If there’s one thing that metal fans love besides metal, it’s metal T-shirts. Unless they’re tasked with cleaning out a failed nuclear reactor and required to wear a full-body protective suit, you’ll rarely catch one not sporting a black tee with the cover of their favourite album on the front.
But one of the most infamous metal shirts ever printed is causing controversy once again. The garment in question is a black Cradle of Filth tee that depicts a masturbating nun on the front, and the words “Jesus Is A Cunt” on the back. Naturally, the shirt has caused its fair share of ire.
Most recently, a woman attempted to spray paint the “offensive” tee after it was selected to be displayed in a special 18+ section at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand as part of their ongoing exhibition on the history of the T-shirt, titled T-shirts Unfolding.
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Canterbury Museum Director Anthony Wright told Radio New Zealand that the woman was asked to leave the exhibition on Tuesday morning (17th February) after she sprayed black paint onto a perspex barrier. No damage was reportedly caused to the exhibit, which has since been cleaned up.
The attempted defacement has prompted the museum to defend its right to include the “Vestal Masturbation” T-shirt in the exhibition, which they say “explores the story of the garment over its 100-year history and the way in which t-shirts have been used as an expression of popular culture”.
Furthermore, Wright told the New Zealand Herald that the shirt in question was “a tiny part of the overall exhibition” and was there “because it is a valid part of an overall story about a whole cultural movement”.
“We’ve got to balance that up against anyone that might be offended, and we’ve bent over backwards to make sure that anyone who might be offended won’t come into contact with anything offensive. It’s a tiny part of the overall exhibition,” he added.
But that is unlikely to silence groups like Family First or the Taxpayers’ Union, with the former labelling the exhibit “horrific” and “offensive”. The group is appealing to authorities to take action, saying, “We don’t think it’s art. We don’t think any group should be subjected to this level of vile hate language.”
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According to TVNZ, the Taxpayers’ Union has labelled the exhibition a poor use of ratepayer money. “Our objection isn’t to the t-shirt per se, our objection is ratepayer money being used for what is, at best, an item with little cultural or historic value,” Taxpayers’ Union executive director Jordan Williams said.
“In matters of taste there is a higher onus on publicly funded bodies to avoid funding matters of a highly dubious nature. One can argue that restrictions on freedom of speech and blasphemy are unjustified, while also acknowledging that higher standards should apply to what public money is used to promote.”
In the past, the divisive T-shirt has even seen people arrested, such as a Gold Coast teenager who was charged by police in 2008 with offensive behavior under the Summary Offences Act 2005 for public nuisance. Other Cradle of Filth fans have faced community service orders and even convictions for wearing the shirt.
