Because I am a girl - A response to "Christianity in the Princess and the Frog"

This is a response to Doreen’s recent post “Christianity in the Princess and the Frog”:

Doreen’s post:

http://op-doreen.blogspot.ca/2012/04/christianity-in-princess-and-frog.html

Disney fairy tales had always been my favorite when I was a little girl, all the things such as love, prince, happiness, ultimate victory of goodness, and fairy godmothers. They once made me believe that all girls will eventually have a dream coming true and have a forever-lasting happy life. Disney is a kind of selling a series of dreams to every little girl all around the world, no matter where you are, no matter what language you speak.

In the lecture last week, Professor Harris talked about teenager girls being targeted in the fashion market, merchandise with sexy elements being designed for them. In a lot of posters and photographs, young girls with makeup as well as dressing-up like sexy adults are showing as models to attract their peer groups. It makes me think about the Disney fairy tales as similar to it, female protagonists are portrayed as living in an unfortunate life, struggle with it and eventually defeat it. Females have always been set as the weak group, the soft target and the sympathetic figures.

As the society develops, the Disney fairy tales also innovates as Doreen said, “the protagonist is set as a black girl which break the stereotype of princess in Disney films”. As I see, I cannot really tell if this innovation is good or not, we can see that Disney is trying hard to do something new, and to do something updated which could fit the social topic in nowadays, but it also points out the issues directly such as the gender issues, the social status of girls in society, the racial issues, etc. Portraying this black princess has nothing to do with the theme or the storyline, but instead, bringing out those social issues without responding to any of them. And also as Doreen mentioned, it doesn’t pass the Bechdel Test！

Left behind – the fear of death and apocalypse

Apocalypse is the last topic in the course, it seems like an ending, but also a start, it leads me my way to further explore the interaction between Christianity and popular culture in contemporary society. 

I never watched the movie “left behind” before, or read the novel only until after the lecture this week, it is an interesting movie, and perfectly matches the topic for this week. This film received a lot of negative feedback, when I researched it in Google, I found some comments like “The more this movie tries, the worse it gets.” The interpretation of apocalypse in this film upsets some people, but in my opinion, it quite resonates. The anti-Christian causes the doomsday and people with pure soul were raptured, the rest are left behind to face the Ends Day. What makes me interested is not the idea “it will ultimately ends” but “anxiety”, the “anxiety” of characters in the movie and also my anxious feeling when I watch it. The idea of doomsday has been existed in our culture since ancient time, but before twentieth century, the fear of it only appears during certain period such as during the Black Death, but after twentieth century, people began to lose hope even during the normal life, the more we know about the world and ourselves, the less we look back into our religion, and this is where the anxiety comes from. Popular culture such as film spread the anxiety, creates the fear, and drive us to think about ourselves and our believes.

“It is not reading, it’s believing”. The movie conveys the idea: “don’t be the ones left behind”, it is really a strong way to communicate the Christian idea through film, and it did make both positive and negative impacts on Christians. “Left behind” resonates people while the resonation is due to the fear of death.

When I say I am a Christian

This is a poem that one of my Christian friend read to me

When i heard it, I just felt so powerful, i don't know if it is a well-known one, just feel like really want to share.. I guess that's how my friend felt when she read to me.. the poem makes you want to share the emotion with others. I could feel how proud the poet is, even when he/she says No, it's the faith, and it's a kind of nature. 

 

When I say..."I am a Christian"　　　

I don't speak of this with pride. 　

I'm confessing that I stumble 　　　 

and need someone to be my guide.　
　　
When I say..."I am a Christian"　　
I'm not trying to be strong. 　　　
I'm professing that I'm weak 　　　　 

and pray for strength to carry on.
　　
When I say..."I am a Christian"　　　
I'm not bragging of success. 　　　
I'm admitting I have failed 　　　
and cannot ever pay the debt. 　
　　
When I say..."I am a Christian"　　
I'm not claiming to be perfect, 　　
my flaws are too visible　　　　　　
but God believes I'm worth it.　　
　　
When I say..."I am a Christian"　　
I still feel the sting of pain　　　　　
I have my share of heartaches 　　　
which is why I seek His name. 　　　
　　
When I say..."I am a Christian"　　
I do not wish to judge. 　　　　　
I have no authority. 　　　　　　　　
I only know I'm loved, 　　　　　　

