel something!
With that said, there are better ways to express your like or dislike of something.