(no subject)

[babydraco]

First off, you’ve got that weird situation where the definition of “Christian” to the people involved means “very devout and probably conservative” rather than just “on the membership rolls of a Christian church somewhere in the world and celebrates at least Christmas and Easter”. Making such hair splitting distinctions is a trait of people who live in a world where Christianity is the majority religion and majority culture. Because in such a world, you are able to go around indulging in blatantly Christian traditions while simultaneously claiming that you’re not a Christian or “not very religious”. New Hampshire, where I live, has the lowest church attendance of anywhere in the US, and yet every church in my small town (there are six) has a packed parking lot every Sunday*. And when some kids at my high school were suspected of forming some sort of witchcraft group, they were bullied by a great many people I could’ve sworn never went to church or cared about that sort of thing at all (ironically, most of the out’n proud devout Christian kids left them alone*). In parts of the world where Christianity is a genuinely oppressed minority faith, you either are or you’re not, repeatedly insisting that you “don’t even believe in the historical Jesus” or you “haven’t been to church in years” is not going to help. When talking to people who don’t come from Christian majority cultures, I’ve found it fascinating the number of things we take for granted that are a result of heavy Christian influence and wouldn’t otherwise happen.

So what I’m really saying is, it’s weird that there’s this complicated line drawn where at some point, you change from “someone who defaults to a “cultural Christian” point of view” into “A CHRISTIAN”. And a lot of people seem to think that happens when you become “born again” and that types of Christians who haven’t done this become, by default, not real Christians. It’s a worldview propagated largely by evangelicals and their ilk, and because of the association of “Christian” with “extremely devout and probably conservative”, other types often feel reluctant to claim the label in public. And indeed, everyone tends to be hesitant to label people they don’t know as “Christians” just because they are exhibiting actions normally associated with membership in a Christian church, because saying that makes you sound like you think they’re more devout than they might actually be.

Cameron and Samuel were not the only “Christians” on the show, toward the end of the first season, Damian is seen quickly and quietly crossing himself while alone in his dressing room. But that isn’t what Ryan Murphy means when he says he wants to try writing a “Christian” character. He wants to write a devout evangelical type, the phenomenon of Catholics Not Counting Because They’re Ethnic And It’s Different When You’re Ethnic is a topic for another rant entirely. I find Murphy’s statements weird also because he already writes two versions of what he claims he wants, Quinn and Mercedes. But at the time he said that, he had plans to promote Quinn (and Rachel and Finn and Kurt) to a spinoff series and one premise of the Glee Project was to find a "next class" of characters.


It's a frustrating problem for religious people who want to be performers, because one of the major things involved in performing is being willing and able to do anything you're asked.Jobs are so hard to get that you essentially have to surrender your dignity first. You have to be willing to do anything you’re asked because the production will not have time to stop and negotiate with you and rewrite the whole show around you. Granted, directors and scriptwriters continually try to put in gratuitous stuff that is not necessarily vital to the show but they react badly if anyone less than a mega star refuses to comply anyway. Ryan Murphy strikes me as exactly that kind of person. You do what he tells you to do, regardless of whether it matters, or you won’t be doing anything at all.

But strictly religious based performing arts come with less money and less notoriety and often,less respect. Even a considerable number of religious people don’t care/find it all a little embarrassing. And it comes with an equal amount of equally ridiculous pressure from religious fans. For example, singer Mandisa was criticized by some of her fans for posting childhood Halloween costume pictures of herself on her Facebook, due to the small but vocal subset of evangelical Christians who are extremely anti Halloween. Sometimes, there is just nothing you can do to please everyone.

There are many levels and layers to what people in various religions consider immoral or not. Kirk Cameron is an example. He has completely retired from secular acting and does ONLY religious work, part of this because secular media doesn't want him because they can't find work for him because...the other part of Kirk Cameron's problem is that he has deliberately made himself a HUGE PAIN to work with (being born again only diverted his famous divalike demands to religious topics). But it didn't stop with secular media. As I said, there are levels to what religious people accept as moral and when you're making religious art, you often run into the problem of not all of your cast and crew agreeing on what level you're supposed to be working from.

Kirk Cameron, while filming "Fireproof", demanded that his own wife be used as a “stunt kisser “ because he refused to kiss the actress playing his fictional wife. He considered it adultery. Now, realize, "Fireproof" was written, directed, acted in, filmed and produced, entirely by Christians, most of whom were fairly conservative. And no one filming that movie had realized that their lead actor might refuse to kiss his fake wife. Because it’s acting, they were portraying a married couple and weren’t being asked to do anything beyond kissing, and, he’d, you know, been hired on the assumption that he knew this was in the script. No grown adult with as much acting experience as he had escapes having to do a kissing scene with someone they're not married to at least once.

So when it comes to making movies and tv shows, sometimes when you give your star a “conscience clause” it allows them to refuse to do almost anything they don’t want to do. Which holds up production. And that’s really unfair to everyone else. There has to be a point where the director has to say “No, we’re not rewriting that for you.”

Notes
**it’s not really that New Hampshire has any issues with religion, it’s that nobody is interested in attending new churches. No one here trusts them. There are parts of this country where anyone who is good at preaching can put up a tent and a sign advertising services and people will come just to check it out. In NH and in most of New England, if it doesn’t look like a church it isn’t one and people prefer to attend the same churches their friends and family have always attended.

***Most of the “Christian kids” were more likely to fall into the Nerdy/Artsy category and therefore understood all about being weird and not fitting in, while most of the tormenters were second tier jock types. In fact, my sister was one of the people accused of being a “witch putting spells on us”. So like many of these situations, it wasn’t about religion at all, but about smacking down anyone who deviated from what self appointed school leaders thought was normal.