Meaningful Death and Meaningless Eternity - A response to "Harry Potter and the Fear of Death"

This is a response to Andreia De Freita’s recent post “Harry Potter and the Fear of Death”:

Andreia De Freita’s post:

http://smc305ohmyblog.blogspot.ca/2012/03/harry-potter-and-fear-of-death.html

I am a huge harry potter fan myself, so when I see the title, “Harry Potter and the Fear of Death”, I just feel so interested to read it. All the books in Harry Potter series show the same storyline, which is the battle between Harry Potter and Voldemort. In these stories, Harry is fighting against Voldemort, the monster, as well as against death.

Voldemort could be seen as a “monster” figure, he is half-life wizard, he was human, and became a sort of monster when he split his soul into various parts in order to get immortality. Although he is not belonged to any unversally known “monster” groups, and he is certainly not attempting to get any redemption. This makes me think about how should we define “monsters” in Christianity anyway, I think maybe hybrid of good and evil is a way to do it.

The monsters motif in popular culture always come with death, they are threatening, and they are pronouns of death. In Harry Potter series, especially the last several books, the death is everywhere in the novel. Voldemort killed lots of people for his own eternal life. People sacrificed for his fear of death, this makes the death becomes meaningful while the immortality becomes meaningless. The whole signal of death and fear of death came out with the theme in Harry Pottery.

As Freita said, in Christianity, lots of elements in Harry Potter are not welcomed, such as the magic, escaping from death or even “live” his half-life because he committed an act against nature. But popular culture seems build up a connection with those conflicts, brings things which seems never will be existed on same stage into one theme. The death motif in popular culture has productive function for being presented, as well as the monsters, learning from them, we understand what is being alive, and we understand what is being human. 

“Supernatural”: Angel or Monster?

The TV show “Supernatural” has 7 seasons up now. The show is about two brothers Sam Winchester and Dean Winchester hunt ghosts, demons and other figures of the supernatural. There are several story lines in the show, first of all, the brother hunters hunting demons to save the human world, and then the conflict between hell and heaven, moreover, the civil war in the heaven!

“It’s a civil war up there”, isn’t heaven supposed to be the place full of love, trust, hope and forgiveness? Apparently it is not in the “Supernatural” show, angels collect “weapons”, “forces” to against each other. Raphael is the evil archangel figure while Castiel was the good angel figure, who turned to a “monster” and declared himself the new God in season 7. He turns to monster on his way searching for redemption. The heaven is more like another human world in the TV series, evil and humanity are shown everywhere. 

There is a lot of themes in the show could fit in the topic for this week. Episode 11, season 6 is talking about death, and the fear of death. It also brings deeper question about who deserve to die, and who shouldn’t die? Everyone has the fear of death, but just as Professor Harris said, death teaches us how to live!

In this Week’s Lecture, we talked about that monsters which are hybrid of human and non-human, after watching “Supernatural”, I think there is another kind of monster, which is the hybrid of Good and Evil. The topic of monster for this week also reminds me of Lady Gaga, she call her fans “Her little Monsters”, because she said “monsters” are the origin sin inside everybody, we face it, we fight it, and we could be saved.

When I think about the characters, the story in Supernatural Season 7, I kinda question myself if the Angel doesn’t become a monster, do I still want to watch it? Or like it? Maybe not, and I guess that’s the little monster inside me!

Blessings - Laura Story

When I first listened to this song, I simply like the music, and the lyrics, kind of calming and comforting, bring peace of mind to people, guess that's the power of popular culture. The music brings some sensible experience for the evangelization.

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love is way too much to give us lesser things

'Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt your goodness, we doubt your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not our home

What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy
What if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are your mercies in disguise

The violence in Christian tradition --- A response to “review of THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST”

This is a response to Doreen’s earlier post “review of THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST”:

Doreen’s post:

http://op-doreen.blogspot.ca/2012/02/review-of-passion-of-christ.html

“The passion of the Christ” seems like a pretty good artifact to look at when we study Christianity and popular culture, we watched one short clip in earlier lecture, and it is also mentioned in the reading for last week, which talks about Christian video games. Just same as Doreen, I never watched it before, and really impressed by the scenes, the bloody crucifixion really shocked me a lot! The lecture in this week reminds me of this film, but no longer just about how the religious content is being represented in movie, but also about the violence in Christian tradition. 

