I usually pictograph-censor cuss words, but since Keisha is talking about a Real World piece of art work, I elected not to for this occasion.
Thought about using Chris Ofili's "The Holy Virgin Mary", but that would require too much context. "Piss Christ" conveys it's medium more succinctly.
I tend to think of ‘piss’ being one of the more g-rated swears, like ‘dang’. Not really one of the Big Ones that get you the stink eye.
Despite that, I would generally prefer this comic to censor even that.
But in this case, he’s absolutely right: If you use the name, you shouldn’t censor it, and the name isn’t offensive enough to warrant not using it to begin with.
It’s a little like the Marge Simpson vs. Michelangelo’s David episode — there’s some leeway around most types of obscenity if given context and art. Or like how I don’t tend to swear myself, but when I’m talking about swearing (or calling attention to swearing), I don’t self-censor the words I’m talking about; I prefer clarity.
(Current favorite “calling attention to swearing”: “Where’s my fucking coat?!” “Probably next to your non-fucking coat.” And variants.)
Current favorite: “??…on the (insert location), Next to your Celibate-Coat?? Just askin’ “, or that would be what I’d try. Most outer wear is somewhat promiscuous. I had a coat I gave away,– I was the fourth owner- now someone else is wearing it. All those different arms using the same sleeves, … omg! So wrong. Ugh, now I have to shower.
At least scarves only snuggle and hug with others, they don’t … Oh never mind.
I’m the same way with quoting something someone says or does. I quoted someone that dropped F bombs, but what they said was appropriate to the conversation. Since I don’t always swear around the person I was talking to, they looked at me in shock. All I could say was “Well, that’s what was said, I am not going to misquote them.”
While swearing isn’t needed or appropriate, if you’re going to quote someone, or mention the name of something, you say in full as far as I’m concerned.
Heck I’m just impressed the school computers weren’t set to censor that! And I hope for Keisha’s sake she didn’t see any of his Other works. He did a whole series with all sorts of um… bodily secretions…
Then you dont know my mommom. When I was 8 I was watching Mary Kate and Ashely in their parent trap movie and at one point one of them asks if someone was pissed at them. So I thought it was fine to say and asked my mommom if she was pissed at me for something. Next thing I knew she was grabbing the soap and I had it in my mouth as she was washing my mouth out with it. She said ‘LADIES DONT SWEAR!’
but they do assault kids with noxious substances lol
morality-based morality is weird
Oh my. I see Amanda drinking one, and there’s two on the ground. Has she downed three glasses of wine this quickly?
Lillian is about to stage an intervention of epic proportions, I think.
Piss Christ is weird. I’ve seen pictures, and it’s just… I mean, someone submerged a crucifix in a jar of urine. Why?
Because “art”. *eyeroll*
I have to agree– art that exists for the sole purpose to offend isn’t art in my book, especially when it’s otherwise an elementary-school level effort.
Because often the point of art is to offend or be a criticism of a subject and yes it’s still art. Piss christ was part of a set of images of religious icons submerged in all kinds of fluids and was ment to be a conversation starter about religion and societys use and treatment of it. This offends you? Well the point of the pice is to make you ask why.
Art appeals to your emotions. Good art makes you think. Great art does both.
But should the emotion be contempt for the artist? And should it make you think “What’s the point of that?”
It’s a photograph. It looks rather nice — all glowing and gold, like a sunbeam. It doesn’t particularly *look* like urine. We wouldn’t know it’s urine if we weren’t told. In fact, I’ve seen speculation that it might not *actually be* urine – we only have Serrano’s word on it, right?
What would you think if you were told that it was actually submerged in polyurethane resin? What would you think if you were told that there was a jar of piss, and a crucifix, and their images were superimposed via a double-exposure? If crucifixes are inherently deserving of respect (a debatable point on its own), should you be able to buy tiny mass-produced plastic crucifixes for twenty-five cents at the corner store? Is the corner store obligated to keep all the tiny plastic crucifixes on display until they’ve been sold, or can they eventually be thrown out if they haven’t sold and the store wants to use the shelf space for something else? What if the store wants to use the shelf space for *better-quality* crucifixes?
