Presidents, Penises & Paintings!

Tom Cruise, not Jacob Zuma, said it first: “Respect the Cock!”

I ignored the uproar over South Africa’s president, Jacob Zuma, getting his dick immortalized in Brett Murray’s painting The Spear. I even contained my jollies when Zapiro, our country’s most famous cartoonist, got sued. After all, i realized ages ago that my country isn’t a democracy and that media/artist freedom is a liability to guilty leaders (as it has been throughout history) – “we wouldn’t want the public to start thinking for themselves, hey!” It’s the latter that irks me most, not fidelity – most men would live out their fantasies if given the opportunity so i couldn’t give a hypocritical damn how many women Zuma got lucky with so long as he paid for them out of his own pocket (instead of ours).

So, today, there’s uproar again because Ayanda Mabulu decided to continue the legend of the penis (it’s gotten bigger) in his painting Umshini Wam (Weapon of Mass Destruction). Maybe Ayanda used his artistic skills to deliberately provoke my brain into the dribbling mantra of “Presidents, Penises and Paintings!” And so, as a humble acknowledgement to the awkward power of this alliteration, i pay tribute to the Prick and his storytellers with this photo gallery: