By Anton C. Vrame, PhD
Walk into a museum, read a novel, listen to a popular song, or go to the cineplex, and most likely you can find God or “the religious” in these elements of our culture. Sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes not. If we treat these elements like texts to be studied and apply some of our skills as interpreters, we can treat these contemporary-popular sources in meaningful ways and “open them up” for the edification of young and old.
We have to define “religion” for our purposes. Technically, “religion” refers to those elements that hold together or are shared by a group of people, related to their understanding of the God, the divine, the supernatural-however they name that reality. Religion, in a broad sense, surrounds us in our culture. American society for the last hundred years has been described as a Judeo Christian one. The religious environment largely reflects this: the ideas, concepts, language, stories and imagery in our society often have their origins in the Old and New Testaments and the larger Jewish and Christian traditions and their forms of expression. These images and ideas wind up in our popular culture and are sometimes used unconsciously, but sometimes they are used intentionally. An astute observer can spot these uses. The faithful person may not always approve of the form of expression he or she finds.
For example, in the 1956 film “The Ten Commandments,” on the night of the Passover, one of the children asks Moses (Charlton Heston), “Why is tonight not like any other night?” The film tells the biblical story of the Exodus, but the question is from the Haggadah (text) for a Passover seder, when a child asks the host of the seder this question.
Another example, which Metropolitan Savas of Pittsburgh loves to point out, is that the physical position of Spiderman as he stops the speeding subway train-arms outstretched, head dropped to the chest at a slight angle-is reminiscent of crucifixion images. Whether the director realized it or not, he borrowed a classic image of Christ and applied to a superhero. Some ideas transcend one particular religion, that is, they can be found in many religions, whether Judeo-Christian or not, such as “sacrifice.”
We may even see an occasional Orthodox Christian concept or image, even though the Orthodox community is not so dominant in American life (although there are plenty of Orthodox people in the entertainment and media industries). For example, set designers may place an icon on a wall or mantel in the background to hint at a character’s spiritual or eclectic side. As our society becomes more multicultural and pluralistic, we may begin to see elements of other religious presences in our popular culture. These examples point us toward the first two levels of religion, out of three, that we can see in our popular culture.
Levels of Religion in Pop Culture: The Explicit
The first level is the “obviously religious.” For our examples here, we will limit ourselves to the Judeo-Christian world. The Bible has been one of the most influential sources for popular culture products in history, from paintings to movies. When you visit an art museum, the number of pieces that are derived from the Bible can be overwhelming. (Of course, the art from many other cultures is also often obviously religious, whether Egyptian, classical Greek, Indian, and others.). Songs use lines from the Bible or ask religious questions: Joan Osborne’s “What if God was one of us?” was covered by the cast of “Glee.” Films telling the story of the Exodus-like the 1923 and 1956 films both called “The Ten Commandments” and the animated “Prince of Egypt” in 1998-are obviously religious in their character. The life of Christ or events in His life have been told in dozens of films, plays, novels, songs, works of art and more. Jesus is such a popular character in media that one scholar wrote a book entitled Jesus Christ Movie Star. Christianity Today published a Top 10 list of movies about Jesus in 2009.
These obvious sources can be explored in a number of ways. We can check the facts of a particular story. For example, the 1956 “Ten Commandments” adds all kinds of intrigue and plot lines that aren’t found in the Book of Exodus, such as the romance between Moses and Nefretiri (Anne Baxter), Pharaoh’s future wife. Artistic license may add to our enjoyment of the story or add to the drama, but when we read the Book of Exodus, those elements just aren’t there.
An artist may guide us to think about something in his or her work by directing our attention to certain ideas helping us to make a connection to another source work. Orthodox iconography does this, too, such as in the Nativity icon, when it places an ox and a donkey near Christ or shows the midwives bathing Christ. Contemporary religious pieces may do the same thing, lifting up one element of a story, one perspective, or a few details for us to ponder. For example, in Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ,” Satan is physically present and the horrific nature of the Passion is emphasized to the point of excess. But Gibson was not as original as some may have thought. He was borrowing from a meditative work by a nineteenth-century Roman Catholic nun, Anne Catherine Emmerich. Before film and television, these kinds of writings were popular to help people understand the events in a new way.
Anton C. Vrame, PhD, is Director of the Department of Religious Education. Article taken from PRAXIS, Spring 2011, Vol. 10, Issue 3: “Pop Culture”.