Material cause! The medium is chosen as part of the expression- otherwise why describe said medium?
However, Danny, you have made an intelligent and elegant case. More intelligent and elegant, I opine, than the production in question.
It is a dark gold, isn’t it? I hope he deliberately dehydrated himself to get the urine that color, otherwise all the profits made from that peice should have been immediately spent on a urologist. Healthy pee is NOT that color.
Well, that might also depend on how wide the glass is, and (assuming the light is coming from above) how tall (or deep) it is, as well on the ambient and direct light used, the film used and the camera, photo paper and whatnot.
It’s an art photograph not a documentary photograph, so probably not suitable for medical diagnostics.
@Dondonesque
An emotion is an emotion is an emotion.
The point of art is to elicit an emotion from it’s audience. The work in question has obviously don that, regardless of whether or not the emotion is good or bad, and as such has succeeded.
“Bad art is a distraction. Good art changes people.” — Doug Walker
I like this quote.
Because some people believe “there is no such thing as bad publicity” is actually true. What good is people talking about your crap if nobody wants to buy it?
I’ve seen the picture. It seems to me that what he was trying to do was use the urine as both a medium and a statement. The picture looked beautiful with the crucifix in a deep yellow field with sunbeams coming down on it. Then you find out how he made it. Yeech.
so it *looked* beautiful. And then you thought differently about it. But it still *looks* the same. What has changed?
Personal feeling changed. One must remember that someone’s emotions change how they react to things when they get full disclosure.
Like you said, if the crucifix was superimposed with a jar of urine what would that matter? Well some people do put inherit value in the cross and they don’t like what they value treated so poorly. And some other people might not see the value in the cross but feel that the believers might deserve some respect anyway and that it crosses the line.
If one puts in emotion as a factor, and they should, sometimes the emotional reaction will be negative. It doesn’t change what someone else feels towards it.
Personally I feel Piss Christ was a pretentious way of trying to pull a “Take That” to religious people in an attempt at making controversy at Catholic people’s sakes. And that he was hopping around saying “Ask me what it means! Ask me what it means!” If you feel different, that’s fine. Room for everyone’s thoughts.
But he wasn’t actually trying to “stick it to christians” he was making a statement about how society has commodified and cheapened religion by trying to make it a mass-produced and diluted product. He used a cheap plastic crucifix mass-produced in China and that was supposed to be more the sticking point than the piss.
What I don’t get is why he felt the need to tell everyone is was urine. Like, what was the point of that aside from intentionally upsetting people.
He could have easily claimed it to be liquid amber or something else and no one would be the wiser. It just seems silly to provoke people like that.
Enraging people was his point. He wanted to offend, he wanted to be controversial. I wouldn’t be shocked if he claimed that the rage was truly his art he was going for.
So… you can’t win, can you? If you are enraged by it, then he’s used you to prove an arcane point about symbolism. And if your reaction is just, “meh, big deal… ” then clearly you aren’t clever enough to appreciate the fine points of modern art!
I know. Personally, I don’t care one way or the other. Modern art isn’t my thing. It does seem tactless and cliche to me that he put the cross into urine. It strikes me as trying too hard, like an episode of Family Guy. They want to offend for the sake of offending so hard it’s almost cute.
Though you can win Sessine. Go find an artist you do like and spend your money on them. I suggest Kevin Eslinger if you can handle your childhood icons turned into nightmare fuel. This Piss Christ is just…..I thought artists wanted to sell art, you know, with it being their job. But hey, maybe he likes the starving part of starving artist.
I feel Keisha’s frustration here. She’s not trying to be funny, crass or rude, it’s just a fact! I hated when adults would stifle me like that.
I always did.
Or teachers who could never, in any way, admit that they were wrong.
I still remember a second grade teacher who, after asking for double-letter words, told me that “boom” was not a real word.
Even when I showed her in the dictionary -picture included- the long arm of a construction crane, she insisted “That’s not what you meant.”
