Hey guys, it's Karen. Welcome back to little art talks. Remember back in 2010, there was this huge controversy over everybody-drama holiday? Now, it all started when the American animated television show South Park did an episode where they portrayed a character as the Holy Prophet Mohammed. The artist received death threats, and the show's distributor, Comedy Central, self-censored the episode in response. Molly Norris drew a poster-like cartoon intended as a satirical comment on the event and in protest of censorship. It was various anthropomorphised objects that each claimed to be the likeness of Mohammed. At the top, it is written, "We hereby deem May 20th, 2010, as the first everybody-draw-Mohammed day." From there, it kind of blew up and went viral. Now, instead of talking about who's right or wrong or anything like that, I want to talk about why this is such a big deal. Why were people so offended by this cartoon and these drawings of Mohammed? Now, while I'm sure anyone who is religious would be offended if their holy prophet was portrayed as the butt of a joke, there's also the fact that Islam comes from a tradition of aniconism. What is that, and what does it mean? Let's talk about it. Aniconism is the opposition to the use of icons or visual images to depict living creatures or religious figures. It's the absence of material representations of the natural and supernatural world. There are lots of different examples that can range from only God and deities to saint characters, all living beings, and even everything that exists. This is particularly relevant to Jewish, Islamic, and visiting artistic traditions. This avoidance is primarily an attempt to avoid idolatry. Idolatry is the worship of an idol or physical object as a representation of God. The...
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