One of the fascinating themes within the study of religion, media and popular culture is the way that these three themes blur, merge and split apart depending on one's worldview, religious disposition, and scholarly observation. Questions of the role of religion in pop culture and pop culture in religion emerged as scholars began to explore divergent forms of ritual, prayer and worship no longer contained within institutional boundaries. Comics, movies, TV shows, pop songs and fashion iconography extolled and appropriated the virtues of religiosity in its various forms. Did these forms dilute the fundamental tenets of creeds, dogmas and teachings? Or did these shifting genres spread an understanding of religious ideals such as being altruistic, spreading compassion and doing good works?
Much of this change can be viewed by what social theorist, Ulrich Beck (2010) calls the rise of the 'sovereign self'. It relates to a growing individualistic approach to self-styled beliefs, understandings and engagements. Pop culture icons such as Madonna, Lady Gaga, Kayne West, and the enigmatic Tupac interspersed religion-inspired lyrics into their songs and performances. Adherents to these musical 'heroes' followed the artists as if they were gods and goddesses, while the artists themselves, especially Lady Gaga, treated her fans almost as religious devotees, as Little Monsters.
Hero worship and promoting humans as gods have become part and parcel of contemporary pop culture regimes. Recent movies such as Thor, Noah, the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings all attest to a changing focus on the enhancement of the male hero who, through religious and supernatural means, is challenged, fights back, and in the end achieves victory, whether for themselves or for the good of all humanity (or the universe as in the case of Dr Who).
But where have the female heroes gone? Just over a decade ago Buffy was expunging vampires and falling in love with them too. The sisters from Charmed sought out demons and again fell in love with the demonic and the angelic. Halle Berry played the sexy Catwoman and hero warrior princess Xena and her sidekick Gabrielle patrolled the ancient world trouncing the opposition but in the process mixing myths, gods and histories, upturning sexual, erotic and mythical stories as they travelled. Does this matter? Perhaps not if you agree with the works of Joseph Campbell on the power of myth and the similarities in myth, story, heroes and heroines across cultures and religions.
But does being a mythical hero or heroine make them religious or spiritual and if so, in what ways? Perhaps it is the 'superhuman' powers of characters like Superman. Perhaps it is the ritualistic style of Wolverine. Perhaps it is the magic of Merlin whose eyes light up when supernatural enchantment is at play. All these characters use their powers to wield victory but all are challenged in their journey.
Stig Hjarvard (2008) proposes that the relationship between religion, media and the mythical, supernatural elements show the process of mediatisation where popular media has taken over the role of religion as purveyors of ethics and moral behaviours. He argues that the mediatization of religion occurs in two directions - through a process of secularisation and re-sacralisation. To demonstrate this shift, he turns to the methods that mediatisation employs to blur the sacred and profane into what he terms (following Billig 1995), a banalisation of sacred elements into aspects 'associated with folk religion, like trolls, vampires and black cats crossing the street; and items taken from institutionalized religion, like crosses, prayers and cowls; and representations that have no necessary religious connotations, like upturned faces, thunder and lightning; and highly emotional music' (2008:15).
But being banal or promoting popular expressions of the vernacular and spiritual does not make these images and 'elements' insignificant. They form the very building blocks of this shift towards the re-enchatment of the world (albeit the western world with its mediated storylines). Hjarvard argues that the media changes religion, however I would ague that religion changes the media as well.
This two way shift can be seen in the way religious themes are slotted seemlessly into banal expositions and portrayals on screen and in popular music. The interesting factor to acknowledging or recognising this change towards religious and spiritual inclusion is the silo or vantage point of the theorists and scholarly observers. Some may not see the encroachment of religious ideas into pop culture if they don't have an understanding about the fluidity of religious dynamics and see only the traditional form of religion.
The interconnection within the popular media of religion, supernatural and spirituality become, within a secular western approach, a ploy to deliver religious ideas and ideals about the best way to live for oneself and others. These lifeways were once enshrined in myth and fairytale and still are. But the Disneyification of stories and the popular appropriation of myth, creation stories and gods and goddesses steer away from Campbell's homogenous theory of the power of myth and the hero's journey, and become a display of postmodern mashups which, in Disney's demonclature, are transfigured as a romantic happy end and a victory for the heroes ... and heroines.
As I asked above - does this matter? Stories, like religion and history are fluid. They rise and fall between teller and listener and over generations. They connect past, present and future in a whirlwind of imagination and awe. In music, on screen and within texts, the world changes as we the reader, viewer and listener engage with our own imaginative and imaginary theatres. We choose forms which speak to us, which heroes to emulate, which stories to follow, which passions to uphold. Through the merging of religion, media and popular culture, the world, or what we often thought of the world in solid state, is continually being teased apart, being rethought and reconstructed.
When critics claim that religion is diluted or that religious dogma is destabilised, Jones (2000:414) sets us on a path of re-evaluation:
'Rejecting the processes of discovery in favor of processes of interpretation and invention as praxes of reclamation and resistance, postmodern mythopoetic texts mimic and challenge history’s hegemonic claims to tell “the truth” about the past and, by extension, the present and the future.'
Mythical heroes transformed by Hollywood, pop stars worshipped by devoted fans, and religious themes and understandings of the sacred are all stirred into the mix of a pop culture extravaganza. If religion is about meaning making, then the production of mythic narratives will continue to manifest within formal and informal religious practices - in places of worship, on screen, in the football arena, through acts of memorialisation, community rituals, festivals and celebrations. Durkheim's collective effervescence is never too far away.
Within this interconnected process, the concept of liquid religion arises. Taira (2006), like Hjarvard (2008), observes changes in expressions of religion in the postmodern west. He notes that 'the solid borders of institutional religion have broken down or ‘liquified’ as it slips into the nooks and crannies of society, in the process becoming almost unrecognisable as ‘religion’ according to the traditional model' (Taira 2006, cited in Mäkelä and Petsche 2013). Religion is infilrating the nooks and crannies of society, in mediated formats, fashionista religious regalia, and within myths and fairytales as it makes and remakes the same story, with the same ending - that good prevails.
References
Beck U. 2010. God of one's own. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Billig M. 1995. Banal nationalism, London: Sage.
Hjarvard S. 2008. The mediatization of religion: A theory of the media as agents of religious change. Northern Lights 6: 9-26.
Jones S.G. 2000. Histories, fictions, and Xena: Warrior Princess. Television New Media 1: 403-418.
Mäkelä E. and J.J.M Petch. 2013. Serious parody: Discordianism as liquid religion. Culture and Religion 14(4):411-423.
Taira T. 2006. Notkea Uskonto [Liquid Religion]. Tampere: Eetos.
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