A celebrity portrait depicting a United States Navy veteran and alleged serial rapist Bill Cosby — once upon a time beloved for his portrayal of all-American doctor and father Cliff Huxtable — was pulled from a Minnesota county fair after a number of patrons deemed it offensive and in “poor taste”.
Their reason? It’s made of rapeseed.
Sickly clever, huh?
It’s no news that Cosby has been the subject of rising public derision in the past year. More than 50 women have come forward and claimed that the legendary standup comedian drugged and then sexual abused them.
The artist of the modest protest piece, 37-year-old Richfield graphic artist Nick Rindo, wasn’t dismayed by the fact that his masterwork got pulled from the Agriculture Horticulture Building. In fact, he was shocked they took it as a submission in the first place.
Besides, he had another horse in the race: a portrait of Star Trek‘s Mr. Spock.
In the Cosby piece, Rindo put the word “rapeseed” on the label to make keep it clear he wasn’t try to glorify the celebrity, rather, he was attempting to dissent. The American lexicon, however, undermined him even before the bigwigs at the fair did, according to TwinCities.com:
“The point was just to see, would there be outrage?” he said. “Would there be people talking about it? Would it even get through?”
It did and it didn’t: Ron Kelsey, the Fair’s longtime crop art superintendent, gave the portrait the green light but put a piece of tape over the word “rapeseed.
His reasoning, he said: “We call everything canola in this country.”
Kelsey could be right. Or, he could simply be talking out of his deep-fried, buttery, cotton candied ass. “Rapeseed oil” would turn plenty of heads on a grocery shelf.