Do you remember the Golden Age of television? When Tony fought with Uncle Junior for control of the family? How shocking it was when Omar died? What you were thinking when Juliet triggered the atomic bomb and maybe changed history? Were you shocked when Don Draper left his family and went to California for a few weeks? Yes, you read that right I was writing about The Sopranos, The Wire, Lost, and Mad Men. Each of these is a contemporary television program that either has ended in the last few years or is still on the air. You and I are living in the Golden Age of television. These shows, and others, have set a new standard for television writing and production that has elevated the medium to lofty heights. Television has become an art form that produces some amazing shows that entertain while by providing rich characters and additive plotlines. In particular, Lost has redefined how television functions. The series partners with the Internet to promote active viewing in which fans treat the show like a game in which they must puzzle over tiny clues both in the show and on various websites and games. No longer is television only a passive activity but sometimes it can became an intellectual challenge or thought provoking experience. (I’m not contending that all television is good. Rather, I would argue that most television is bad. Actually, I would submit that most of everything has always been bad. Most books have always been unreadable. Most music has always been terrible. Even most Renaissance painters weren’t very good. My argument is that the best television now is better than the best television was in the past.) Each of these shows has become a part of American culture but they also work with and borrow from previous cultural items and artifacts. They reference and pay homage to cultural touchstones that matter in most people’s lives. An example of this is when ABC recently released two Lost promo pictures featuring the show’s characters posed like Leonardo Da Vinci’s Last Supper. Here’s the first image.
Here is Da Vinci’s original.
Here’s the second Lost promo image.
Notice the similarities between the two and that the Lost pictures are unmistakably based on Da Vinci’s work. Why would a television program about people trapped on an island advertise its new season by copying a Da Vinci masterpiece? Gilligan’s Island never would have done that. To attempt to answer that question, let me start with Da Vinci’s painting. As most of you may know, Leonardo Da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance artist, inventor, and all around genius. He finished painting the Last Supper in 1498 as a fresco on a wall of the Convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milian, Italy. The painting represents Jesus and his disciples’ last Passover celebration before his crucifixion as told in John 13:21. The Last Supper is an artistic masterpiece that is well-known to residents of most western societies. The painting had become a part of western culture and represents both the Biblical story and the Renaissance era.
The question remains as to why Lost wanted to create an advertisement based on a 600 hundred year old Italian painting. Certainly Lost ad is meant to provide hidden clues to the upcoming season. (Did you notice that Claire, Miles, Ben, and Hurley switch places when the pictures are compared? That the table is an airplane wing and the chairs are also from an aircraft? In the first image everyone is looking at the Jesus figure of Locke while in the second everyone looks at the camera? That there are skulls under the table that don’t look human? Don’t ask me what any of this means but it’s interesting.) The Lost promo picture also serves as a link to spirituality, an often used theme of the show. Last month Lost released an Amazing Grace trailer for the upcoming season that touched on the idea of salvation. (I reviewed it here.) This Last Supper picture again revisits the ideas of spirituality, faith, and redemption in Lost. There is something bigger going on here though. This advertisement is declaring Lost a cultural successor to Leonardo Da Vinci. It’s claiming that the television show is an important part of society and that it follows in an artistic tradition. This seems a little far-fetched at first to compare a common television show to the great Da Vinci but that’s just because we have been trained to regard some cultural artifacts as important and some junk. Many consider paintings, sculptures, and other traditional arts as “high” culture, while popular culture items have often been labeled as “low,” “mass,” or “trash.” Why is Lost lesser than the Last Supper though? Because the Da Vinci painting is older? Because someone told us it is? Some will say that popular culture is mass produced and its sole goal is to make money. I would contend that Lost and other great popular culture are in fact finely crafted by talented artists that aren’t doing only to make money. Also, a lot of Renaissance art was created for the biggest corporation of its time, the Catholic Church. No art is intrinsically pure, it all serves an individual and cultural purpose and we should judge it on its merits not its reputation. We should weigh Lost and other excellent television, film, comic books, and so much else on its own merits. Lost reproduces the Last Supper because it can and because it should. Lost and other popular culture are the art and culture of our lives and that makes it as important as any other historical culture.
Lost isn’t the only television show, movie, or other current cultural production that has created an homage to the Last Supper. Here’s a few other examples.
Here’s a Battlestar Galactica promo poster
This is from the 4th season of House M.D.
An early Sopranos poster. This becomes ironic when one thinks about the show’s much talked about last scene.
From the film version of the graphic novel Watchmen.
An advertisement for the DC Comics series Final Crisis. 
