Parents complained that their children had been shown a picture of Michelangelo's David, which led to the controversial firing of a Florida principal. In the end, though, it was the Renaissance sculpture itself that had the last word. The marble masterpiece made an unexpected appearance on the most recent episode of Saturday Night Live, right in front of the body-shamers, as God and the artist intended. "Those parents are ignorant prudes… "I'm the most beautiful boy in the world and the best sculpture in the world," David said on the show's "Weekend Update" segment. He shouted, "I'm proud of my small, shiny penis and my hard pubes!" "There's nothing to hide. He then started to get up, ready to let the beauty of his appendage settle the censorship debate. "One parent said it was 'pornographic,'" Michael Che, the show's host, said in response. "It's art," David told him, rolling his eyes slowly.
The real-life drama started when Hope Carrasquilla, who used to be the principal of Tallahassee Classical School but is no longer there, taught sixth graders about Renaissance art. Michelangelo's painting "The Creation of Adam" and Botticelli's painting "The Birth of Venus" were also on the list. David mentioned them both in the skit. Carrasquilla told HuffPost that the usual way to handle lessons on classical art is to let parents know ahead of time. However, because of a "series of miscommunications," the picture was shown to the public without warning. The school uses the "classical education curriculum model," which is a way of teaching that emphasizes the "centrality of the Western tradition," or, as the Tampa Bay Times puts it, "a historical focus on white, Western European, and Judeo-Christian foundations." The model is often used in Christian charter schools, which get money from the government but are run privately. David said on SNL, "I'm from the Bible, okay?" I killed the huge Goliath with a small rock and my dong out." Amen.
Selena Mattei