A leading Indonesian magazine has apologised to Christians for depicting former President Suharto and his family in an image parodying Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper in the cover of its latest edition.
A protester displays a copy of Indonesian news weekly, Tempo, Suharto’s Last Supper
(Source: afp.google.com)
Leonardo Da Vinci’s painting, Jesus The Last Supper.
(Source: images.google.com)
From the pictures above, no wonder that christian activists visited Tempo's building on Tuesday to protest the cover which they said compared Suharto to Jesus.It is because when the readers see the pictures, actually is same with the Jesus last supper and it is not appropriate to publishing. As a theory from Shriver (1997) of media publishing, stated that readers try to form an immediate representation of the meaning from visual display. It is mean that readers interpretation is come from what they see and use the full textual to make their representation.
However, the pictures above created issues due to cultural differences. This is due to the misunderstanding of links between the composition of Leonardo’s painting.The concepts and context of the event is told in the holy bible. It was not ethical to post such a picture as the cultural differences is not respected, because it will make negatively judged and it was against the christians believes and customs. “A religion is a set of tenets and practices” (BBC, 2008). Christian believes that jesus last supper meal jesus shared with his twelve apostles and disciples before he death.
In my opinion, it was inappropriate of publishing the cover of Suharto’s last supper that could cause issues disliking to the christian believers. And it is also important of media published to understand the ethical publishing, understand of cultural situational context and also publishing regulations. It is because not all people as a reader could accept the material or articles that have been published.
References:
BBC (2008) Religions & Ethics- Christianity, viewed 15 November 2009, http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/christianity/christianethics/euthanasia_1.shtml
Indonesian weekly apologies over last Supper Suharto cover’ 2008, ABC.net, viewed 15 November 2009,
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/06/2156269.htm
Schriver KA 1997, “The interplay of words and pictures”, Wiley Computer Pub, New York.
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