At around the first 10 minutes of the movie, Jesus has been captured, and from there to the end of the movie, there is a lot of direct depiction of detailed bloody tortures. All of these scenes are extremely violent, the tortures and the crucifixion. Does this movie also reflect the violence in Christian tradition? I do think so, Jesus suffered for our sins, and his blood cleaned us, it is violent. And just as Professor Harris mentioned in class, religion also becomes the best excuse for violence. Some violence is on behalf of Jesus, and others are in the name of Jesus.

There is even one woman died during watching this movie, because of the violent and bloody scene. The violence in Christian tradition is undeniable, but I also think the violence in humanity is undeniable. It really makes me to think, maybe without the suffering, we will never appreciate what we have.

The movie also reveals the passion of Mel Gibson himself, making this film is a sort of his personal devotion, and also his own interpretation of his faith. When people expect forgiveness and love in Christian movies, he chose to focus on “suffering”. Just as Doreen said, Gibson uses this movie to tell people that God is suffering, and he is suffering for our sin. 

The Jesus Film: A Christian historical “documentary”

Actually, I was planning to write something about “The passion of the Christ” this week, but when I started to watch it, something else in the optional film list just caught my eyes, “The Jesus Film”, the description under this film is: this is a two hour film according to the Gospel of Luke, and this is the most precise depiction of The Life of Jesus. The first thing I think about is that it could be more like a biography than “The passion of the Christ”, and then after watching it, I kind of get the feeling that I am watching a historical “documentary”!

The partially third person narration makes it more like a historical documentary rather than a film, and the documentary way created a sort of reliable tone for the film, makes me feel like there is a person telling me a story, a story with direct visual experience, direct sense of hearing, I have to say it is really a strong and powerful way to preach. Compare to some fictional movie, this is more like narration of the history during a certain period, it provides me a sense of reliability of what is presenting in the film.

After I searched “The Jesus Film” in Google, I found some other interesting thing, “The Jesus Film” literally have 475 different language versions, and even both audio and video. And it even also has a children version! The film is accessible to anyone in any age and any places! It is really more than just a film, the film becomes like a visual version of the Bible, but more than that, with the narrator, the scenes, the music, audiences are able to experience more, people from all over the world could listen and watch this preaching in their own language, it is a kind of globalization of the religion, and it is also can be seen as the power of popular culture. It helps to shape the Christianity in contemporary society, it provides more possibilities for evangelizing the world.

It also makes me think that popular culture such as film really is a kind of double-sided sword for Christianity, depends on how the directors interpret the content, and sometimes also depends on how audiences receive the information. Meanwhile the religious content could always be varied on the silver screen, varies representations leads to various impacts.

“Thank you for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life, make me the kind of person you want me to be, as I become one of your followers, Amen.” – The Jesus Film

A response to "Medieval and Renaissance Influence on Christian Culture"

This is a response to William Peckham’s recent post "Medieval and Renaissance Influence on Christian Culture":

William Peckham’s post:

http://williampeckhamsmc305.blogspot.com/2012/03/medieval-and-renaissance-influence-on.html

I am firstly attracted by the picture shows in the blog, and then also the title of the post. As an art person, I do feel resonate when I read William’s post. When I took the courses about mediaeval tradition and mediaeval arts, the common theme repeated over and over again was the involvement of Christianity in culture activities and people’s daily life.

It was an undeniable phenomenon, and as long as it was active during the periods, it must had some influence on culture, while it was also influenced by culture. Medieval and Renaissance artists created numerous paintings with Christian content, they represented their faith, their piety. These paintings also reveal their attempts to communicate with God through the icons. They got their ideas from Bible, and also from poem or stories during the period. Their works definitely influenced the development of Christianity.

