There has been backlash from some conservative Catholics in Spain this week, who object to an image of Jesus on a poster used to promote Holy Week in Seville. The image has been described as homoerotic, effeminate, camp And sexualized.
Religious imagery has been prevalent in Western popular culture, ever since music videos has fashion, TV shows to advertising. In his book Admen and Evewriter Katie Edwards explains that “Eve is a huge money maker” and points to Eve’s prolific use in marketing campaigns for products such as Cider, cereal, cigarettes And perfumes.
In my own research, I have explored representations of Moses in advertising. The figure of Moses, an elderly, male, disabled prophet from the book of Exodus, is usually replaced by young naked women shown parting the Red Sea, in various advertisements, including one for sunscreen.
While the use of religious figures like Eve and Moses often goes unnoticed, advertisements using the image of Jesus frequently spark an outcry. There has been backlash against the use of his image in advertising, particularly for Greggs Vegan Rolls, Samsung mobile phones and even jeans.
The history of icons and the church
The current outrage in Spain has precedents. There has been anger over explicit images of Jesus used in films about his life, such as Monty Python’s. “blasphemous” the film Life of Brian (1979) and The Passion of the Christ (2004) by Mel Gibson, which depicts the crucifixion as blood sacrifice. Some depictions of the crucifixion have been implied, such as Cersei’s walk of shame in Game Of Throneswhich echoes The Painful Path — the path that Jesus traveled until the crucifixion.
Some Christian denominations, such as Pentecostalism and Methodism, do not engage with icons or images of God, following their ban in the book of Exodus. Yet icons have a long and significant history in Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions, as objects worthy of veneration.
Representations of Jesus are prolific in this sense. The depiction of the crucifixion – his half-naked, broken body on a cross – adorns churches and jewelry around the world. So much so that we have become almost desensitized to the violence depicted in these types of images. These images are often found in children’s classrooms if they attend faith schools.
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Christianity and the body
The book by art critic Leo Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and Modern Oblivion (1983), shows how images of the crucifixion were once quite explicit, as historically many images did not offer Jesus the modesty of a loincloth. The body of Jesus was always a place of controversyalthough Christianity is a religion very concerned with bodies.
Christianity is an embodied religion, where beliefs are not simply spiritual, but are enacted through, by, and on the body. Think immaculate conceptions and virgin births. Sacraments such as baptism (immersion in water), anointing, and the Eucharist involve physical movements (praying, bowing) and the senses (tasting, smelling) as well as visual and sacred symbols.
God becoming flesh – the incarnation – is the basis of the Christian understanding of Jesus. In Roman Catholicism there is a belief in transubstantiation, that Christ is present in the consumption of bread and wine (representing the body and blood) during holy communion. The bread, or wafer, literally becomes the body of Christ intended for human consumption, following Jesus’ instructions. “Take this and eat it, it’s my body”. In his book Indecent theology (2000), the late queer theologian Marcella Althaus-Reid calls such activity “cannibalistic.”
In my own book The Bible and sexual violence against men (2021), I explore how Jesus is presented as asexual, both in the Bible and in Christian theology. The Bible says very little about Jesus’ sexuality, and for a Jewish man in his thirties, the absence of a wife and family would have been noticeable.
Asexuality seems to run in the family. It is suggested that his earthly parents, the virgin Mary and Joseph, were both teetotal or celibate. Such celibacy is prohibited for priests in Roman Catholicism, and marriage is discussed in Paul’s work. letter to the Corinthianswhere he says “it’s good for them to stay single, like me”.
Representation and reception
Those in Spain who objected to Jesus being portrayed as “effeminate,” “campy,” or “sexualized” seem to imply that there is something wrong or deviant about such depictions. More generally, this refers to the legacy of homophobia in certain conservative Christian contexts and the use of the Bible in this. The debate continues, even with Pope Francis’ inclusive advances regarding blessing of homosexual unions.
While controversy reigns around the image of a “sexualized” Jesus in Spain, this representation arouses a more obvious controversy which has not attracted attention. Jesus, a Middle Easterner, brown skinned man, was whitewashed. The depiction of Jesus as a white European is problematic.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is said to have asked: “Who do you think I am?. Depictions and images of Jesus are often context-specific and context-based – and so is the reception of such images.
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