The Last Temptation of Christ
Originally posted on tempural.tumblr.com on April 17th, 2022.
Happy Easter!
Have you watched "The Last Temptation of Christ" starring Willem "creepy jesus" Dafoe?
My favorite criticism of this movie is a film guy going "That's not the face of our lord, that's the face of a psychopath". Ah, my baby boy Dafoe can't escape the angles of his cheeks nor the crook of his nose!
But let us not assign villainy to face shapes like 1800's racists, and rather applaud Mr. Dafoe for his emotional performance! It's not my favorite long, meandering movie to sit through by a long shot, but he really puts his whole Dafussy into the role.
While the movie drags on for me, it's conceptually VERY interesting for being one of the few mainstream stories brave enough to explore the eroticism of Christ. Whether that's Christ on the cross, moaning and covered in his own liquids, or his very human lust for Mary Magdalene, I'm glad that we have a Jesus love scene to completely knock me out during my Dafoctober drinking game.
My favorite fun fact about this movie is Willem saying that his lil' Willy fell out between his legs during the crucifixion scene. No one was brave enough to tuck his confusingly large Dapenis in. It took a shy young man on set to put the meat of Christ back in place. Good lad!
Here's a close-up of our lord and savior.
This was an idle doodle while zoning out watching stuff during my birthday, so the concept kinda went everywhere. But I finally nailed down the theme of erotic temptation when I got the edgy high school idea for the classic satan symbolism: the snake! Snakes are cute and fun to draw. So is Jesus.
Jesus, the ultimate uke. The people's uke even. From the literal definition of ukeru as "receiver" or "sufferer", Jesus totally recieves a lot of suffering for our entertainment. How many lil nakey long-haired, long-eyelashed christs have we seen dangling on the wall as a kid? How many renaissance painters hid their homoeroticism behind religious paintings of Jesus('s stigmata) getting penetrated?
(as an aside, this is why I like name order for relationship pairings. There's just one specific guy in the fake cartoon whose personality produces a LOT of interest in suffering!!)