Jim Caviezel in Mel Gibson’s 2004 film The Passion of the Christ. If we can recognise the importance of ethnically and physically diverse role models in our media, why can’t we do the same for faith? Why do we continue to allow images of a whitened Jesus to dominate? It was only when she saw the fashion world embracing Sudanese model Alek Wek that she realised black could be beautiful too. In interviews since then, Nyong’o has repeatedly articulated her feelings of inferiority as a young woman because all the images of beauty she saw around her were of lighter-skinned women. As a society, we are well aware of the power of representation and the importance of diverse role models.Īfter winning the 2013 Oscar for Best Supporting Actress for her role in 12 Years a Slave, Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong’o shot to fame.

Or call to mind some of the most famous artworks of Jesus’ crucifixion – Ruben, Grunewald, Giotto – and again we see the European bias in depicting a white-skinned Jesus.įriday essay: who was Mary Magdalene? Debunking the myth of the penitent prostituteĭoes any of this matter? Yes, it really does. Think for a moment of the rather dashing Jim Caviezel, who played Jesus in Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ. In most of these churches, Jesus will be depicted as a white man, a guy that looks like Anglo-Australians, a guy easy for other Anglo-Australians to identify with. On Good Friday, Christians attend churches to worship Jesus and, in particular, remember his death on a cross.

This is not controversial from a scholarly point of view, but somehow it is a forgotten detail for many of the millions of Christians who will gather to celebrate Easter this week. But while there is no physical description of him in the Bible, there is also no doubt that the historical Jesus, the man who was executed by the Roman State in the first century CE, was a brown-skinned, Middle Eastern Jew.

You’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise if you’ve ever entered a Western church or visited an art gallery.

He is also light-haired, blue-eyed, and very white. In this picture, Jesus looks kind and gentle, he gazes down at me lovingly. It is schmaltzy and rather tacky in that 1970s kind of way, but as a little girl I loved it. I grew up in a Christian home, where a photo of Jesus hung on my bedroom wall.

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