The Pope is dead
April 2nd, 2005 | by aobaoill |The BBC has the report.
Sorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.
engraved and retouched and edgewiped and pudden-padded
The BBC has the report.
Sorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.
2 Responses to “The Pope is dead”
By John O Shea on Apr 9, 2005 | Reply
I found your image depicting the way the pope owuld be elected to be in bad taste
By Andrew Ó Baoill on Apr 9, 2005 | Reply
I take it this is in response to my “Who’s going to be Pope” post ( http://funferal.org/mt-archive/000873.html ) which linked to an image that depicts the election of the Pope in the form of a sports tournament, with four brackets (Italy, Europe, Latin America and Africa-Asia) culminating in a ‘final four’ scenario.
A number of thoughts:
First, the graphic is not mine, I merely linked to it. I say this not to duck responsibility – I did, after all, choose to link to it – but to make it clear that I am not claiming credit for someone else’s work.
Second, I must admit to being somewhat bemused by your claim that it is in bad taste. Irreverent, yes, but ‘bad taste’ is usually reserved as a description for a certain limited class of commentary. The graphic concerns the election of the next Pope. It does not, for instance, concern itself with the death of the last Pope, something that might be considered in poor or bad taste.
Indeed, much of the ‘serious’ media coverage of the forthcoming conclave and election has described the election in strategic terms, with much discussion of the region from which the Pope might come. In this regard, the graphic can be seen as parodying this form of coverage of the Papal election, highlighting the parallels between the coverage and coverage of a sports event.
Beyond this social commentary, however, the piece is admittedly irreverent. I think, personally, that there can be value in making all institutions subject to the levelling force of humour – it can be dangerous to take oneself too seriously, and humour can act as useful tool for friendly critique (think of the use of the medieval fool, as exemplified in, for example, Shakespeare’s King Lear). Since I didn’t create the graphic there may be some reference that I am missing, which moves this into the realm of bad taste, but most of th piece, at least, seems in ‘good fun.’
Obviously, you may disagree with me on that, and I’m sorry that you appear to be offended, but I cannot agree either that the graphic is in bad taste, or that any institution should be immune from a tongue-in-cheek critique.