Venice Film Festival

A Cardinal Offence – Blasphemous Art and the Freedom of Expression 

 

http://idebate.org/debatabase/debates/law-crime/house-would-criminalise-blasphemy 

 

Blasphemy is the lack of reverence for a religious deity, holy person or object. In 2005/06 the Dutch cartoon controversy ignited religious outrage throughout the Muslim world. Only a year ago Mideo Cruz put a penis on a Jesus Christ poster and offended public morality in a country where 85% are catholic. Now, it’s the Maria Hoffstätter’s performance as Anna-Maria, an obsessively devoted catholic, who at one point during the Ulrich Seidl’s new film masturbates with a crucifix.

According to NO 194 founder and ultra-catholic pro-life activist Piertro Guerini, the Austrian Director Seidl openly shows his contempt for the catholic faith in his competition entry Paradise Faith, the second part of a trilogy, in the 2012 Venice film festival. Guerini told APA ,he believed that Seidl and his crew, even the director of the festival, deserved to be put in jail, the blasphemous scenes would not only be an insult to the catholic religion but also an offence to all Catholic believers.

Not only in the Italian media the film has sparked a huge controversy about the freedom of art and expression versus the moral obligation to preserve the sanctity of religious symbols. In his interview with The Hollywood Reporter Seidl remarked, sex and religion should not be treated as a taboo subjects. His film aimed at presenting truths, revealing the hypocrisy between the official doctrine of suppressed sexuality and the public knowledge about sexual abuse behind closed doors.

And with a controversial approach to religious subjects he is not alone. Remember the play Corpus Christi, also known as the gay Jesus play, by Terrence McNally from 1998. For his dramatization of homophobia he received bomb threats, and the public could once again marvel at the deep and wide chasm between artistic liberties and the religious, some mentioned fundamentalist, establishment in a pluralistic democracy. Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) had Catholics all over the world up in arms against scenes like Jesus and Mary Magdalena consuming their marriage. Despite the fact that critics celebrated the film as the most honest portrayal of a man in doubt and decidedly not the usual garish postcard portrayal, it was banned in Turkey, Mexico, Chile and Argentina. Only recently the verdict and subsequent conviction in the Pussy Riot case let loose a storm of public media outrage against the Russian government, criticising the verdict as an attempt to curtail the freedom of expression. The Russian punk band had staged an illegal performance in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, three of its members were convicted of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. It’s the age old fight between radicals and liberals titled Shamshir Haider in his comment, drawing parallels with the Rimsha case in Pakistan. The 11-year old catholic girl who was taken into custody because witnesses declared they had seen her burning pages from the Koran. Blasphemy has no fixed meaning; it is flexible and adaptable. In his book Blasphemy Art that Offends, S. Brent Plate, concludes discursive practices about blasphemy are neither fixed in time nor space. The binary opposition sacred vs. profane has changed its meaning on a connotative and practical level. Sacred is no longer exclusively linked to religion. In the US patriotism or even the flag are considered sacred secular symbols, nobody would describe the Stars spangled banner as a religious symbol of any kind. In the end, by applying Robert Jauß reception theory,  the audience, the reader, the listener and observer is responsible for the interpretation of what he sees. In art as in literature , history is a process of reception and production. While the artist produces something that is valued as aesthetic because it breaks out of the observer's expectations, it's the critic's job to meditate on its meaning within a certain social framework.

Back in Venice, Seidl now has to face charges under article 724 of the Italian penal Code, where blasphemy is defined as an administrative offence and as such is punishable with a fine. In the end it's about expectations and the rupture with tradition, it's about freedom and censorship.The Vatican has yet to comment on the controversy.

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 http://www.3sat.de/page/?source=/kulturzeit/themen/164268/index.html