The nice and friendly cute angel icon also reminds me of the “Buddy” Jesus culture in North America. The Christian images have been influenced by popular culture in a certain degree. Just as the angel we picture now is very different from the accounts in the Bible, it was a frightening four-headed monster with the face of a man, eagle and lion. But the angel images become so different now, it has been developing towards a more friendly, more acceptable, and more lovely approach which also implies how Christianity has been developing towards a similar way. 

The Renaissance culture was indeed attributed to this culture change. Christianity has been shaped a lot through all kinds of culture movement, and just as William said, they provided rich themes and stories for movies and books in North America. In a certain extent, Mediaeval Renaissance culture and Christianity has shaped each other just like how popular culture and Christianity shapes each other in contemporary society.

How About Playing Video Games With God？

In the world of video games, there are not really any taboo motifs: wars, drugs, sex, or even brutal killings appear everywhere in games, they have never been banned. The exception was only religion, it seems a convention not to bring religion and entertainment together, but now things get changed. A lot of small and new companies begin to design games which using New or Old Testament as story background.

There are games like “Bible Champions”, “The Bible Game”, “Bible Adventures”, “Adventures in Odyssey”, “Bible Man” etc. They have explicit name revealing their religious content. These companies proclaims that video games with Christian motif are produced to provide the positive choice for teenagers, it could drive them away from sex and violence, and purify them by penetrating Christian ideas in the games. Apparently, besides promoting the virtue of Christianity, they also use religion as their selling point in the fiercely competing market. They are sort of turning Christianity into commodity. And some good Christian video games do get support from Christian communities.

Facing such a profitable market, why Christian games only appears in recent years, and why only partial companies choose to produce them? It somehow also reflects the complexity of the relationship between Christianity and popular culture in contemporary society. How to interpret the religion? How to avoid the controversy? And it is also very hard to characterize the protagonists. In Christianity, Jesus Christ is the almighty Savior, and his supernatural power is beyond human ability. Under this condition, how to characterize the protagonists to be powerful human or even a savior? It is quite a hard job to design an attractive and interesting game without challenging some religious communities.

And we can also see that teenager is a vulnerable group, whether Christian video games are a good idea is still to remain of deliberate.

Response to "Christian Apps… ‘There’s an App for That’"

Here is a response to Valdy’s recent post “Christian Apps… ‘There’s an App for That’”:

Valdy’s post:   
http://theinternetisthemessiah.blogspot.com/2012/03/christian-apps-theres-app-for-that.html

When I read the title “there’s an app for that”, as a smartphone user, it really caught my eyes. There is an app for Christianity, what function is it? Is it free?

After reading the post, Valdy talked about both Catholic and Non-Catholic Companies make these apps, and it is difficult to base the authenticity of these organizations in a commercial consumer culture structured around capitalism. It is true you will feel different about the app when you know the background of the developer, does he develop the app because he is a pious Christian? Or does he make it because he knows pious Christian will purchase it?

I use my phone more than any electronic devices in my everyday life, and all the apps installed in my phone are free, although some good apps in apple store only cost $0.99, but I am always struggling with whether it is necessary in my daily life? Is it worth the $0.99? When there comes the Christian app, the question elevates to whether religion is necessary for daily life and whether religion should become commodity?

In these research results, I found one really interesting, the “confession” one, confess to your smartphone instead of confessing to the priests, if the app goes popular in the future, will smartphone take place of church? When Christian all read bible on Iphone, will it change how we feel about our faith? It does change my feeling when I see these apps, religion becomes more convenient right at my finger-tip, it becomes more digital, but it also becomes more commercial.

Christianity is penetrating into people’s daily life through different kind of popular culture, radio, TV, music, and now even smartphone applications. It further interprets that Christianity and popular culture never separate from each other, they always intertwining together. But this intimate relationship between them can always seen as a double-edged sword.

More Christian or Less Christian

                             

In this week’s lecture, we watched two musical videos of Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber, both of them are Christian, and they all attempts to make their music more or less with Christian content. When we look at the popular culture and Christianity today, people no longer just talking about whether you are a Christian or not, but about whether you are a good Christian, whether you understand the faith correctly, or what we can say that whether you are more Christian or less Christian.

