Stewart Lee on the Pope
Pope Francis
Where dreams come true: a fantasia on the theme of a liberal popeStewart Lee
‘Pope Francis’s press conference, citing Disneyland as the US spiritual equivalent of Mecca or Jerusalem, seems, in retrospect, provocative’
Pope Francis, closing his US visit with a mass in Philadelphia. But what of the immortal soul of Donald Duck?
At first, I admit, I was angered by the distress that Pope Francis, the Richard Dawkins of Catholicism, had caused during this week’s capricious state visit to Disneyland, California. Though I have many religious friends, had Pope Francis been one of them, his obtuse behaviour in Disneyland would have tested the limits of our relationship.
Pope Francis’s press conference, citing Disneyland as the US spiritual equivalent of Mecca or Jerusalem, seems, in retrospect, provocative; and his bizarre interactions with the various inhabitants and attractions of the demented family fun park seem almost calculated to cause controversy, and to drive clickbait through the Vatican’s website, to the delight of advertisers and sponsors.
The pontiff rounded a corner to encounter two giant mice, Mickey and Minnie, holding hands
On arriving at the amusing fantasy environment on Monday, Pope Francis was immediately embraced in an affectionate bear-hug, perhaps too violently, by a Pluto. Observer Laurie Ramikin told reporters that the man-sized dog, of indeterminate breed, took the pontiff and “tossed him around like a rag doll”. Despite suffering mild injuries to his neck and hat, and having been refused a wheelchair by an over-officious attendant who thought he was a character from Escape to Witch Mountain (1975), the pope nonetheless remained calm and mounted a giant revolving teacup to pontificate on the significance of the event.
An interpreter elucidated. Pluto was, apparently, not to be blamed. He was a dog, after all, asserted the pope, and was only following the doggish nature invested in him by God. “Who am I to judge?”, the pope concluded, as the enormous yellow cup spun him slowly round in front of the world’s assembled media, like a holy Japanese jam sponge pudding on the conveyor belt at YO! Sushi.
There were worried looks on the faces of both Disneyland officials and the pope’s own entourage as the pontiff then rounded a corner to encounter two giant mice, Mickey and Minnie, holding hands, in an anthropomorphic burlesque of a legitimate human relationship. But today the pope, perhaps enchanted by the charming scene, seemed to be in conciliatory mood.
“Mice have gifts and qualities to offer to the Christian community. Are we capable of welcoming these rodents, guaranteeing to them a fraternal space in our communities?” he asked. While maintaining that the cheese-coveting, hole-dwelling lifestyles of mice remained “intrinsically disordered” the pope conceded, “Without denying the moral problems connected with mouse unions, it has to be noted that there are cases in which mutual aid to the point of sacrifice constitutes a precious support in the life of the mice
Earlier in the week, Pope Francis had also said he had been looking forward to going to Disneyland as he had heard it was largely free of litter, and that people there were good at picking up crisp bags and old tins and that; this eco-friendly observation, and his sudden kindly ambivalence towards mice, were swiftly seized upon on as evidence of a massive sea-change in Vatican attitudes, or Vatitudes, as they are known in doctrinal circles.
But liberals’ hopes were soon dashed, after the pope snatched away his hand when Mickey and Minnie tried to get him to accompany them on to a fun, rickety-mountaintop train ride. Asked why he would not travel in a mildly imperilled steam engine with mice, the pope said, “I cannot do it in good conscience. Conscientious objection to riding in a fantasy train with mice is a right that is a part of every human right. It is a right. And if a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right.”
The problems were not over. Lunch was scheduled for the snack bar, Goofy’s Kitchen, but the pope seemed to have issues with its proprietor, based principally on the cartoon dog’s decision to wear human clothes and walk around upright. Asked why he has accepted mice doing the same things, only a few moments before, he said that was different, and anyway the mice had a pet dog – Pluto – so how could this Disneyland legitimately also have in it a dog friend of the mice – Goofy – who lived not as a dog like Pluto, but as kind of clothes-wearing human?
“Dogs living as men, that cannot be done,” he said, explaining that the issue had already been examined in “long, long, intense discussions” by Pope John Paul II. “A dog walking on his hind legs is like a woman’s preaching. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”
In a burst of corporate damage limitation, officials swiftly expelled Goofy from the park, where he was set upon with anti-Goofy placards; Disney’s dream debased.
In the days that followed, it became ever more difficult to make sense of the pope’s visit. Alberto Blindmelons, a liberal Vatican historian in Italy, said that in eschewing the mice’s Magic Mine train ride, Francis was staking out ground as a defender of conscientious objection, more than seeking to escalate his relatively muted opposition to mice.
Jefferson Cockring, Catholic program director at Faith in Private Life, a liberal advocacy group, said that in tolerating mice, embracing Pluto, and denigrating Goofy, Francis’s intent was not to escalate America’s culture wars but to illustrate, satirically, the contradictions within them. “Part of the Francis effect is making the left and the right a little bit uncomfortable, about mice and Plutos and Goofys,” Cockring said. “I think Pope Francis affirms religious liberty, and he rejects the culture wars. That’s something we need to grapple with.”
The pope’s current approach to his art is not unlike mine
Writing about me in Exeunt Magazine this month, the critic Joy Martin says, “what a comedian does for his or her art is excavate innermost soul and psyche, bring its deepest material up to the light, and ring this around with irony in a transformative way… and he or she does this for the audience, for the greater good of society, because this process transforms what is deep, dark, ambiguous and scary into a new, enlightening awareness, which helps us to handle it and understand it.”
In this respect, the pope’s current approach to his art – making inconsistent and vague provocative statements, perhaps with a view to watching the reactions they inspire – is not unlike mine. Indeed, with the ubiquity of my shows on YouTube and Netflix, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Francis has been directly influenced by me. And so, I await the pope’s next public performance with bated breath. Like Robbie Robertson said to Bob Dylan at Woodstock in the summer of 67: “Where do you think you’re gonna take it?”
“Take what?”
“You know, the whole scene.”
Stewart Lee’s A Room With a Stew is at Leicester Square theatre, London WC2 until 8 Jan
Simplistic humour compared, more like the style of situation at 8 Nixon Street
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