In the offending Torygraph article, Charles Moore, in describing a Channel 4 advertorial for a Christmas comedy show, makes the following point:
The tableau is presented (sub-Bunuel) as a parody of the Last Supper… The first page shows a line of yobs — mimicking the Apostles — beginning their meal in reasonably good order. The second depicts them towards its end, violent and drunk. The ‘Jesus’ figure is lurching forward, halo awry, beer can in one hand and cigarette in the other.
The natural inclination of Christians in the face of such affronts is anger. But would it really be a better society in which silly, urinating Mr Abbott could go to prison for such a thing, and perhaps the bosses of Channel 4 with him? Before lots of respectable readers shriek ‘Yes!’, think what it means.
And thinking about what it means, the prospect of a banned Bunuel is exciting. As an experiment. As Mark S pointed out t’other day, much avant-garde work is designed to bite the hand that feeds — but, as is well known, it takes more than a Christ smeared in shit to shock people these days. Wouldn’t these once-outrageous endlessly available artified artefacts grow in savagery if our own Chiappes in power followed the logic of their thought to its illiberal conclusions?