The Creation of Adam Parodies

About

The Creation of Adam Parodies are photoshops, redrawn images and live action remakes that play off the fresco painting The Creation of Adam by Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni.

Origin

The Creation of Adam was painted as one of the nine frescos on the Sistine Chapel ceiling in Vatican City by Michelangelo between 1511 and 1512. The artwork depicts a bearded man, who represents the Biblical Christian God, floating in the air while reaching out to a nude man, who represents the first human Adam in Abrahamic religions (shown below).

One of the earliest known parodies of the painting was on a promotional poster for the 1982 science fiction film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, featuring the hand of the alien E.T. touching the finger of the film’s protagonist Elliot (shown below).

Spread

In August 2005, Swedish graphic designer Niklas Jansson posted a parody image in which God is replaced with the Flying Spaghetti Monster (shown below).^[1]

On June 18th, 2010, DeviantArtist^[2] TsaoShin uploaded an illustration titled “The Creation of Mario,” featuring the Nintendo video game character Mario reaching out to Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto (shown below).

On September 14th, 2011, a photoshopped version of the painting featuring Yao Ming’s face was submitted to the /r/funny^[3] subreddit, where it gathered upwards of 950 votes (86% upvoted) prior to being archived. On December 14th, the “Parodies of the Creation of Adam” Tumblr^[6] blog was launched, which highlights notable edited versions of the painting.

On February 18th, 2012, the arts and entertainment site ShockBlast^[7] published a compilation of exploitable photoshops featuring a cutout of God from the painting. On May 11th, 2013, a page titled “Sistine Steal” was created on TV Tropes,^[8] which lists various parodies of the painting in pop culture. On July 25th, 2014, Redditor jdk submitted a gallery of photographs featuring people recreating the painting to /r/funny,^[5] where it received more than 2,900 votes (84% upvoted) within four months (shown below, left). On October 4th, Redditor Panukka submitted an animated GIF of the painting in which God removes meat from Adam’s chest to created a woman dancing in a bikini to /r/gifs^[4] (show below, right). In one month, the post gained over 1,700 votes (85% upvoted).