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Born again
The perennial question: Oh America, where have you gone?
I'm watching Huff, which now, in its second season, appears to have become born again. The whole episode appears to be about Jesus. I cover my ears, hum profanities, anything just to get to the next scene. More Jesus.
My roomate thinks me the Devil. I explain that when religious types proselytize at their airport conventions, fine by me, but when I see it on my f'in television I get uppity (well, it's actually my roomate's television). Popular culture and Jesus shouldn't mix, and haven't for a good long time. People talk about the mixing of politics and God. I'm more concerned about pop culture and God getting together. Pop culture used to define itself in opposition to the Church. Where have we gone when that's no longer the case? Is it cool to be born again? Is popular resistance in the States now only towards the ineffable and apparently irrepressible New York `liberal'?
As a Canadian, getting all this Jesus-talk through the airwaves is irking me no end. And at no time previous has America, I think, been more on its own course, totally at odds with the thinking of the rest of the world.
American popular culture needs to be born again, turning back into its heart - of (perhaps idiotic) transgression.
By RIPope | May 6, 2006 in Culture | Permalink
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There have been frequent counter-cultural uses of the Jesus story (such as, for instance, the gospels in their original context). I don't know about the context of the show you're talking about, and I agree that certain forms of religiosity in popular culture is repulsive (for instance, the various strains of pop culture that were directly developed to appeal to evangelical Christians), but I disagree that the treatment of religious themes as such in popular culture necessarily represents some kind of betrayal.
I'm also somewhat baffled at your apparent belief that the use of religious themes represents some kind of departure in American pop culture.
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | May 6, 2006 9:48:28 PM
Well, let's call it the BULK of American pop culture that once didn't spend 50% of its narrative frame talking Jesus. It just seems like suffocation at this point.
Posted by: RIPope | May 6, 2006 10:12:51 PM
There are different flavors of the pop Jee-sus, are there not. The beats--say Kerouac--had a somewhat religious and existentialist view, but the beat Jesus, like say Blake, is, as He is in Screepture, sort of a loser, associates with thieves, ho's, rides on flatbeds into the unknown west: he's not overly rational or professional--Jesus, le poete maudit. That version of Jesus continued a bit with the hippies, granola-y Dylanesque stuff, but he like moved to the Rockies and slung chronic, worked on a ski lift, read Einstein as well as Dostoyevsky. After some time, his old lady leaves him; he moves back to town to make the scene, picks up marx or postmodernists and a drum machine and does talent-nite at Tony's while working on his Spiritual Bureaucracy cert.
Seriously, Xtianity is part and parcel of the corporate cop-land and used mainly to keep the plebes in line, regardless of its truth. And for yankee celebrities or tunemeisters it's probably a career move as much as anything: they've been rogues, outlaws, g-sters, g-ster mollies, but now the bad-boy or goil (when his latest collection of outlaw product has not generated any action) has come to rest on dat ol' rugged cross. Even a Stan Getz or Liberace superior to the likes of the current rockers, rapsters, ranters.
Posted by: Prospero | May 6, 2006 11:55:02 PM
The spiritual certification racket is easier than ever, thanks to the magic of the Internet. All Long Sundayans should keep this in mind -- in case your dream career as an academic doesn't work out (which, I mean, look at the statistics), you can do weddings and stuff.
Posted by: Adam Kotsko | May 7, 2006 10:03:37 AM
I am not religious but I am not offended by seeing a portrayal of a believer. It will not shake my unbelief to see how typical people think and act in the context of a story. I am interested experiencing real people through art and not just affirming my own values by seeing them transferred onto the screen or page.
I have not seen Huff but it sounds like it has a view that is typical of most Americans. My grandmother was a devout believer and I was always fascinated by her devotion. What is the purpose of art if not to let us experience something outside ourselves?
Posted by: Christopher Hellstrom | May 8, 2006 1:11:25 AM
Christopher, your point is a good one. I don't deny its value. I just prefer my pop culture to be sloven, materialistic, sex and violence and enjoyment to the fullest. That, to me, is a thread that runs through pop culture from peasant mini-rebellions in the Dark Ages through to our own mediatic darkness.
Then again, representation of believers is one thing. I quite like the Flanders family on the Simpsons. They're represented, and one can laugh AT them or identify WITHN them un-ironically, as I hear many in the South do. But the episode of Huff I was particularly concerned with involved this nursemaid praying to Jesus for an entire scene over a sick patient who may or may not have herself been religious, and who may or may not have wanted this person to be praying for her. So in this case it seemed doubly oppressive.
Posted by: RIPope | May 8, 2006 3:02:46 AM
Adam, that's about the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen! Their only motto is "Do only that which is right", without even gesturing towards a Kantian ethic. I guess you just do what the voice inside tells you, otherwise known as "Obey your superego".
And I love how you can become ordained without "question of faith". So do you have to believe in the motto?