All these years later, it still irks.
But… but Boom is two etymologies covering at least 4 or 5 definitions that are distinct enough that most people would distinguish them, most of which have both a noun and verb form. *sigh*
And lets not forget my yr 3 teacher who forced me to do the maths problems on the board with these stupid wooden block things, because she didn’t believe I could do such ‘complicated’problems in my head (3 digit addition and subtraction). In front of the whole class, and most of their parents (it was one of those parents come to school day things).
To this day, I still think of her when I’m budgeting, usually with a twinge of irritation.
One of my high school science teachers described themselves as ‘wizened’ – they meant they were wiser than the students, due to their years of experience. I pointed out that ‘wizened’ actually means “shrunken, withered, usually from dehydration; ‘a wizened old apple’.” I had to get a dictionary to prove it, but to the teacher’s credit, they did accept their error. (I probably could have been more discrete about it instead of calling them out in front of the whole class, but my thought at the time was, “If I don’t say something, no one here will know the right definition and they’ll all use this word wrong!” I had and still have strong feelings about vocabulary trivia.)
Let us discreetly pass over the discrete issue of homonym confusion. Aw, heck, it’s probably just a typo. 😀
It reminds me of an incident in elementary school. Transcript of a phone call.
“Mrs. X? Your daughter just cussed out one of the students.”
“Well, what did she say?”
“She called Y a neanderthal.”
pause. “Well, he kind of is.”
“GASP! MRS. X!”
“… do you… even know what the word means?”
So… parent is apparently proud of their kid name calling and then ridicules a teacher and insults her intelligence because the teacher is shocked that an adult would stoop so low as to agree that a child is stupid?
Um. Alright.
Unless, of course, the daughter had overheard her parents discussing the latest scientific findings, showing that most of us who are of Asian and European stock have inherited between 1 and 4 percent of their DNA from the Neanderthals. The only people today who aren’t a small part Neanderthal are those whose homo sapiens ancestors never left Africa.
You are just as aware as I that it was used as an insult and not a scientific term and the mom agreed that it’s ok to insult a child as long as said child is perceived as stupid.
That’s some impressively incompetent serving staff if they can’t stop a kid from drinking wine before she’s three glasses in. What do they teach catering people nowadays?
They’re probably trying to stop her without touching or yelling at her, for fear of Angry Parents. (Seriously, there are a lot of stories about parents yelling at people for trying to stop kids from doing something the kid wasn’t supposed to be doing, or for ‘upsetting’ the kid by telling them not to do something dangerous.)
I once tried to gently explain to a young (likely 5-ish) girl that she shouldn’t jump all over the flowers in front of the library. I didn’t see anyone with her, and I just wanted her to stop so she wouldn’t get in trouble for completely ruining the flowerbed, not because I was offended or anything. She freaked out because a “stranger” started talking to her, and it turned out her grandmother was just around the corner. So in the end I was yelled at instead of her.
I don’t know what the librarians thought of the smashed flowers, because I didn’t want to bring up the subject after that.
I got you beat. One of my friend’s kids sneezed on a slice of pizza so we had to throw it away. So the person it was going to go to could actually get something to eat, I started taking the kid aside to teach him Rock Paper Scissors. I figured, teach him a game, keep him entertained, no way could I lose right?
His mom sees this and starts screeching to high hell about how I shouldn’t be punishing her son in her home. Somehow I went from teaching a kid a simple game to distract him to punishing him. How, I have no idea.
Apparently Parenthood has an “Abandon all rational thought ye who enter here” clause somewhere that the rest of us aren’t privy to…
Sad thing is I have my niece over here long enough I might as well be a parent as well and I have never been privy to any go irrationally bonkers clause. Then again, I try using common sense, if someone wants to distract a kid under my care, as long as it’s safe I say let them. Makes it easier on me.
As soon as she goes for the second cup, I’m sweeping them all into the floor. Mess be darned.
Those other two glasses are probably another modern art installation. A metaphorical reflection on our disposable consumer society, or something like that.
