EPISODE 907: MARVEL JESUS
Also, Who is Tik Tok?
POP CULTURE SPIRIT WOW
Hi and welcome back to Pop Culture Spirit Wow, the newsletter that wonders whether Christmas came twice this year, because Jon Stewart is back at The Daily Show.
This week we’ve got foot washings, Catholic Churches freaking out over the word “whore,” and Ryan Reynolds (thank God).
THE WOWND UP
During the Super Bowl Marvel released for Deadpool 3, now known as Deadpool & Wolverine. It’s pretty great.
Reynolds kids about being Marvel Jesus, but there is something about him that seems able to continue to cut through where a lot of Marvel stuff doesn’t. Maybe it’s as simple as the fact that Marvel and Disney allow him to ridicule them. (The pegging line—wow.)
But I think it’s also that Reynolds just doesn’t seem to be in it for the pay check, his career, or anything else beyond a fun time. His brand at this point is basically Best Version of Us Guy, no anxieties, just joy; or Dumb Luck Guy, who fell into a good thing and is still pinching himself.
It really resonates. I’d be stunned if Marvel didn’t try to keep him around.
Dunkin Donuts (sure, okay) also released a Super Bowl ad in which Ben Affleck tries to force his wife Jennifer Lopez to give him a track on her new record. Affleck adopts the sort of Southie accent he had in Good Will Hunting, which tell me if I’m wrong but maybe he should always have, because it just works for him.
He also puts himself in the position of “old guy who doesn’t understand things.” Which as someone his age is um, unsettling?
But then I realized, He’s Acting. So I’m fine.
There’s a great Tik Tok joke in there. I’ve been on the Tok occasionally, but not often enough to really appreciate it. And I’m fascinated by nomenclature. Does one Tik? Is a post called a Tok?
Also, what is the significance of Tik Tok’s name? Twitter is a playful take on the idea of people chattering with one another. X is a playful take on absolutely nothing, hence the app’s current post apocalyptic ghost town vibes.
Facebook’s name came from Mark Zuckerberg’s first app, FaceMash, which set out to evaluate female classmates’ beauty based on their physical appearance. So gross.
The name “Tik Tok” has all the playfulness of Twitter. But what does it mean? Does it refer to the fact that the media presented on Tik Tok is short?
Perhaps it’s a statement on social media users’ constant hunger for new content, as in Tik Tok media producers, what do you have for me today?
Or is it a slyly ironic confrontation with the ephemerality of human existence? Our brief sojourn through this life is passing so quickly, and hey, look how we are spending it.
HEY LOOK, MA, IT’S A CREEPY FOOT WASHING
In addition to Old Man Affleck, the Super Bowl also featured three religious-themed ads. One of my favorite newsletters, Modern Relics, did a fun round-up on the ads, including spotlighting this cut from one such ad to a secular ad that is everything.
The most high profile ad features a series of tableaux of people washing one another’s feet in various settings—at school; in a messy kitchen; outside a family planning center; near oil rigs (?)—yeah, there are a number of very weird settings, including outside an old shack that looks like the place you see as you float down the river at the start of the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
The end tagline is that “Jesus didn’t teach hate, he washed feet,” which is great, if a little fetish-y. (Check out Modern Relics for more on that.)
But there’s something super creepy about these scenes. I think it has something to do with the fact that the tableaux are so highly constructed—you have the sense that everything in the scene is Highly Significant. It’s the kind of move that Renaissance religious paintings often made to establish the importance of the Baby Jesus.
But here it ends up reducing the people to stereotypes. So we have White Cop and Black Kid; Suburban Mom (neé Karen) and Latina migrant; Native American and Old Cowboy (which is shot near a campfire and an old pick-up, in another weird, not-of-this-world scene). And everything is super bright and really stiff. Nothing moves. It feels like something out of a Katy Perry video, but with plastic in place of life and sparkle.
If you’ve ever actually seen a washing of the feet ceremony (done well), the thing that’s really striking is how little it ends up being about whose feet are getting washed, or who’s doing it. It’s all about the washing itself, the vulnerability and the tenderness of that moment.
Christian theological riff powers, activate!
