Religion in Today's Pop Culture - Pop Star's Spirit Search or Kitsch - Essay Example

The paper “Religion in Today's Pop Culture - Pop Star's Spirit Search or Kitsch" is a fascinating example of an essay on culture. Religion is a set of frames for human beings. Religion is a way to deal with the challenges, which are beyond human control. Religion explains the most challenging and unexplainable issues…We can give much more definitions and interpretations of this phenomenon, but we can claim for sure that we need something inside of us to keep us avoiding some difficult things.

Nowadays we experience a process of religion coming into masses. The obsession of the modern culture with religion can be interpreted in both ways: on the one hand, it is a promotion of humane attitude to each other and solidarity, on the other hand very often these moves are strictly criticized by the society…It depends on the moral beliefs and attitudes of every individual. The vision of religion in the new light, when it is a component of the pop culture raises a lot of questions: whether it is right or wrong to popularize images of Jesus Christ or God Mother or other religious images.

The most known reflections of religion in pop culture can be traced in the creative works of Lady Gaga. If we talk about this singer, we can see that later this popular singer is really obsessed with religious images and she always is looking for an opportunity to promote religious images. In her interviews, she claims that she is a too religious and spiritual person, but when we watch her videos we can have many doubts. Still, I am also impressed by her video on the song “Born This Way”.

Lady Gaga is not the first one, who tries to reflect her ideas of love and faith by means of using different religious allusions and metaphors. There are humane and good lines in the song “Born This Way” when the singer says: “I’m beautiful in my way because God makes no mistakes”. This is a righteous interpretation of religion. Nevertheless, allusions used are really impressive and we can think about the moment of birth. Her videos are always ambiguous. For example, the most impressive clip for me is “Judas”.

Thus, in her video “Judas” we can see that “Jesus is my virtue / but Judas is the demon I cling to” and these lines imply a potential sinful behavior of too religious people. These controversial songs and videos impress me by their potential to strike my imagination. I try to guess, which are the real intentions of Lady Gaga songs? I came across the images of a sinful Magdalena in “Judas” and innocent “Venus” in this video. Moreover, Gaga does not only reflect her own religious beliefs, but she also tries to bring in a kind of burlesque and kitsch to her religious interpretations…for example, in her video “Judas” there are striking images of a nun, who is dreaming about sex with men, or when Lady Gaga tries to make a shot with her gun, but in reality, it turns out to be a lipstick.

Another demonstration of religion in pop culture is a representation of religious ideas in clothes. For example, pink T-shirts with a cartoon kitten purring “Jesus loves me”. Religion is a kind of trend in the modern world. Madonna and Pam Anderson wear T-shirts with the line “Mary Is My Homegirl”. Such kind of T-shirts is an attempt to make people think about religious issues. We do not have enough time to visit Church and for some people, it is a kind of showing off their religious beliefs.

To my mind this strategy is fashionable, but it should not be kitschy as it is. As rule priests argue with the popularization of religion and blame Lady Gaga for her profanity. Popular films also reflect fashionable religious ideas and beliefs. For example, the film by Mel Gibson “The Passion of the Christ” is very popular or “Joan of Arcadia,” a film story about the girl on who talks to God won the attraction of the audience. Nowadays religion is a modern brand. It sounds like the world has gone wild, but it is really so.

Popular slogans promote religion, but in a different way, which seems natural for people. For example, we can see that it is easier and more pleasant for people to wear T-shirts with written commandments and testaments than going to church. People are not estranged from religion in any case; they are placing it in their daily lives and interpret religion in a modern dynamic way. I think that it is another modern form of religion in comparison with the traditional form of religion, where parishioners visit the church and pray.

It is more convenient for the contemporaries to include religious symbols in their lives in order to remember about religious beliefs than visiting the church on Sundays. Therefore, for me, religion in popular culture has become a critical point. Modern minds are boiling when they watch videos or films with religious themes or wearing religious T-shirts. Still, there is an evident idea that modern society thinks about religion and it does not discard it. Vice versa, the contemporaries popularize the modern popular interpretations of religion and it is very interesting to be a part of the religious socialization process.