How did she drink three in such a short amount of time?
Small serving amounts (like maybe 3-4 ounces each) and she’s fury-drinking.
It’s like when you’ve just run a whole lot, and could probably chug a gallon of water without even thinking about it (but shouldn’t, that’s too much water too fast) except in easy to grab, substantially lighter ups right at face level.
Because this entire part of the story is not thought out.
Those cups probably don’t have more than a mouthful each. By now, if those are all hers she’s probably had one full glass of wine. She won’t start feeling it for about 10 minutes or so but when she does it’s probably going to hit her like a ton of bricks.
I would like to propose the hypothesis that the two cups on the floor by Amanda’s feet were not cups she drank from, but the result of other gallery patrons littering. If there were visible puddles around them, they may have also been accidentally knocked of the table, either by Amanda grabbing the cup or by the ‘staff’ trying to stop her drinking wine.
I don’t know what is coming, but knowing how Dave likes to crank up the excitement, just when I think it has topped out, he makes me wrong, … Again. It will be Mandy, in the gallery with three empty glasses. Dick and Dora Charleston, Miss Marbles, Hercule Parreaux, and Sam Diamond all agree; Mandy, in the gallery, with the wine box.
It´s a work of modern art, I say.
I don’t know what is coming, but knowing how Dave likes to crank up the excitement, just when I think it has topped out, he makes me wrong, … Again. It will be Mandy, in the gallery with three empty glasses. Dick and Dora Charleston, Miss Marbles, Hercule Parreaux, and Sam Diamond all agree; Mandy, in the gallery, with the wine box.
What, no love for Sidney Wang? (And James Coco played Milo Perrier. Just saying’.)
“What, no love for Sidney Wang? ” Nope. Mad at him since he pointed out the blonde hair and got Professor McGonagall all upset.
Besides, he doesn’t use his articles.
This thing with Amanda is stupidly forced. No 9 year old would drink three small glasses of wine that quickly. No 9 year old would even drink one small glass to be honest. Just dumb, unnatural story telling for the sake of a conflict. Dave, you’re better than this.
I agree. Unless this wine tastes like cake, there’s no way she’s drinking this unless someone is telling her she doesn’t have the will power to drink something so gross and she’s doing it out of sheer determination and spite. And that someone the staff has failed to stop her from drinking 3? I’ll let 1 slide, but 3?
Amanda would’ve spit it out, angry or not, this is ridiculously unnatural.
its not unnatural it depends on the kids taste. I had to chase my young cousins around after my grandfather gave out grape koolaid (grape flavored everclear that we had chilling for shots) the kids were not happy to miss out on their drinks or to have them snatched away as they were drinking them. you would be surprised at what 9-14 year olds will drink without complaint
It would depend on what type of wine it was. Some wines are really sweet. Our synagogue used to have an oneg after services where we’d each get a small glass of wine or grape juice and a piece of challah (with the blessings) before we’d all descend on a table full of goodies. I gave up counting how many times kids as young as 5 ended up drinking wine instead of juice. At 9 my brother and his friends would have happily gone for multiple cups of the wine if my mom hadn’t noticed.
Thanks for this, I completely agree. It’s simply an unrealistic situation and really detracts from the comic in my opinion.
And yes I get the irony of complaining about realism in a comic with fish people but there’s different kinds of suspension of disbelief at work here.
I agree with Kyrie. It’s a sweet wine, those are small cups, she’s thirsty, she’s angry, and most of all, someone’s telling her not to! Five good reasons to gulp down as many as she can get away with.
Remember, this is AMANDA we’re talking about.
Yeah. I suspect she’s just mad because they called it “adult” and now she’s spite-drinking because she’s on a power-trip. They’re freaking out! She is IN CONTROL OF THEIR EMOTIONS. She isn’t thinking about it like that, but it’s probably making her feel better to be in control of adults when she’d otherwise be being scared of other adults.
She probably thinks the stuff tastes totally nasty but BY ALL THAT IS HOLY, SHE ISN’T GOING TO LET PEOPLE PUSH HER AROUND! They said it was off-limits, but HA!