Posted by: RIPope | May 8, 2006 3:07:08 AM
What's the difference between that spiritual correspondence course and seminary study, an MA in Divinity? (religion, not the candy). It's only a matter of degrees. At least Kierkegaard had the spine to point out the disjunction: either one takes Screepture and all of the associated irrationality at its face value and believes, OR, embracing rationalism (and realizing there is no rational theology), one rejects all religious thinking. To argue that religion may contribute to ethical or PC thinking doesn't really justify it: other types of studies develop ethical thinking, or conversely, show the implausibility of non-coerced ethics. For one I think Hobbes' Leviathan as useful as any passages of Screepture; Freud's Civ. and its Discontents, even BF Skinner begins with the assumption that ethics---whether Xtian, social contract, marxist, or Kantian-- has failed.
Ah'm not sure what sort of cultural product reinforces a non-sentimental, naturalist, secular viewpoint: Dr. Strangelove, tho', works for me, and the nuke awareness, however un-hip to current scenesters, obviously an important concern.
Posted by: Prospero | May 8, 2006 11:18:01 AM
Having just returned from the (North) American south I can verily say, the Pop Jesus Resistance is alive and well...from shelter graffiti, Bibles and wondrous children's literature, to vanity license plates, literally dozens of tv shows in a row from which to choose (though apparently more self-help than proselytizing), to gaudy bumper stickers and small-town traffic jams on Sundays.
I found none of this really all that surprising or upsetting. Southerners themselves are as always more discreet, minding their own business (even when helping each other get along); it's the notherners who insist on getting all self-riteous and offended. (After one week of thorough exposure - mostly to various mosses, mountain flowers, vistas and fungi - I'm now a complete expert in the field, as it were.)
As for wanting one's pop culture (or pop nostalgia) pristine (or is that fundamentalist) and eating it too...hff. Cry me a damn river?
Posted by: Matt | May 8, 2006 1:01:51 PM
I think we should obey our superegos.
Posted by: josef k. | May 8, 2006 1:19:54 PM
"I have not seen Huff but it sounds like it has a view that is typical of most Americans."
Ah, yes, those strange, difficult to identify 'most Americans' that are so typical and that television shows can only aspire to being 'typical of'.
When I grow up, can I be a 'most American'?
Posted by: az | May 9, 2006 9:42:59 AM
Ah would agree that is a bit of an overgeneralization: but then some 65+% of Americans identify themselves as protestants; with like 25% or more catolicos. Atheists, skeptics and secularists are far outnumbered; and as quite a few posts around here indicate, there are putative radicals--such as Kostco and crew--who are more than willing to embrace the Judeo-Xtian tradition and theological metaphysics; or perhaps they do it in the real tradition of yankee, Main Street xtianity; do whatever the F you and wifey want to, but keep smiling and show up at sunday school, drop some scratch into the plate, sing a ho-sannah or three with the kiddies, and have a chuckle with Father O'Ruttley and Frau on the way out and the nest-egg is kept intact. But then jews and muslims are doing that as well.
Posted by: Prospero | May 9, 2006 7:38:13 PM
I kind of agree with Tom Wolfe’s mission statement of writing about the wild carnival of America. The billion-footed beast is not inside your head. It’s out there. A lot of people pray so it should not be a shock to see someone in fiction take religion seriously. As I said, I am not religious but it is interesting to see a different point of view once in a while.
Posted by: Christopher Hellstrom | May 9, 2006 9:47:33 PM
Americans tend to get worked up about religion, whether they are secularists or xtians: but religion is not jus' another consumer choice issue as many liberals often make it out to be: if one concludes there are no rational grounds for religious beliefs, then it seems to follow that religion is a form of mass delusion, if not actual psychosis. That's not to say all religious people are so deluded--even say a Descartes a brilliant and religious person; yet it may be the duty of secularists to satirize, mock and defame religion--and not only xtianity, but judaism and islam as well.
Posted by: prospero | May 10, 2006 2:22:15 PM
If my comment seemed at all...haughty, I apologize. It's true there's little more nauseating than an obviously sick, parasitic and bland culture resulting from politically powerful times (as Nietzsche might have said). In fact I largely agree with the annoyed premise of the post.
As for Tom Wolfe, meanwhile...perhaps the less said, the better...?
Posted by: Matt | May 10, 2006 10:17:50 PM
Ah have doubts most pop product can adequately ridicule the Sunday School business, or Los Catolicos, Inc., small- town hick America.
Writing's another matter. The big daddies of the 60s had the spine to take on the fundies: Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions, however pulpy and tres sauvage to current belle-lettrists, was a fairly effective satire of Updike Americana. Or Terry SOuthern, but his surrealism is a bit noir for most: The Magic Christian tho' a fairly powerful jab against fundieland. Pynchon's Lot 49 or Vineland to some degree, tho' TP's writing is so abstract, narcissistic, and bric a brac and thus may be a bit useless as Anti-xtian agit-prop.
imagine variations on Candide: Dr. Pangloss is alive and well, not only in "seminaries," but on bogus liberal blogs, like the Valve: John Holbo, Pangloss du jour. Or something like that.
