To portray Jesus as a vulnerable, naked black woman is not in itself any more offensive than portraying him, as medieval artists did, as a baby sheep. It is, however, viciously anti-Semitic. When it comes to defending the indefensible, surely those who've rallied around Grammy-honoree Eminem deserve an honorary mention in the Bill Clinton Hall of Spin Doctor Fame. He hates himself. He uses the microphone as a therapist most of the time and doesn't edit himself.
Boys love to think of themselves as rebels.
For most of the hipsters, the social power to stigmatize morally now belongs on the left. So a younger generation of bad-boy artists are setting out to break the only taboos that matter. Or used to matter. Artists seeking the immoral edge are no longer content to outrage only Rudy Giuliani or Dr. Laura. The most peculiar defense comes from Eminem himself, who as Marshall Mathers on April 10 faces a prison sentence of up to five years on a charge of concealing a gun.