Unusual Representations of Christians in the Media

Throughout these eight weeks of lectures, we have discussed different forms of Christians presented in the entertainment industry. We spent a lot of time analyzing Lady Gaga’s music and her Christian faith, Justin Bieber’s belief and how he presents it through his music, the authenticity of Christian in media, as well as Christian characters in television shows and movies. The discussion that caught my attention that most was the Lil Wayne’s music video that was presented at the very beginning of last week’s lecture. This video reminds me of the discussions we had at the very beginning of the course about Kanye West and his video of “Jesus Walk”. I have never been a fan of Lil Wayne or Kanye West, perhaps because of this, I never enjoyed any of their songs, and I could never picture them as Christians. Realizing both Kanye West and Lil Wayne are strong Christians was very surprising to me, I am not a Christian myself, and I have to admit that I do not know very deeply about the Christian tradition, but my impression of strong Christians are someone who is generous, kind, understanding, and accepting. My idea of being Christian is very similar to the idea of Christ figures in films. Kanye West and Lil Wayne are completely opposite of what I normally perceive Christians as.

Kanye West does not appear to be the nicest guy, he is commonly perceived as arrogant, self-centered, intolerant and rude. West is infamous for causing scenes and controversies around his speech and music. He rudely stormed off the American Music Awards in 2004, just because he lost the Best New Artist title to Gretchen Wilson. Later during an interview, he said that he felt like he was robbed, because he considered himself as “the best of the year”. West is also known for the habit of blaming his failure on his skin color, he called president bush a racist and caused a scene with Britney Spears in the Music Video Awards 2007, he believed that he lost his titles to Britney because of his race, and continued to insult Britney’s Spears’s talent and success in the music industry for years. Kanye's most recent outburst was two years ago, when he randomly went on the stage during the Music Video awards and abruptly interrupted Taylor Swift’s acceptance speech. Though as we learned in the beginning of the course that West is a devoted Christian and grew up from a strong Christian background, his intolerance, unforgiving and arrogant behaviors seem to be far from the common conception of a Christian.

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In the beginning of last week’s lecture, we were presented with Lil Wayne’s “Mirror” video. The video started with Lil Wayne’s very- strangely- tattooed-eyelids, and his heavily tattooed body. The setting of the video was very visual and powerful, strongly resembles Lil Wayne’s faith, however it is presented in a rather violent way, for example heavy splashes of red paint, repetitively scene of Lil Wayne’s hand covered in paint, and the video constantly zooms into certain evil symbolic tattoos, and lyrics.  This video shows very strong resemblance to Christianity, and it also reinforces the Lil Wayne’s tough, fearless image. Lil Wayne- similarly to Kanye West, is familiar with controversies and feuds. Lil Wayne has been infamously arrested a few times for drug abuse and weapon possession. Although one can say that these scandals happened before he converted to Christianity, through looking at his recent music videos and image (he is still involved in many lawsuits and has recently engaged in feuds with Jay-Z and 50 cents), he doesn’t seem that much of a different person except for the explicit expressions of his belief in his music.

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 Kanye West and Lil Wayne are just a few examples of a “different” kind of Christian presented in the media. Though both rappers claim that they are devoted Christians, their music genre, image and attitude do not seem to confrom with the traditional image of Christians. Other examples of self-proclaiming Christians that appear to have “gone wild” include the cast of “Jersey Shore”, many of the cast members have revealed their belief throughout the seasons, a few of them mentioned that they express their faith through their body tattoos. The contrasting image of a traditional Christian and the image of these celebrities made me wonder if their faith was actually crafted to fit into the society since the majority of American is Christian-centric. Especially after the discussion of celebrities, Lady Gaga and authenticity few lectures ago, my doubt on the sincerity of Kanye West’s and Lil Wayne’s is even stronger. This also makes me question whether they are building a typical “bad boy” rapper image, or if they are using faith to win American’s heart because their image is so tarnished? Or if any of these are authentic at all. Moreover, this also made me question whether the media is promoting violence just like the way sports is being promoted. As we have talked about in class, audience often failed to realize how harmful some sports are, and because of its relationship with Christians and its massive influence in the economy, causing many to neglect its problems. Similarly, the entertainment industry has enormous influence in the community, and “self-proclaiming as Christians” may just be a technique to cover the flaws that these celebrities have and ultimately creates unthinking acceptance and celebration of the horrific behaviors of these people.

"Jersey Shore" members and their iconic religious tattoos:

Jenni "JWoww" Farley

Vincenzo "Vinny" Guadagnino

Ronnie Ortiz-Mangro

Kanye West:

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1569313/kanye-west-hell-never-return-mtv-report.jhtml

http://www.people.com/people/package/article/0,,20302940_20304330,00.html

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/kanye-west-storms-the-vmas-stage-during-taylor-swifts-speech-20090913

http://www.usmagazine.com/entertainment/news/kanye-west-wages-twitter-war-with-britney-spears-2011141

Lil Wayne:

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/timeline-the-criminal-history-of-lil-wayne-20101105

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20314783,00.html

http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1679051/jay-z-kanye-west-lil-wayne-diss.jhtml

Jersey Shore and Christianity:

http://www.celebritytattoodesign.com/ronnie-magro-from-jersey-shores-surprisingly-meaningful-ink