Now is the time of year when we all start skulking around the state legislature’s website to see what outlandish legislation we’re all going to fight about for the next few months. Normally, for me, this is a continuation of my winter holiday celebrations — solstice, Christmas, New Year, Epiphany, Standing Around the Gates of Hell Waiting to See What Stupid Evil Will Emerge.
My heart isn’t in it this year, though. I’ve been trying to figure out why. I mean, I normally believe in the “you have to stand against bullshit, even if it seems futile” stuff. But I have realized that I don’t know what to do in the face of unyielding cowardice. Tennessee's Republican leaders are the same folks who, when faced with the killing of six precious people — one of whom was a friend of the governor — came back into session to insult concerned parents and fight with Democrats rather than doing anything about the circumstances that lead to those brutal killings.
After that, what can be surprising? Oh, they’re ruining public schools by defunding them? More anti-LGBTQ stuff? Someone’s having an intern scandal and someone else is denying having an intern scandal even though a judge said it was happening? And all I can say in the face of that is — sure, of course.
They can’t be changed. They can’t be shamed. And they have no backbone.
Have you ever really looked at Goya’s painting “Saturn Devouring His Son”? It’s supposed to depict a scene from mythology in which Saturn, who castrated his own father and took his spot, has heard a prophecy that his children will overthrow him. And so in order to prevent that, he eats his kids. There’s some controversy over whether this is actually what Goya was painting, since the body he’s devouring looks female. But considering our present situation, arguing about the gender of the child being torn limb from limb rather than focusing on the man with the body parts in his mouth seems a little too on-the-nose.
Legislation sponsored by Republican Gino Bulso would ban flags other than those of the United States and the state of Tennessee
Look at Saturn’s face. He is terrified. He is larger and more powerful than his victims. He is doing what’s necessary to secure his position. And he looks wild with fear.
Compare it to Rubens’ depiction, in which Saturn looks ravenous and like he has no regrets about his actions. Even sculptural depictions show him looking sad or resigned or accepting. I think this is one of the reasons Goya’s paintings feel so modern, because he’s showing us something that most people did not have to know until after World War I — many people with power are driven by fear to destroy and consume whoever they can get their hands on, even if it destroys their own future and their own legacy.
This painting might as well be called “Tennessee Devouring His Son.” We should place it on huge signs at all of the state’s welcome centers as an explanation and warning of where we are as a state. Once you realize that you can explain everything the state legislature is doing is to ensure that there is no one who can usurp them, the reason for all this legislation becomes bracingly clear.
Saturn’s children did destroy him in the end, anyway. All the horrific things he did to ensure his reign wouldn’t end didn’t do him much good. His wife worked secretly against him, and instead of giving him her final son, she gave him a rock. That son, Jupiter, grew up, made his dad throw up his siblings, and then they became the ruling gods.
What can we mere mortals learn from this when dealing with our own fearful, devouring legislature? One is that it’s going to be the people they’re sleeping with who bring them down. And two is that, when they come to try to eat you or the people you care about, find a way to metaphorically give them rocks instead.