“Judas” is a very controversial artifact, Lady Gaga interpreted her faith in her specific way. In this video, Gaga depicted herself as Jesus’s girlfriend but fall in love with Judas who finally betrayed Jesus, but she persists on choosing her love which is Judas. This video has been fiercely against by Christian communities, they think it is a misinterpretation of the bible and it will mislead the society. In this case, we know for sure Lady Gaga is a Catholic Christian, she is pious, but her attempt to interpret Christianity is denied by Christians.

              

Meanwhile, in the musical video “Pray” of Justin Bieber, most students thought the charity content is too intentional, his action makes it looks like a show. Then there emerges the question whether Christians should use their faith for commercial purposes, whether charity should be connected to commodity.

In my opinion, the Christian content represented in both musical videos shows the complexity of Christianity in popular culture today, Christian singers interpreted their faith in many different ways. Lady Gaga has her specific understanding of bible, meanwhile Justin Bieber interprets his faith by adopting the most basic way. Do they devalue the Christianity? Do they misinterpret the religion? I think they offer different possibilities how Christianity could represent in popular culture nowadays, and provide a chance for audiences to experience something more than just music and at the same time more than just Christianity.

"Everyone" is in church

After the lecture about television and Christianity, a lot of television shows come up in my mind, a lot of details I never thought about before pops up. Shows in North America have always have Christian involvement, include the background of stories, Christian disciplines, stories from bible, Christian elements as well as Christian figures.

But the representation of Christianity becomes really complicated now; humanity and religion are intertwining together. The television show “the walking dead” is a kind of disaster horror show, talking about doomsday, and how a small group of survivors living in the aftermath of a zombie apocalypse, and during their way searching a haven, they struggle to balance their humanity with their survival.

Doomsday always makes people link it with the punishment from God, in this show, it’s not explicit until second season, and it’s also more complicated than just punishment. In the first episode, when the group is searching for the lost girl Sophia, a sound of ringing bell lead them to a church, the church is a symbolic place encapsulates almost everything. The mother who lost her girl is praying and confesses her sin as devote Christian, the protagonist Rick who claimed non-Christian is praying in his way as well, even the zombie sit quietly gazing on and maybe “praying” to the Crucifixion, and the Jesus is “bleeding” on the Cross. All these explicit Christian contents constructed the complexity of Christianity in this show, and also reveal the nature of the religion. “Everyone” is in church, Christians, non-Christians, and even zombies.

When there is no society, there is still faith, when there is no society, the vigilante becomes more like a savior, in the broadcasting television nowadays, people consider more than just faith or just humanity, but also the interaction between them. This change causes the change in representation of Christianity in popular culture like broadcasting television nowadays.

Response to “Serial Killer and God into a bar”

This is a response to Rachel V’s earlier post "Serial Killer and God into a bar":

Rachel V's post: http://gospelaccordingtobuddychrist.blogspot.com/2012/01/serial-killer-and-god-walk-into-bar.html

After reading Rachel V’s posts, I found out that one of the earlier posts was happened to be the same television show I was planning to write about this week, the sixth season of the show “Dexter”. This show was about a vigilante serial killer who “has no religion” but plays the role of “savior” just as Jesus did, in this season, the Christian content become explicit because the issue about how to educate his young son emerged.

According to Rachel, “Someone studying the relationship between religion and pop culture from the “outside” may see this season as a great representation of religion.” I really agree with that, the identity of Dexter has always been a debate, his identity as a vigilante or a killer or a savior? Especially in this season, a lot of Christian elements have been inserted into the show, the Jesus tattoo, the church school, the crucifixion; Christianity is really explicit in it.

              

This also brings another question about the representation of Christianity in television shows nowadays, the depth, variety and complexity of it. Christian figures are not simply good, the killer in the first episode Joe Walker has a tattoo of Jesus on his body, he is apparently a Christian, but he is a cold-blood killer at the same time. On the contrary, the main character Dexter who claims as an antitheist but actually is doing a savior’s job; they are both kind of paradoxical figures. Generally, both of what they did can be considered as sin in Christianity, but neither their nature have been hidden in the show.

As I believe, the interaction of Christianity and popular culture has changed as we changed and our society changed as well, the simple Christian figures cannot cater for delving humanity and social issues, therefore the Christian figures began to show complexity, no longer simple good or simple savior.