When did the society perceive that Jesus could be commodified, traded and/or sold in the market place....Church attendance varies from place to place, denomination to denomination people church hop shopping for the "real" deal, yet since Martin Luther's time, schisms have engrossed all who quantify Jesus Christ of Nazareth is the messiah.
Looking for the illusive utopia that leads to the kingdom of God and provides eternal bliss, is simply just not enough to pacify the casual Christian looking for some authenticity. So how does cultural capital marry popular culture? market it. Christ may have used Peter (his rock) to build his church, but Paul's marketing school brought people in droves to subscribe to the Christian movement. Hundreds of years later tactics have varied, but the business model at its core mimics the basic essentials, alters, crosses, and preaching what people want to hear.
Jesus, as the popular culture icon,(which in light of viewing the images provided last class), has created a wide genre of different interpretations and lenses in which North Americans artists can engage their spin on how the image of Jesus "ought" to be perceived. The "American" stereotyped perception of Jesus, even with the historical interpretation of Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ depiction, generates emotions of the "sacred", being commodified to hit a note with the American target audience. Questions of why it was necessary for Mel Gibson to go to such lengths to convey his interpretation of the life of Jesus, straddle his idea of Jesus the sacred and historical accounts. Yet one also has to understand that as the image of Jesus morphed onto the film screen, that pockets of society have fallen in love with the image generated by these artists as they have attempted to conjure a visual interpretation. Alternatively, the use of icons and images is not something new to christianity, one can not forget that the Roman Catholic church built a business model around the sale of icons and indulgences, to integrate the sacred being used to drum up funds for other projects. Furthermore, one has to question why society needs or desires these images of Jesus to bolster their emotional attachment to the concept of Christianity inside and outside the sacred faith. Popular culture I feel in this scenario is in the driving seat for the best marketing commodity known to generate mass revenues on a consistent basis. I feel that the commodification of the Jesus images has provided a false reality to Christians in being lured to consume through utilizing their vulnerability of their perceptions of faith.
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ReplyDeleteVicar of Dibley. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOs6SBG3Nro&feature=related -
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