Posted by: prospero | May 11, 2006 11:58:29 AM
Another way to approach it is this:
Is pop culture supposed to be representative of all groups in society, dividing up its air time equally amongst social groups? Boring Cultural Studies people would undoubtedly say yes. Yay identity politics - equal access for all!
It cuts both ways. The first time I came across this was when a gay friend of mine who grew up in a small town in Ontario gave a presentation on how there should be more gay presence in television shows - this was undergrad so a bit before Will & Grace et al. We had a long discussion. Why not feel liberated precisely because you are NOT subsumed within the media discourse? You have a `ghetto' outside the system - and isn't that great? Now, if you're from Toronto, sure. But in a small town, you don't have this ghetto. All you have is your TV and what content it provides you.
Perhaps I'm circling my point. The idea is that pop culture isn't supposed to incorporate all viewpoints and identities. That's not its purpose. It's supposed to be (mildly) transgressive, idiotic, stupendous. I don't see how Jesus works into that. F*ck representation, know what I mean?
Posted by: RIPope | May 12, 2006 3:21:55 AM
Pop culture is at least 90% twaddle and deception, and ID politics is as well, tho' of course ID politics has its uses as praxis for links oder rechts; and there's plenty of pop product, even "subversive" pop product, to market and sell. In terms of muzak ah think pop failed: there's not much worse than those ol' beatle-bones or trog rock ditties. I'd rather listen to Satie, however treacly. Awraht, a band like Steely Dan--that was fairly successful "pop" subversion (but with lots of rock-jazz); and there are maybe a few others. And Fagen/Becker made a few rips of Jeeeee-sussss Inc. did they not. I guess Zimmerman or the Dead were fairly subversive as well, but one gets tired with the stoned Marin Cowboy-Rimbaud schtick like after a few weekends hangin' around some pachouli parlors on Sapphic talent nite. Even a Dave Brubeck smashing away in 5/4 is a type of subversion....
Posted by: prospero | May 12, 2006 1:43:38 PM
The idea is that pop culture isn't supposed to incorporate all viewpoints and identities. That's not its purpose. It's supposed to be (mildly) transgressive, idiotic, stupendous.
You seem to equate pop culture as transgressive in its attempt to get the audience to feel that they are someone who has gone beyond the flock as opposed to identity politics which is for those who want to feel like part of a crowd.
Either way, you're just another target demongraphic.
Posted by: | May 15, 2006 3:23:36 PM
So what? I think I'm aware of that. There are times when I'm not necessarily a target demographic, but when I'm talking through pop culture I don't pretend I'm not, not that, in this moment, there's an 'I' to speak of, only senseless, idiotic, stupendous enjoyment, threatened by people genuinely, sickingly praying, as if forgetting that TV is TV and unless people are going to be miraculously cured and fall flat onto the floor religion just doesn't make for good dots of red, green, and blue.
Posted by: RIPope | May 17, 2006 1:11:59 AM
Have you thought about changing the channel?
Everyone has the right to publish what they believe in the public market of ideas, here in the US.
By the same token, you have the right to not listen to the Jesus people, just like they have the right to not listen to you.
If you choose to reject the eternal salvation God has made available to you through Jesus Christ...which is the only way to be saved from spending eternity in hell...then that's your right.
But, you will never get rid of us Christians...so, change the channel if you don't want to hear it!
Posted by: Kirk Richards | May 17, 2006 11:02:55 AM
Presumably Kirk is agreeing, that flat earth Jesus-freak melodrama, sentimental cliché-ridden TV necessarily speaks for all Xtians, throughout time. As is his/its American right, no less.
And presumably his mind is boggled, why this attitude should be any cause for concern, on a global scale.
Posted by: Chin the clenchable | May 17, 2006 1:22:35 PM
Posted by: Chin the unclenchable | May 17, 2006 1:32:32 PM
"that flat earth Jesus-freak melodrama"
THe contemporary xtians have managed to shed the flat-earth, dixie-baptist image to some extent. Christians are now being mainstreamed, showing up on TeeVee, in pop culture, and it's not old-school Catholics or Lutherans so much (who at the least have a heritage that is not completely worthless--i.e. Shakespeare, Bach) , but the, eh, dixie-baptist, rapture types. That's not to say Catholic irrationalism and sentimentality is that preferable, but there is some intellectual credibility there that the fundies lack. And pop culture xtianity is generally of the hick-protestant sort--as with one [...ed: you can guess where this was going - pointless insults deleted]
Posted by: prospero | May 17, 2006 4:47:58 PM
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