Negative Pop-Culture Portrayals of Christianity And Islam?

[Tony]

In the spirit of the "Positive pop-culture portrayals of atheism?" thread, I decided to make this one. What negative portrayals of christianity and/or islam do you know of? Off the top of my head, I'd say Frank Burns from M*A*S*H was a pretty negative portrayal of a christian. Anymore that comes to mind?

[Nyarlathotep]

Today's social climate isn't really conducive to negative portrayals of Christianity or Islam. Despite what the fundies try to tell people, we aren't becomeing an increasingly atheist society, in fact religion is Big Business right now. Few media types are going to want to offend such a large, vocal and politicized group.

I can think of two major exceptions, though, and those are Ned Flanders from the Simpsons and several recent episodes of South Park. If I were a religious man, I probably wouldn't be all that happy with either of those two.

[Hexxenhammer]

I dunno dude, Flanders and say, the mormon family on the "dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb" South Park episode may be stereotypical believers and played for laughs but really, they're portrayed as good and nice, if annoying to the more cynical and less religous of us.

[Hexxenhammer]

The terrorists from "True Lies", now theres a negative portrayal of muslims. And the preacher on the last season of Buffy, played by the guy from Firefly, not exactly an icon of christianity when he gouges Xander's eye out.

[Nyarlathotep]

Originally posted by Hexxenhammer
I dunno dude, Flanders and say, the mormon family on the "dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb" South Park episode may be stereotypical believers and played for laughs but really, they're portrayed as good and nice, if annoying to the more cynical and less religous of us.

With Flanders, I think it's that he is often portrayed as doing really stupid things in the name of his religion, like the one where his house burned down and he didn't have insurance because he considered it a form of gambling.

Though you may be right about the Mormon episode on South Park (I have never caught that one to be honest), I was thinking of ones like the one where the little Ethiopian kid gets his hands on a spaceship and is trying to find a place to take his village away fromt he Missionaries, and the missionaries get a ship of their own and chase him down.

But you are right to a point though, neither of those examples is prtrayed as being all that bad. Just vaguely goofy an annoying at worst. I don't think anyone in the TV business who values his advertising dollars, is crazy enough to REALLY offend Christians in this country. Not even Matt Groening, Matt Stone or Trey Parker.

[Silicon]

There's this show on every night at 7:00 and a lot of times they have episodes about a secret society of child molesters that are kept undercover by the Catholic church.

Funny name for that show. I think it's called "The Nightly News." Something like that.

But seriously...

Isn't there a comedy movie coming up about a fundie summer camp or something? I saw a trailer for it. Not sure who the target audience for that one is, since it was kinda mean-spirited and kinda religious at the same time.

[Silicon]

Back in the 80's there were a lot of comedy movies which had stock "televangelist" type buffoon/villians. They never had any actual beliefs, and they were always shown to be greedy money-grubbers or sex deviants.

[triadboy]

Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson

[rebecca]

Originally posted by Silicon

Isn't there a comedy movie coming up about a fundie summer camp or something? I saw a trailer for it. Not sure who the target audience for that one is, since it was kinda mean-spirited and kinda religious at the same time.

There's a positive review of it at Adult Christianity (http://www.jesus21.com).

How about Edward Scissorhands? Weren't the townspeople claiming Ed was from Satan and should be destroyed? Oh, and there was definitely one woman in it who was uber-religious, and not portrayed kindly.

[rebecca]

And also, there's Leap of Faith, the Steve Martin movie where he's a con artist traveling evangelist. That part is pretty entertaining, but then it gets a little sappy and he kind of finds god after a "miracle." Booooo Steve, boo.

[DarkMagician]

Originally posted by triadboy
Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:

[MLynn]

Originally posted by Nyarlathotep
I can think of two major exceptions, though, and those are Ned Flanders from the Simpsons and several recent episodes of South Park. If I were a religious man, I probably wouldn't be all that happy with either of those two.
I laugh my head off (I'm a Xian) when I watch the Simpsons and South Park. The parody is wonderful! Ned is naive and well-meaning but somewhat irritating. Unfortunately, it does reflect a certain stereotype...

[MLynn]

"Night of the Hunter" - Charles Laughton's 1955 film, starring Robert Mitchum as a whacko minister/con-man/murderer.

[Hexxenhammer]

Originally posted by MLynn
"Night of the Hunter" - Charles Laughton's 1955 film, starring Robert Mitchum as a whacko minister/con-man/murderer. Gotta add that to my Netflix. Robert Mitchum is bad@$$.

[evildave]

You can't fault Steve Martin for trying to make his movie palettable for a wider audience. If it tested negatively in front of a lot of audiences, fundy or not, the producers would've sued him beyond poverty if he didn't "fix" it. That's the reality that hollywood writers/directors are stuck with.

Unless they can get funding like Monty Pytrhon did (* Their original funding from EMI was initially pulled by the studio at the last minute when some higher-up read the script and got offended. They sued and won, and George Harrison (Beatle) came to the rescue and financed it out of his own pocket. That sort of 'miracle' doesn't happen to just everyone.)

The Catholic church gets a lot of pounding for their priests getting caught molesting.

Islam is all about suicide bombings and terrorism, for all the media covers it.

We get stories about "healers" who smother/kill children, and deny medical treatment to them for their faith. Especially Christian 'Science' followers.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/LAW/08/25/autistic.boy.death/

We have the testimony of parents who kill their children to make sure they go to heaven. This case is not unique by any stretch of the imagination.
http://www.click2houston.com/news/854856/detail.html
http://crime.about.com/library/blfiles/blandreayates.htm
http://www.ktvu.com/news/3244149/detail.html
http://www.apologeticsindex.org/w22.html

We have the Islamic 'honor killings' which are naturally condemned by Islamic representatives, but are portrayed by the news like it's an integral part of 'Middle East', hence 'Islamic' culture.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/world/8562825.htm?1c

Then we have David Koresh & Jim Jones. Remember Jonestown? Branch Davidians ring a bell? And then that guy blows up the Oklahoma Federal to avenge the Branch Davidians? Any of this sound familiar? Abortion bombers, perhaps?

The history books have lots of good old fashioned torture and slaughter in the names of deities. Christians killing Muslims, Muslims killing Christians, Christians killing Christians, Muslims killing Muslims. Crusades and purges and bloodshed a-plenty.

[Anders]

I see very little negative information about any religion in mainstream media. The criticism towards for instance the catholic church and muslims are mostly about the specific culture within a certain part, i.e the clergy of US catholic priests or muslim terrorists. Nothing about religion really. Which probably isn't that strange. It seems that our world has mostly accepted religion as something that has to be. No one is to criticise religion in any way, you might step on some ones toes, and we can't have that, now can we. :(

And if someone for once would have some good and well deserved criticism against the church or Islam, she is considered either a revolutionary nitwit or a racist. Like it would be racism to say that Allha never existed and the koran is basically the incoherent chatter of a half crazy man.