Part 1
I grew up Catholic but have always disliked the central artifact of its iconography: the crucifix. Specifically, I am repelled by the one that features a three-dimensional replica of the the lifeless body of Jesus of Nazareth hanging. I've long been been a person fascinated by symbols and deeply appreciative of metaphor and of signs laden with meaning. And yet, I find the crucifix to be over-the-top, gratuitous and even juvenile in its shock value. I have the same reaction to the crucifix that I have to Marilyn Manson -- that they are trying too hard and do not need to hit me over the head with the message. I was reminded of this tonight walking past a church rectory on Oak Park Avenue. There, hanging on the cream-colored walls just beyond the foyer was a 2' x 1' crucifix, with good ole Jesus lingering there in three dimensions, murdered and not yet delivered. I had the same reaction I've always had to that thing, since I was a little boy: it looks macabre, lurid and lacks any subtlety. I don't know if I exactly put it in those terms when I was eight years old – but I think that was what was behind my antipathy toward the crucifix. Compared to the powerful and mysterious Star of David; compared to depictions of Hindu deities like the radiantly blue Krishna, the multi-armed and bejeweled elephant god Ganesh or the teal-toned, proud and compassionate monkey deity Hanuman, the crucifix feels like a 1970s B-movie horror film, with the fun taken out.
Part 2
Even after being raised Catholic and having attended a Jesuit high school and 2 1/2 years of Catholic grade school, I still enjoy some Catholic iconography. The Jesus-hanging crucifix is just not one such piece. In the context of the Catholic doctrine I was force-fed, that particular icon reads as a tortured body hung from a noose or dragged through the street. One crucifix-related experience I had actually resulted in lasting trauma: The Stations of the Cross ritual. Hung at 12 spots across the church walls are depictions of different stages of the Nazarene's "passion" (the name of the Church gives to the extended torture the Romans gave Jesus of Nazareth). More than once as a young child, I was led by a priest or nun through each station as they detailed the relentless, bloody mutilation of the savior we were taught to love. And if there was one thing the Roman Empire was good at, it was concocting ways to physically aggrieve and finally kill a person. I never really recovered entirely from those delightful little tours. I continue trying to do so.
Part 3
The closest I have seen elsewhere those grisly, pain-fetishizing aspects of Catholicism are certain scenes from the films of Quentin Tarantino. And Quentin is as simultaneously dismal and sensationalist in his frequent scenes of torture, as is the Catholic Church. It does not speak well of Tarantino and Hollywood bad boy cinema, more broadly, that a recurrent trope in his movies is as unimaginatively repulsive as what the Church fathers were coming up with 1500 years ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment