Recently on the front page of the website of Orlando Sentinel, there was a picture of a man and a woman posing as Joseph and Mary cradling a puppy (in lieu of baby Jesus). The caption above said, “Smile for the Camera?”, and below the picture it said, “Check out these awkward family photos.” We did so and determined that the Sentinelwas just being a little too cute.
When we first looked at this issue, we thought we’d give it a pass. But when we scratched a little deeper, we thought otherwise.
For example, clicking on the picture brought us to twenty-six “Awkward Family Photos,” with the Joseph, Mary and dog picture writ large (it appears as the eighth photo in the series). None of the other twenty-five photos ridicules any other religion; most of them are merely silly shots of family members.
Furthermore, the reader is directed to a site that features a book on this subject,Awkward Family Photos, the cover of which shows five family members awkwardly lying on top of each other.
In other words, the book on this subject does not highlight the photo mocking the Christian scene: the decision to do so was entirely the choice of the newspaper. This tells us more about the Orlando Sentinel’s idea of humor than the two authors of the book on this subject.
