Comment by armandososa | Hacker News Reader

Comment by armandososa | Hacker News Reader

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Before clicking the title I thought "Flanderization" referred to another phenomenon I've noticed.

Here comes a rant.

I'm a christian protestant, have been a christian protestant my whole life and I live in Mexico, where being a christian protestant is not the norm. So I am used to the media making fun of me, or people like me and my family.

At 40 it seems just normal, you know? "Ha! christians are so backward-thinking close-minded goofus people" is a recurring trope and even I will laugh if the joke is funny. I also recognize that a lot of the mocking is well deserved. People like that do exist and they do harm.

But, recently I've been noting how Hollywood and media in general is bent on not showing any kind of positive representation of christians.

Take the Tolkien biopic (2019) for example, where there's not even a passing mention of him being a Catholic and the great importance theology and religion had on his work and on his life. I'm now expecting the new Amazon LOTR series to tone-down or even subvert the obvious christian motifs of Tolkien own works.

Another example is A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (2019), based on the life of Mr. Rogers. Like I said, I grew up in Mexico and I didn't know anything about Fred Rogers, but 15 minutes into the movie I was incredulous on how saintly the man was portrayed to be. Turns out he was not only a Christian but a presbyterian minister, something which the movie goes greats lengths to "hide".

I'm not saying people should not make negative portrayals of christians (or any other religious group), but come on, wouldn't be great to have a positive representation of a christian minister who is good and kind and very anti-racist? I guess we'll never know.

I think that it should be remembered that there are maybe a few things at play.

1. Christianity of some flavor is the dominant religion in the west by a huge margin. Media can make fun of Christians safely because it is punching up. Punching up is pretty safe. Pick on any other religion and you are punching down. Punching down when it comes to identity is pretty dangerous.

2. A minority of Christians loudly do very un-Christian things in the name of Christ. You won't see people making light of faith based organizations that feed the poor. You WILL see people making fun of evangelical ministers with private jets. I'm not a Christian or a bibilical scholar, but I have a hard time believing that Jesus would approve of a lot of the more right-leaning American christians.

"Punching up" only goes so far. It's not an unlimited license. The idea is that it counters prevailing culture, and is funny because of that. It's almost self-deprecating.

But there isn't much of a pop culture of Christian values today. All positive messges about Christians are supressed in pop culture. The elite are largely secular or keep their religion very quiet and personal (except for politicians from districts where Christianity is a political advantage).

I don't think punching up really applies in this context. Laughs about Christians feel more exclusionary and negative... more like "let's laugh at that idiot" than a positive "I see some of that character in myself, haha".

Christianity is not the dominant religion of the ruling or media class in any meaningful sense, most likely not even in a nominal sense. It’s hard to understand how it’s “punching up” for rich billionaires to mock the beliefs of predominantly the working classes and rural areas.

Christianity was far more dominant in Mexico and France, but in neither case did it prevent secularists from slaughtering Christians in huge numbers e.g. The cristero war and the war in the Vendee.

> wouldn't be great to have a positive representation of a christian minister who is good and kind and very anti-racist?

Isn't that how MLK Jr is portrayed or am I missing something?

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