Christianity’s fundamental belief is that God so loved the physicality of creation that God came, lived and died as an actual flesh and blood person. Most Catholic churches literally have a sculpture of a mostly-naked and bleeding man hanging from a cross, emphasizing not only Jesus’ sacrifice but his physicality.
And yet for hundreds and hundreds of years guys in pretty robes have stood below that bleeding man teaching people to fear their bodies and see physical intimacy as at best a necessary evil.
Not great, you guys.
The washing of the feet is the one moment where the Church puts aside all of that and allows some of the intimacy that is at the heart of our faith (and more importantly our lives) to be experienced and celebrated. It’s a really important experience.
A (creepy, plastic) snapshot just can’t express that.
ST. PATRICK’S CATHEDRAL ESTABLISHES A WHORE-FREE ZONE
The New York Times reported this weekend that St. Patrick’s Cathedral had a “Mass of reparation” yesterday to I don’t know, “heal” its space? after the Church hosted a packed funeral for transgender activist Cecilia Gentili, who was celebrated by one eulogist as a “whore.”
It’s pretty much exactly the story you expect, but it begins in an unexpected place. The cathedral knew who Gentili was, and still agreed to do the funeral. I feel like that’s important to note. It suggests that initially someone at the cathedral had their heart (and faith) in the right place.
But after the right wing got hold of what went on and posted clips, suddenly church officials were denouncing the event and implying the Mass constituted an evil act that had to be washed out of the church (which, Wow).
A lot of it seems to have come down to the use of the word “puta,” which can mean “whore” or “bitch” in Spanish, and was translated at the ceremony as “whore.” The term of praise used to express how bold and loving Cecilia Gentili was. In the very next sentence the eulogist referred to her as “Saint Cecilia.” She was this incredible force for good for a lot of people ignored by society. She co-founded a free healthcare clinic for sex workers here in New York, the first center of its kind on the East Coast. She also founded a consulting firm to help trans women of color, immigrants, sex workers and incarcerated people to have a greater voice and place in society. And before the pandemic she was the director of policy for GMHC, which for over 40 years has been our preeminent HIV/AIDS support and prevention center.
So sure, some of the language might not be what the Church would generally use (although don’t tell me there aren’t rectories where the term “whore” has been used affectionately, because honey, I’ve been in them). But the sentiments actually being expressed were very Catholic—this was a person of tremendous good works, self-sacrifice, courage and generosity.
It’s too bad that the people who should have known that let fear get the better of them.
I HAVE FINISHED SEASON 2 OF SEX AND THE CITY. I HAVE THOUGHTS.
Apparently Sex and the City is where the hot young actors go before their big break. Season 2 Boyfriends-of-the-Week include Will Arnett. Justin Theroux. Bradley Cooper. Jon Bon Jovi. Also, Valerie Harper!
Carrie’s relationship with Big is very father/daughter and it is creeping me out.
I am no fashion maven, but this look…
…so many questions.
We love you, Steve.
Would someone please give Charlotte something to do?
I BET IT’S GOOD THOUGH
I love listening to people talk about their lives. Here’s what looks like a great piece in the Guardian with the people who work behind the scenes on British transportation.
MOMENT OF WOW
There was one other Catholic Super Bowl ad that got me. It featured actor Mark Wahlberg, who invited people to “stay prayed up” for Lent.
What does it mean to “stay prayed up?” To me it suggests prayers are like nuts to be collected and stored for winter. Or prayer is like leg week, an activity we don’t necessarily want to do but that builds up necessary strength.
I don’t like these analogies. Prayer is definitely not something that you store up, like Superman storing up the radiation of the yellow sun so that he can fly and punch hard and also not get hurt. In fact, I’d say regular prayer makes you more likely to feel things.
Prayer is not something you do “harder” so you can get better at it, either. Prayer is not push ups, and thank God, because push ups are just the worst.
For me, prayer is about learning to be open and to listen. For those who are believers, I’d say it’s an activity that is meant to help you connect with God. And for those who aren’t, I think it’s about being more connected to the world around us.
For the next few weeks, I’m going to offer a weekly spiritual activity to subscribers, starting with a free one for everybody tomorrow. My goal is not to convert anybody to anything religious—I mean, have you been reading the Substack ha ha ha?
But some of these experiences have really helped me in my life, and maybe they can be of use to you too.
To Be Continued…