Paganism in "Realistic Fiction"

[Brass Bell Doll]

Crime Dramas commonly represent paganism as a plot device to represent an exotic "other". Most of the ones I have seen have been very amusing, but likely not intentionally. In an attempt to avoid offending people, they represent paganism, typically Wicca, as an ancient religion of naked chanting women.

The lack of sophistication leaves me munching popcorn and giggling while making lightly snarky remarks.

How do other people feel about the attempts to "realistically" represent pagans in contrast to popular culture?

What was your favorite example?  

[AvalonAuggie]

It's far from a realistic example, but an episode of Supernatural I caught recently (I watch it for the eye candy!) involved a small group of housewife witches who were chiefly interested in doing spellwork to win raffles and get better mortgage rates. It was a hoot!
They're very fond of hoodoo on that show, too.

Slightly OT, but I've been thinking a lot recently about religious worldviews in popular culture, how I often find the mythologies of movies or television shows confusing in the way they're presented and interpreted, and it makes me irrationally angry when my worldview doesn't match the interpretation the creators "want" me to have. I think a lot of it has to do with people writing for their audience, and if they want to put some myth and mysticism in their work, the stuff the audience is most familiar with is invariably going to be Abrahamic mythology.

...all this boils down to: I've got a big axe to grind with the people behind Lost, because dammit, they're just a couple of local deities embodying order and chaos and the world needs a mixture of both to survive! it's not God and the devil! it's not the ultimate good versus evil showdown! Stop writing cliched absolutist philosophy into your show that could have been so much more complex and morally ambiguous! Damn you Cuse and Lindelof!

I'm going to go to bed now because I've stopped making sense.  

[Cranium Squirrel]

I think my favourite one recently has been the House episode 'Knight Fall', wherein a Renaissance Faire knight takes his job WAY too seriously.

The guy not only lives by the knight's code (if there ever was one set code, I so need to find that thing), he plays a lead-based miniature game involving knights storming a castle (a huge tabletop setup in his apartment made me want to go visit), AND he's apparently some sort of random generic 'crazy Pagan' to boot - the team finds a room in his house that was locked; it's got some altar, lots of random candles, banners of various Pagan roots, a great big book o' spells with a pentagram on the cover...and because of this finding, they immediately suspect he's a moron and has ingested something he shouldn't have from his herbal stash.

Because all Pagans totally do this. 3nodding  

[Brass Bell Doll]

AvalonAuggie

It's far from a realistic example, but an episode of Supernatural I caught recently (I watch it for the eye candy!) involved a small group of housewife witches who were chiefly interested in doing spellwork to win raffles and get better mortgage rates. It was a hoot!
They're very fond of hoodoo on that show, too.

I was trying to limit the scope because I don't think anyone is meant to take Scooby Doo, Buffy or Supernatural as being realistic.
But I like that example.

AvalonAuggie

Slightly OT, but I've been thinking a lot recently about religious worldviews in popular culture, how I often find the mythologies of movies or television shows confusing in the way they're presented and interpreted, and it makes me irrationally angry when my worldview doesn't match the interpretation the creators "want" me to have. I think a lot of it has to do with people writing for their audience, and if they want to put some myth and mysticism in their work, the stuff the audience is most familiar with is invariably going to be Abrahamic mythology.

...all this boils down to: I've got a big axe to grind with the people behind Lost, because dammit, they're just a couple of local deities embodying order and chaos and the world needs a mixture of both to survive! it's not God and the devil! it's not the ultimate good versus evil showdown! Stop writing cliched absolutist philosophy into your show that could have been so much more complex and morally ambiguous! Damn you Cuse and Lindelof!

I'm going to go to bed now because I've stopped making sense.

I can understand the frustration.
I had been thinking about how that is overlaid on a lot of Pagan representations in these kinds of series.

Byaggha

I think my favourite one recently has been the House episode 'Knight Fall', wherein a Renaissance Faire knight takes his job WAY too seriously.

The guy not only lives by the knight's code (if there ever was one set code, I so need to find that thing), he plays a lead-based miniature game involving knights storming a castle (a huge tabletop setup in his apartment made me want to go visit), AND he's apparently some sort of random generic 'crazy Pagan' to boot - the team finds a room in his house that was locked; it's got some altar, lots of random candles, banners of various Pagan roots, a great big book o' spells with a pentagram on the cover...and because of this finding, they immediately suspect he's a moron and has ingested something he shouldn't have from his herbal stash.

