Yesterday, the New York Police Division launched photographs of Luigi Mangione’s extradition to New York Metropolis. The accused assassin of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson seems in prison-jumpsuit orange, a speck of shade surrounded by a phalanx of gray-garbed and grim-visaged cops brandishing semi-automatic weapons. Behind him, little question excited for the photograph op, is indicted Mayor Eric Adams. The intention behind the {photograph} appears clear: Any violence enacted in opposition to the company state can be met with overwhelming pressure, and Mangione — a person with no historical past of earlier violence nor a single prison conviction — is so harmful that he requires a veritable military to restrain him.
The picture backfired spectacularly. The officers put on Kevlar, however solely a skinny crimson t-shirt and outsized jumpsuit shields Mangione from the bitter December chilly. The cops maintain weapons, and the accused is handcuffed. To many perceptive web commentators higher educated in Western artwork historical past and visible rhetoric than the NYPD, one comparability particularly stood out. Exchange the orange jail garb for an orange gown, the weapons for spears, and also you’ll see clearly that the authorities inadvertently reworked a perp stroll photograph of Mangione right into a Renaissance portray of the arrest of Christ. Author Rebecca Solnit, utilizing the initials that signaled Roman imperial authority, famous on Fb that the {photograph} depicted “SPQR and NYPD, together at last.” That the beatific and dark-curled Mangione is, as many have famous, unusually good-looking, solely underscores the problem of making an attempt to provide propaganda that casts him as villainous.
Heinrich Hofmann, “Arrest of Christ” (1858), held by Hessisches Landesmuseum in Darmstadt, Germany (picture through Wikimedia Commons)
Certainly, the pictures are eerily paying homage to work such because the German non secular portraitist Heinrich Hofmann’s 1858 “Arrest of Christ.” The visible perspective is identical, centered as it’s on a defenseless determine with out weaponry surrounded by closely armed representatives of the state. The association of legionaries about Christ appears to be like virtually similar to that of NYPD officers about Mangione. The 2 are even sporting the identical shade.
There’s a venerable historical past of depictions of Jesus’ apprehension by the authorities at Gethsemane, drawn from the gospel’s accounts, tracing again to the Center Ages. A Medieval altarpiece from the late fifteenth century held by the Walters Museum in Baltimore depicts an analogous dark-complexioned and curly-haired prisoner being manhandled by a coterie of guards. A century later, the Spanish painter Juan Correa de Vivar’s 1566 “The Arrest of Christ” equally depicts the state’s brutality in opposition to the longer term martyr. Such depictions of Christ have spawned an imagistic vocabulary evident in works by artists from Giotto to Caravaggio, creating an archetype that led somebody on X to submit that Mangione is “kinda like a prettier Jesus.” It’s a comparability that might be offensive to many, not least of all as a result of Jesus Christ didn’t kill a healthcare CEO. But Christ’s personal emotions concerning the wealthy, evidenced by his rivalry concerning the rich entering into heaven as simply as a camel via the attention of a needle, counsel what a real Christian response to predatory medical insurance would possibly appear like.
(submit by @_uncle_gworl through X, screenshot Lisa Yin Zhang/Hyperallergic)
You want solely skim the feedback posted under articles and editorials about Mangione’s alleged crime to see the disjunct between official censure and public opinion. From the feedback sections of Reddit to Fb to Bluesky to X, there was a surprising (and to many, worrying) response to the assassination that appears to unite left and proper, socialists and Trump true believers: that the capturing was on some stage comprehensible, if not justifiable. Many within the media and authorities reacted to that sentiment with indignation and opprobrium, which has in flip been largely ignored or mocked by the general public. When a columnist at New York Journal opined that whereas the capturing was a tragedy, healthcare inequity in america made it “inevitable,” Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman (as soon as lauded as a champion of the working class) referred to as it a “shitty take.” And but almost 41% of voters of their 20s see Mangione’s actions as justified.
In the meantime, Bret Stephens, columnist on the New York Occasions, argued in a risible editorial that Thompson was “the real working-class hero,” that the murdered govt is a “model for how a talented and determined man from humble roots can still rise to the top of corporate life.” You don’t have to countenance political assassination to appropriately interpret that Stephens’s argument — {that a} healthcare govt who pioneered using synthetic intelligence to disclaim legit medical claims is a hero — is a spectacular attain. That this follow little question elevated the dying and struggling amongst these whom UnitedHealthcare ostensibly covers in service of enhancing the corporate’s revenue margin solely confirms the ethical incongruities of Stephens’s declare. That’s actually what the overwhelming majority of the aforementioned web commentators famous as heartbreaking tales of denied claims had been shared beneath the editorial. After publishing an op-ed by the CEO of the UnitedHealthcare’s guardian firm, the New York Occasions acquired a lot backlash that it turned off the feedback.
No matter one’s place on all of this — that it’s a harmful precedent normalizing homicide or an natural expression of rage from a populace abused by the system — is secondary to the truth that one thing offended, vengeful, and never with out purpose is brewing among the many American those that the authorities can’t but start to understand. Possibly artwork historical past can lend a clue as to what that may be.
Unknown artist, “Altarpiece with the Passion of Christ: Arrest of Christ” (c. 1480–95), oil on panel, 50 9/16 x 46 1/4 x 3 3/8 inches (128.5 x 117.4 x 8.6 cm) (picture public area through the Walters Artwork Museum, Baltimore)
