Religion and Identity in Stand-up Comedy

The Irish comedian Dara O'Briain has, in the past, performed many routines about religion. In his latest show, "This is the show", he makes a point of not making any jokes about religion. Partly, he says, because he has done a lot of those jokes before but also because he had received criticism for making jokes about Christianity but not about Islam. His point is that he doesn't know anything about Islam, and neither do most of his audience members. This raises two points, first the issue of cultural ownership in joke-telling; and second, the idea of using cultural stereotypes to make jokes.

 In his previous shows Dara has mainly told religious jokes about Catholics or the difference between Catholics and Protestants. Because he was raised a Catholic he belongs to that community and so is able to send it up in a way that another comedian could not. It also allows the audience to laugh at the jokes without feeling guilty. If a comedian who was not part of the community made jokes about them it might lead the audience to think the jokes were not good-natured.

In the third video Dara does make a joke about two communities that he does not belong to: Judaism and Chinese. However, his exaggerated use of cultural stereotypes shows that even though he may not know anything about those cultures outside of their media stereotypes he does not mean them any harm. The audience is able to laugh because they share in the consumption of the stereotypes in the media and recognise that he is making fun of the image of the culture, not the reality.

Barbie v. Fulla

In the chapter Mecca Cola and Burquinis: Muslim consumption and religious identities Echchaibi discusses the ways in which American consumer culture has been appropriated by and for the Muslim market. One of the ways this is done is through Fulla, a Muslim Barbie doll. Echchaibi says that some Muslims believe that the American Barbie has destructive social and cultural implications. Fulla is honest, caring and has respect for her parents. Although Fulla is marketed in a western-style consumer industry she is not a progressive character, which means that she represents the struggle for the collective identity of the traditional female subject in a changing world.

Sources:

http://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2012/03/04/00/06/babushka-21758_640.jpg

Echchaibi, N. "Mecca Cola and Burquinis: Muslim consumption and religious identities". 2012. Religion, Media and Culture: A Reader. Ed. Lynch, G; Mitchell, J. London: Routledge. 

Simulacra and Cultural Identity

In his paper The Precession of the Simulacra Jean Baudrillard begins by stating: "the simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth - it is the truth which conceals that there is none". His main point is that due to the proliferation of images in the modern media the image no longer portrays reality, it hides the fact that truth has disappeared; the image is the reality. One of the examples he uses is the mediatisation of history in films and in cultural myth. The only way we can know anything about the past is through images, so that first disguises the reality of history, and then replaces it. We have no image of history that is not from the media, he argues.

The same could be applied to representations of different cultures in the media. The idea that cultural stereotypes are recognised by us is proof that, unless we discover our own reality, the media controls our images, and therefore our perception, of different cultures and religions.

Sources:
http://pixabay.com/en/mask-face-pottery-22849/
Baudrillard, J. "The Precession of the Simulacra". Traverses (10) February, 1978. pp. 3-37

Stephen Fry in America

In his documentary "Stephen Fry in America" Fry travels to all the states in America to discover what is modern America. While travelling through Iowa he stops at the Maharashi Vedic City where they have their own currency, use the constitution of the Universe to achieve order and harmony, and practice a modern form of transcendental yoga. By activating alpha brainwaves the practitioners hope to achieve enlightenment and happiness. Fry says just talking about the practise makes him feel like a "babbling merchant of drivel", but also knows that the pursuit of happiness is an important one. Although he doesn't go into much depth and, apart from a few perplexed looks at the camera, doesn't criticise the practise it is clear that Fry doesn't believe in achieving enlightenment through this new yoga. 

Football as Religion

Chelsea centre foward Didier Drogba appeared on the Graham Norton show on the 4th of May. He dicusses the power that football has in uniting people, he calls it a religion. Graham replies that if football is a religion then Drogba is a god. If a sport can be labelled a religion would the players be gods? Or maybe prophets? Or just practitioners who happen to be the best in the world? The sport is not inherently religious unless the players and the fans make it so. For the people along the Ivory Coast living through civil war football could have been a source of happiness, hope and unity. Even though there are religious elements in the way Drogba describes his experience with football it is still a sport and not a religion.

The Sacred in Cyberspace

Heidi Campbell's article Religious Communities and the Internet (2010) discusses the growing trends in religion online and online religion. One issue she discusses is the nature of sacred texts in an online format. She sees it more as a problem in Judaism than for protestant christians, who she says see technology as a God-given resource for spreading the Word.

This phenomenon raises some questions; can text on the internet be sacred? or does the 'Word' simply join the billions of other words that flood the internet everyday? Is the sacred inherently sacred? Can the sacred remain sacred when it is translated onto a non-sacred space? Does the message of the religion become lost in the novelty of the internet? Can spirituality be found online among the celebrity gossip, online shopping and pictures of cats?

Former press secretary to the archbishop of Canterbury, Reverend George Pitcher, and Vice President of the British Humanist Society, Dr Evan Harris ("the bishop of nothing"), discuss whether Britain is a religious country and the treatment of religions and religious people in the media.