Today my Washington Post featured a huge color picture of the dead Pope laid on a table in full regalia, with several cardinals seated behind the body in somber poses. Take a look: http://files.bighosting.net/wj22526.pdf.
This particular picture bothered me for several reasons. Join me after the jump.
First, I have never before seen a front-page display of a dead body like this. Not
John Kennedy, not
Ronald Reagan, nor any other major public figure that I can find. Even the release of certain photos of the dead sons of Saddam Hussein caused a fair amount of
consternation, about the propriety of publicly displaying pictures of the dead, not to mention the fracas over the publication of photos of the flag-draped coffins of Americans killed in Iraq. And of course, the use of
dead bodies as art prompted a
world-wide debate (and various
Freeper comments) as to whether the exhibit venerated or exploited our mortal coil. (Or perhaps it was only exploiting
the Chinese). The literally visceral reaction to a subsequent
public spectacle of an autopsy as form of performance art by the same artist typifies our general reaction to any sort of exploitation of the human corpse.
In contrast, we now see with respect to the Post photo (not to mention the Catholic religion) an almost Lenin-like deification of the dessicated flesh, as if in death the Pope has been converted to a iconic "thing" to be trotted out as a religious relic for display. I can find absolutely no discussion in the MSM about the propriety of this sort of media coverage of the actual dead body of the Pope. At least in this case, unlike Lenin, the Pope won't be "checked twice a week for deterioration" and taken every 18 months to a laboratory to be "undressed, examined and immersed in preserving chemicals".
But I digress.
Getting back to the WaPo picture, the second thing that bothered me was the composition of the picture. Unlike the on-line WaPo photo (go to The World Reacts -- Photos) -- and see also another perspective here -- the hard copy WaPo version is particularly disturbing to me. This particular view of the dead Pope from a side angle, splayed on on a table (even wearing new shoes) -- with the cardinals ranging behind him - bears a shocking compositional resemblance to the feasters at the Last Supper. Was this compositional invocation of the Last Supper deliberate? I wonder.
Which brought me to the third reason that this picture bothers me:
Trying to attract a larger clientele to the delights of sushi, U.S.-based Japanese chefs devised inauthentic though delicious temptations like the California roll. In Japan, they lay the display of bite-size morsels all along a naked girl's body.
http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20040420-010315-2915r.htm
I certainly mean no disrespect to the Pope here, and am not seeking to make a cheap point, but it really bothers me that the particular photographic image used by WaPo -- seemingly deliberately chosen among several varying compositions to subconsciously evoke the image of the Last Supper -- ends up, through the marvels of saturation media coverage of pop culture, making a mockery of the Pope's funeral rites, and even inappropriately conflating this ritual with the consumption of the "Host".
So, I invite your commentary, both on this picture and -- more generally -- on the uses and abuses of photographic images (or art exhibits) featuring the deceased, and the uses and abuses of the dead themselves for science, art, religion or politics.