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| Lady Gaga: a primary deity in modern 'pop culture religion' |
For this first posting I wish
to focus on a particular aspect of the lecture ‘How to tackle Ancient Greek
religion’ which was brought up when comparing the ancient and modern ways of
experiencing religion; religion outside of traditional religious institutions.
The comparisons drawn between religion and pop culture will be the specific
focus.
I have almost definitely
decided that I will be using the goddess Aphrodite as a vehicle to explore this
module. I have chosen Aphrodite because I have always had a very limited view
of her as the feminine, serene, love-goddess but, as Susan said, there is much
more to her! I feel that I would like to re-evaluate my personal reception of
Aphrodite. I also believe she will make a good vehicle for exploring Greek religion
because she is a very typical Olympian goddess in some aspects but she is also
atypical in many ways such as her birth and gender identity. These issues could
raise very interesting points to explore in future topics for this module.
However, although Aphrodite may be mentioned, she will not be a focus for this
posting as I have decided to make it more general to reflect the general nature
of the lecture which it arose from. This posting may also by lacking in its
engagement with scholarly sources compared to future ones as most of the
material will come from my own experiences/observations about pop culture and
religion.
In
the ‘How to tackle Ancient Greek religion’ (31/09/13) lecture Bruce Springsteen
was quoted as saying that music was his Church. As a group we inferred from
that that the stadiums he plays at are places of worship, the fans are
worshippers and he himself is a priest-like or even god-like figure. This may
be over generalised and it may even seem ridiculous to compare a musical talent
and his fans to a religion but it could be argued that this is in fact a highly
appropriate comparison and that every day it becomes more and more so.
I follow
with some more generalised comparisons; religion can dictate how you live
(lifestyle/moral decisions), this is also true of pop culture with many fans
wanting to imitate their idols in every aspect of their lives. Religion can
dictate what you wear and what you eat, pop culture- or perhaps more
appropriately, ‘celebrity culture’ is constantly telling people what they
should eat/wear through lifestyle magazines and other such mediums. Reading
about a miracle performed by Jesus in the Bible with no evidence other than the
written words could be compared with picking up a copy of Heat magazine and
believing the latest celebrity news contained within: there may be little or no
evidence but people believe because they want to. In a growing secular world,
particularly in the west, pop culture arguably has more of an effect on people
than religion does as it is practically unavoidable- from the radio to
television to newspapers, most people will be exposed to pop culture in their
lives. Whereas, it’s possible to argue
that religion is becoming more avoidable and irrelevant each year.
Most
of the comparisons so far have focused on the similarities between pop culture
and ‘modern’ religion, which is the best comparison when discussing how
embedded into life/society both constructs are. However, I now wish to focus on
the many comparisons it is possible to make between modern celeb culture and
ancient Greek religion. The first reason for this comparison is that if pop
culture is the religion then celebrities are the ‘deities’ and as there are
many possible ones to worship then it must be a polytheistic system, similar to
the Greek one. Leading from this, nearly all of the Greek deities had their own
cults, within the broader religious system, similar to modern day ‘fandoms’.
Finally, with
modern religion the relationship between people and their deity is one-sided
i.e. there is little chance of having an actual conversation with their God. In
the ancient Greek and pop culture ‘religions’ there is some level of expectance
that your idol will respond to you directly. A comparative example of this
would be praying to Asklepios and him responding by physically visiting you to
heal your illness compared with modern day ‘prayers’ on Twitter gaining a response
directly from your idol: the likelihood of either happening is arguably equal!
The idea of Twitter as a place of worship in which prayers are asked is taken
from the channel 4 documentary Crazy about
One Direction in which many references to worshiping idols, Twitter as a
Temple and the fandom as a church were made.
The
cult nature of ancient Greek religion is what really struck me as similar to
fandoms within pop culture. The first name that came to mind was Lady Gaga, who
calls herself ‘Mother Monster’ and her followers are her ‘Little Monsters’. It
may seem very silly but Gaga has strong ideologies about politics and equality
and her ideas can reach her 40.2 million Twitter followers with the click of a
button. Some people are fiercely loyal to their idol and will defend them and
attack other idols, just as the Greek’s may have held a lot stronger loyalties
to one particular deity; for example Hippolytus’ strong loyalties to Artemis
and hatred of Aphrodite in Euripides’ play Hippolytus.
Some people however choose a broader approach, following the whole pop culture
religion without strong cult ties to one artist, turning to different idols for
individual needs. As with the Greek gods there are major and minor cults in pop
culture and it is normal to follow just one or many. Just as one may have
prayed to Hera for a healthy pregnancy but Athena for success in battle, now
one may turn to Justin Bieber for help with blossoming young love but Taylor
Swift when struggling through a break-up!
A
final point I wish to make on the possibility of comparing Greek religion with
celeb culture concerns anthropomorphism. The Greek people famously
anthropomorphised their deities into relatable human figures. They even brought
them into their plays as characters whom the human characters could converse
with. It may appear absurd to say that fandoms anthropomorphise their idols, as
they are already human! However, it could be argued that they are seen as
somewhat unobtainable, ethereal figures who re-anthropomorphised through
mediums such as Fan Fiction and other social media, where fans can write
themselves into scenarios in which they interact with their chosen deity or
attempt to contact them directly. Thus meaning their idols are brought ‘back down
to earth’, become once again more real and accessible and even perhaps more
‘human’.
This
analysis of pop culture and ancient Greek religion will hopefully be helpful when
writing the rest of this blog. It has given me an introduction into the
complexities of a polytheistic system and it has allowed me to take an unusual
approach to the topic which will help me to be open-minded about future topics
that I need to address.
References
Euripides
‘Hippolytus’ (1997) Medea and other Plays,
Morwood, J. (trans.) Oxford: Oxford University Press
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