Because all Pagans totally do this. 3nodding

I need to see that one. And the episode of the Simpsons.  

[Cranium Squirrel]

Brass Bell Doll

I need to see that one. And the episode of the Simpsons.

Hulu. It was only a few weeks back, so it should be up. Well, House anyway. Not sure about Simpsons. 3nodding  

[rmcdra]

Byaggha

Brass Bell Doll

I need to see that one. And the episode of the Simpsons.

Hulu. It was only a few weeks back, so it should be up. Well, House anyway. Not sure about Simpsons. 3nodding

What's the name of that Simpsons episode? What's that episode of the Simpsons about?

Rednecks and Broomsticks  

[Bastemhet]

The premise of the movie Stargate really irritates me. My gods are not kidnapping, power hungry aliens, thank you very much. Problem is some people DO believe that. stare  

[Brass Bell Doll]

rmcdra

Byaggha

Brass Bell Doll

I need to see that one. And the episode of the Simpsons.

Hulu. It was only a few weeks back, so it should be up. Well, House anyway. Not sure about Simpsons. 3nodding

What's the name of that Simpsons episode? What's that episode of the Simpsons about?

Rednecks and Broomsticks

Thank you both.  

[Brass Bell Doll]

Bastemhet

The premise of the movie Stargate really irritates me. My gods are not kidnapping, power hungry aliens, thank you very much. Problem is some people DO believe that. stare

Do you feel that this stems from the Sumarian beliefs and is being applied generically to all pantheons, or do you feel it was random?  

[Bastemhet]

Brass Bell Doll

Bastemhet

The premise of the movie Stargate really irritates me. My gods are not kidnapping, power hungry aliens, thank you very much. Problem is some people DO believe that. stare

Do you feel that this stems from the Sumarian beliefs and is being applied generically to all pantheons, or do you feel it was random?

I don't know. I don't know too much about other religions besides my own. I just figured it was some sort of sci-fi fantasy being played out through use of the Kemetic pantheon since there were already conspiracy theories that they built the pyramids, or helped with their construction. What are the Sumerian beliefs that relate to this?  

[AvalonAuggie]

Brass Bell Doll

I can understand the frustration.
I had been thinking about how that is overlaid on a lot of Pagan representations in these kinds of series.

For the record, I don't feel that exploring any of various pagan mythologies in television is inherently better than exploring Christian mythology in its content(see Basthemet's Stargate example), but simply by the fact that it's not as often explored as biblical themes, it would be less expected by the viewers, and have a fresher, less overused feel. Which, imo, makes for better television writing.

Lost had been doing a pretty good job of keeping things ambiguous in previous seasons, and all the Egyptian style influences could have been used to impart a different...moral framework? for the show, but now that it's getting down to the wire the writers are really pushing a more classic Christian-influenced fantasy style morality, like "Hey everyone let's go kill the dark lord Sauron." and I'm wondering if they had intended to explore something like Ma'at but simply ran out of time.  

[Cranium Squirrel]

Bastemhet

Brass Bell Doll

Bastemhet

The premise of the movie Stargate really irritates me. My gods are not kidnapping, power hungry aliens, thank you very much. Problem is some people DO believe that. stare

Do you feel that this stems from the Sumarian beliefs and is being applied generically to all pantheons, or do you feel it was random?

I don't know. I don't know too much about other religions besides my own. I just figured it was some sort of sci-fi fantasy being played out through use of the Kemetic pantheon since there were already conspiracy theories that they built the pyramids, or helped with their construction.

It gets really fun when they start saying EVERY pantheon has that issue in the TV series. Chinese works of art and great building? Their pantheon was aliens! Nordic people develop really good weapons manufacture? Aliens! Greek fire and construction? Aliens!

Everything is aliens with these people. xd  

[Czidnoma]

Byaggha

It gets really fun when they start saying EVERY pantheon has that issue in the TV series. Chinese works of art and great building? Their pantheon was aliens! Nordic people develop really good weapons manufacture? Aliens! Greek fire and construction? Aliens!

Everything is aliens with these people. xd

I think that one day the writers heard, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." and thought, there's a show there!  

[Brass Bell Doll]

Czidnoma

I think that one day the writers heard, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." and thought, there's a show there!

Far from the first to do so.  

[Cranium Squirrel]

Czidnoma

I think that one day the writers heard, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." and thought, there's a show there!

I know, eh?

And the sadder part is, the characters make me giggle so much that I own all of SG-1 on DVD, even though I think the concept of every major advancement being alien-driven is silly.

Daniel is love.