Religious taboo

Heaven to hell (2006) by David LaChapelle

This is a picture by David LaChapelle that depicts a Pieta in which Courtney Love represents the Virgin Mary and Kurt Cobain represents Jesus. They are in a room filled with many different objects such as two light bulbs, stone angel wings, a couple of tables, a flower pot with orange flowers, pill bottles, wine bottles, books, wine cups, stone figurines and, in the front, there are letter cubes in bright colors, organized in such a way that we can read: “Heaven To Hell”. The room has a window in the back, which seems to provide a lot of light to the room. The walls are striped in a way that gives the illusion of light rays coming from the window and it is painted with trees. Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain are placed on top of a hospital stretcher. She is wearing a blue dress, with no shoes or jewelry, her hair is loose and it is the brightest spot in the picture, she is looking up and holding Kurt Cobain with both arms. He is almost naked, except for his white boxer briefs. His head and right arm fall to the side of Courtney Love’s legs and his arm in marked with bruises that can only be made by repetitive drug injection. There is a blond child at his feet who seems to be playing with the letter cubes.

This picture is filled with symbolism, so much so that it is difficult to differentiate between the denotation and the connotation of the picture. For example, I first described the picture as a Pieta, a theme that has been represented in different art forms for centuries and consist of the Virgin Mary holding the dead body of Jesus. It would be almost impossible to describe the image’s denotation without resorting to that term that rightfully belongs to the connotation of the image, that is to say, the cultural assignation we make on it.

There are many questions that surface when I look at this image: why is Kurt Cobain associated with Jesus Christ? Why is Courtney Love the Virgin Mary? Why “Heaven to Hell”? To answer them I would like to analyze the parallel made between the rock stars and the religious figures. Obviously, the analysis of the whole picture would take a much longer and detailed work, but I think that this parallelism is the main point to discuss.

First, I have to point out that when we think of Kurt Cobain we rarely associate him with anything religious. We may even think that he is the exact opposite of Jesus. He was a man who never believed in God, who didn’t preach for any kind of morale and who was so tormented with his own demons that he never got the chance to worry about others. A for Courtney Love, the popular image we have of her is almost that of a monster. She is often blamed for the death of Kurt Cobain, she has never been able to take care of their daughter, and her behavior is loud and overly sexual. Again, she could be considered the opposite of the Virgin Mary. It could be considered taboo to associate these people with Mary or Jesus.

I believe that this picture is meant to reflect modern society. To put Kurt Cobain in the place of Jesus in the picture suggests that maybe he, and others like him, have taken the place of Jesus in society. We adore rock stars the way we worshiped religious figures, in this case Christian religious figures. In general, our culture gives so much importance to famous actors or musicians that it seems they have taken the place that previously belonged to religious worship.

Furthermore, the association between Jesus and Kurt Cobain may convey much deeper aspects of our society. Jesus Christ is a symbol of sacrifice, he sacrificed his life for humanity, to purge the sins of men. Could it be that Kurt Cobain has that role in society nowadays? Kurt Cobain is the poster boy for social problems. His parents divorce and the suicide of his uncle affected him so much that he developed serious psychological trauma that lead to drug use and eventually suicide. Is it possible that what LaChapelle is trying to convey is that Kurt Cobain died for our sins? He did die because of a malfunctioning society, but could it be considered sacrifice?

On the other hand we have Courtney Love in the place of the ‘mother of God’, which, as I said before, is in itself quite shocking. However, maybe this image tries to convey the fact that the public role models we have of motherhood have changed so much over the centuries that they have evolved from the Virgin Mary, the ‘perfect’ mother, to Courtney Love, who has so many issues with motherhood that the custody of her daughter has been contested several times.

To put it in a nutshell, the impact this picture creates through the association of rock stars with the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ drives us to think about the way modern society perceives both and how they could be similar.