The Return Of Irreverence
He's-A Da Freakin' PopeIn my essay on the late Pope John Paul II, I reflected for a moment on how, to young Catholics, he represented a genial, benevolent, grandfatherly figure. Because of that, we were capable of making fun of him — not as insults, not as sacrilege, but truly being fun.
Consider this classic image of The Deuce:
This lends itself to all sorts of captions; in fact, the reason this image is so small is because I didn't want to use the one that's probably circled around the Internet the most (it's a little too blunt).
Then there's this AP photo, which I found in a picture-retrospective of his life:
The caption began "Pope John Paul II listens to a speech by Cuban president Fidel Castro . . ." Doesn't look like he's listening very much, does he? It's super-easy and super-fun to play Read JP2's Mind:
Man, this guy's boring.
He's got a small rodent in his beard. I'll pretend not to notice.
If he goes on much longer, I'm kicking his dupa with my fisherman's shoes.
We're not being mean at all. Anyone who holds an audience for breakdancers —
— is easily cool enough to realize that it's all in fun.
However, with the elevation of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, whom the press has dubbed "God's Rottweiler," to the papacy, I was wondering how long it would take before relaxed Catholics felt at ease with breaking out the papal jokes about Benedict XVI.
I got an answer earlier this week, when one of my mom's coworkers remarked that she thought the new pope looked a lot like Simon Bar-Sinister, the heinous villain from the "Underdog" cartoon:
I have to admit, there's a bit of a resemblance.
But until we can come up with a nickname as cool as "The Deuce" for Benedict XVI ("Sweet Sixteen"? "Benny One-Six"?), I think this is as far as I'm going to take the pope jokes.
Because I think Benedict probably could kick my dupa.
posted by Marsh @ 2:44 AM
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