France court bans Christ advert

[True_Blue]

France's Catholic Church has won a court injunction to ban an advertisement based on Leonardo da Vinci's Christ's Last Supper.

The display was ruled "a gratuitous and aggressive act of intrusion on people's innermost beliefs", a judge said.

The church objected to an almost all-female version of the fresco, including a female Christ, used by designers Marithe et Francois Girbaud.

The authorities in the Italian city of Milan banned the poster last month.

more....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4337031.stm

[Neoma]

1. ha, ha, ha

thats not too bad...
and there is worse examples of the painting.

[beam me up scottie]

4. Isn't that just a picture of a bunch of women sitting around a table?

Maybe I just don't appreciate art.
:shrug:

[PartyPooper]

2. God forbid! This is just blasphemy, pure and simple.

We can't have any more messing around with the Lord's "Last Supper". No siree!

What's the world coming to?

:wow:

[imenja]

3. they also forbid Muslim women from wearing veils

tolerant the French aren't.

[Flagg]

14. Only girls in publc schools.

[Frederik]

15. Well, no

Only in public schools (not including colleges/universities), along with all other displays of religious belonging (big crucifixes, jewish skullcaps etc). It has been partly argued from a feminist perspective, because many muslim girls used to be forced to wear veils in school, but mainly it's a matter of "secularism" (laïcité) in the public sphere, which the French are very serious about. Surveys indicate that the muslim girls themselves have mixed feelings about it. Some are happy to be able to go to school without veil, others feel it violates their religious freedoms. The muslim communities opposed the law, but they have largely respected it. When two French journalists were kidnapped in Iraq, the hostage-takers demanded that France repeal the law, lest the hostages be executed. The muslims of France were united in their rejection and condemnation of this demand, and their rejection of it may have contributed to the release of the hostages.

[Flagg]

16. I was only talking about Muslim girls here.

I'm well aware of what the law is all about.

[Frederik]

17. I responded to reply 3

not yours! :hi:

[imenja]

23. I realize all that.

But the law itself is wrong. Women and men alike need to have the legal freedom to decide how they will dress. The French have convoluted the idea of separation of church and state. In regulating the dress of Muslims, they demonstrate great disrespect for that religion and its adherents. During the Shah of Iran's rule, men used to rip the veils off of women as they walked down the street. They enforced Western modernization. Fundamentalists, as you might remember, took that quite badly. The best prescription against political extremism is tolerance.

[Maple]

5. The French forbid

all religious symbols, on the grounds it's a secular society.

[Dem2theMax]

6. Hey, I tried to see 'The Last Supper' when I was in Milan.

The darned thing was closed. And they had the rudest nun working there. Yes, a really rude nun! I'll never forget that horrid woman. She was so mad at us for wanting to see it and daring to ask about it. I'm still :mad: at her. LOL.

[LiberalVoice]

7. About your sig...

Ain't that the fuckin truth?

[Dem2theMax]

8. Amen. Amen. Amen. Sadly, Amen. nt.

[Sandpiper]

9. So it's against the law to offend Christian sensibilities in France?

Wow. Maybe American fundies will decide the Frenchies ain't so bad after all.

[Adrian Luca]

10. Like Americans can laugh....

Doesn't your freedom-loving American government fine TV networks for showing nipples? Doesn't your government advise conferences on gay, lesbian and transgender suicide not to include the words "gay", "lesbian" or "transgendered" in their press releases? Wasn't it your government that pressured PBS not to air a children's cartoon because it depicted a bunny rabbit with two mommies?


Who's laughing now, free speech boys? heh, heh, heh...

[NYC]

11. That poor bunny didn't even have two mothers.

He just visited someone who did.

No free speech here.

[Pooka Fey]

12. Whoops, I'm going against the tone of this thread.

Call me an America hater, but I really don't think that corporations have a God-given RIGHT TO MAKE A BUCK off of whatever artistic images they want to, selling whatever products they see fit to sell. You want to use a well-known religious symbol to sell hemorrhoid cream?? GO AHEAD YOU'RE IN AMURKA!!! I think it's refreshing to see some things kept OFF of the "whoring-table".

I was sickened when whatever car company it was acquired the rights to use the Beatles song "Revolution" to shill for an SUV, against McCartney's wishes. Paul couldn't prevent this particular blasphemy because Michael Jackson owns the copyright to the Beatles' songbook. Michael needs money for lawyer's fees, so to hell with your artistic integrity, Paul.

And the guy who thinks it's wrong for France to defend it's secular society...do you enjoy seeing Muslim women in the U.S.A. wearing bhurkas? Headscarves are no big deal, but I saw a Muslim woman in the grocery store wearing a bhurka and it scared the crap out of me. I detest the Bhurka and everything it represents about a women's role in society, but we don't set any limits here in AMURKA, so screw me. No worries about any cultural boundaries here in the good-ol U.S.A. because there are NO LIMITS and anything goes. Let's all feel superior, now.

[oscarmitre]

13. So would you advocate

legislation to prevent women wearing bhurka-like clothing?

[Merlin]

18. I bet this ad will be banned in Amurka as well.

You just know somebody will try it now -- and soon.

I'll bet the US courts will find it to be in the same vein as pornography and prohibit its general display.

Were they to do otherwise, the pressure from organized religion would be beyond anybody's capacity to imagine.

Commercial exploitation of cultural phenomena are fine in the US so long as they are not pornographic or obscene.

The problem with the Beatles songbook you describe stems from the fact that Yoko (I think it was) made a lot of money selling the rights to the King of Poping to begin with, and lost all control.

[DrRang]

19. Did it in Albuquerque

An ad for Albuquerque's two best restaurants--Jennifer James and Graze--ran in the top alternative newspaper here, with James shown as the central picture in The Last Supper.

[Merlin]

22. Now that you describe it, a light-hearted parody probably would work.

Still, it's dangerous territory. And of course the fundies and righteous talk show hosts would blame it on "libruls."

Welcome to DU!

[Neshanic]

20. Laugh away at the French.Maybe they have a history with religion gone nuts

Yes, I think it was them that had a revolution some time back against the aristocracy and the church. Seems they were a bit too close and cozy with each other.

Banning a poster like this may be hilarious for us, but they knew who called the shots with the ruling class when they took the Bastille.

Jeez, ya think our government is getting too cozy with religion? Naaaa.

[Vogon_Glory]

21. Think About France's EARLIER Experiences...

Actually the French have a much longer history of religion gone nuts than 1789. Think about such little tidbits like the St. Batholomew's Day massacre back in the 1500s when hundreds of Protestants were murdered. Think of the civil wars that wracked France until Henry IV took over near the end of the 1500s. Think about Catholic Louis XIV revoking the Edict of Nantes and expelling tens of thousands of French Protestants.

Some of those southern-fried "born again" ex-Dixiecrat Republicans without Creole ancestors ought to think about where and why their "Frenchie" names came from.

The Catholic Church in France also had deplorable ties with Philippe Petain's collaborationist Vichy government.

Here in "Amurrica," our home-grown born-again idiots have conveniently forgotten about the intense anti-Catholic campaigns waged by such groups as the "Know-Nothings" in the 1850's and the anti-Catholic activities of the KKK in the 1920s. (Not to mention the hue and cry directed at Catholic John F. Kennedy by southern US Evangelicals back in 1960).

Right-wing "Christian" activists are also strangely silent about anti-LDS agitation in the 1850s that was based more on religious bigotry than concern about how well the Mormons were holding to the Union.