Challenge #04960-M211: Conceptually Cursed

This.
[Image of an anthropomorphic hotdog with Nicholas Cage's face raising both its feet to expose it's lower pinchpoint to the sun. The sun shows a dubious, doubtful expression] -- Tergon

[AN: I don't normally take picture prompts, but I don't have many to spare. You can give me more in the Emergency Prompt Supply of my Discord once I make sure you're not a bot]

"All art is political," said Professor Balend as they put a conceptually cursed image on the public viewing screen. "Even nonsensical stuff like this."

A hand went up. "Is that artificial imagery?"

"Artificial imagery was way more blatant with its statements, no. This is human made so it used, and therefore requires, thought. In the execution and the analysis. Yes, the background is out of scale with the subject. Yes, the figure looks like it is floating on, instead of being part of the scene. These are normal errors any artist makes. They were striving to send a message, not necessarily to pass any realism inspections. What is the message?"

"Looks like the hotdog is waiting for some lovemaking by the sun," said a different student. "The sun's not into it."

Scattered laughter erupted in the lecture hall.

"That is one interpretation," Professor Balend. "What if I told you that this was painted somewhen between C.E. twenty-seventeen and twenty-twenty-three?"

A flood of keyboard-tapping as various searches launched on every student's device. Professor Balend rolled their eyes. How quickly people forgot. Then again, most of their students had entrusted most of their mental functions to devices. People remembered things via apps that brought various posts back to their attentions.

Kids these days... Nevertheless, Professor Balend's job was to get them thinking. Asking questions and finding things out. Operating their little grey cells to work things out.

"A health fad?" yawped Ridley, one of the better students.

"Yes. A health fad. The 'crunchy' community of the era took up sunbathing their derrieres, allegedly for health benefits. Science has since told us that all they gained were anal melanomas."

"So it's about the joy in self-destructive habits?" asked Donson, who was trying. Often, he was very trying.

"That's also an interpretation. My question to you is - why a hot dog? What's significant about sausage?"

"Aren't hot dogs boiled?"

"Only real weiners go out and do that?"

"Something about grilling themselves?"

"The artist was really into hot dogs?"

All valid suppositions. That was the fun part of artistic interpretation.

[Image given by Tergon, sourced from Amy Everson's business website. Go give them some money]

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