I got two words: Strawberry Hill.
Sweeter than syrup, and so little alcohol who would taste it? Easily believable, but I got no kids, so what do I know.
I used to drink Wine coolers all the time as a kid. Never knew they were alcoholic drinks. Still would gulp down 2-3 during holiday parties.
When I was 9 I enjoyed when I got to have a small glass of wine at family dinners (usually holidays) so I wouldn’t say “no 9 year olds would even drink one glass”
When you’re angry (as we can see Amanda was/is) you don’t notice tastes as much as when you’re calm (adrenaline from anger leading to increased awareness of the extremities, less to the parts non-essential to fight/flight [most importantly, the digestive system] so taste is less intense/delayed). Then, coupled with already being angry, there’s clearly juice here, but these two weird looking adults are saying it’s “adult stuff”? That’s BS, kids drink juice! She’ll show them!
Plus, the box probably has the spout on the side opposite from Amanda, otherwise she might have noticed that’s not the sort of contained juice usually comes in (it’s a box of smaller boxes, and they just put them in cups to be fancy, obviously)
It’s a white, so there’s a pretty diverse range of flavors this wine could have. It’s probably not terribly dry (dryness takes some getting used to if you prefer sweet stuff) but it is boxed, so probably not terribly expensive either. Cheaper wines usually up the sugar content to compensate for their lack of everything else. So, it’s sweet, kinda funny tasting juice, but she’s drinking it no matter what these adults say!
So, while it would take a few variables to be in place for this to be a more probable situation, it’s nowhere near an impossible situation (and how do we know the family with the abusive brothers didn’t let her try some on occasion [maybe they were being “European” about it, eg: a glass of wine at dinner is normal])
We’ll see her reaction on Monday (unless we change focus back to Andi, Todd & Heather’s dad) and we’ll know for sure what’s up.
You say this but I downed 4 jello shots at a party once. D: I was like… 10 I liked em and had run off with them. I slept like a rock that night.
I’ve also had several wines that tasted more like candy than anything else. It seems to be a red wine though so… I dunno
Um… may somebody please tell me what’s the translation for the french words? ^^’
Tony: When she said “blood” I thought it’d be… .
Lillian:
Tony: When she said “blood” I thought it’d be… [Real Blood].
Lillian:[Of Course Not, tony. it would be gross(as in vulgar or unrefined).]
my choice of formatting got the translation et. sorry.
Tony’s first French words mean ‘real arterial’. ‘real blood’ is ‘du sang réel’ or ‘du vrai sang’.
@Dave: You should spell it ‘artériel réel’. French adjectives are gender dependent and ‘sang’ (=blood) is male.
Gotta remember though, we’ve been told that Tony speaks French because he thinks it makes him interesting, not because he is French. He could easily be making lots of errors.
I just misread the page footer as ‘Hosted by a small Or(ph)an(a)ge’. Made me giggle.
Nothing as funny as people making wishy-washy “well maybe this, but not this” judgments with regard to censorship. It will never be enough to shield you, but eventually and inevitably something you value will be taken away as a result of your ‘moderation’ 😉
Nothing as funny as people making wishy-washy “well maybe this, but not this” judgments with regard to censorship. It will never be enough to shield you, but eventually and inevitably something you value will be taken away as a result of your ‘moderation’
Maybe it’s because I was in California but kids will definitely drink wine – I’ve seen a 5yo get halfway into a bottle of moscato. Besides, she’s drinking white, which is way sweeter than red and easy to overindulge in.
Dunno if it’s white. She identified it at first sight as grape juice, which argues that it’s more likely a red.
But reds can be very sweet too.
Oh, wait, no. I take that back. Looking back at the previous page, they have both red and white on offer, but what she’s drinking IS the white. She identified it as grape juice from the stylized bunch of grapes on the side of the box. (Duh.)
Calling 100% bullshit that a 5 y/o was able to drink half a bottle of wine, even something like moscato.
Amanda spent 5 years with another family. Could she have learned to like wine then?