Religion in the media

Religion in the media can be showed in many different ways, some positive, some not so positive. From the “hip” or “cool” religions like Hinduism and Buddhism to the religions that are viewed in a negative light like Jehovah’s Witnesses, media has represented them all.

Hinduism is the third most followed religion and is viewed in a poplar, “cool” light in the media. We aren’t fully aware of how we have adapted and use some of the terms in Hinduism. For example Eat, Pray, Love is a Hindu philosophy inspired movie that stars Julia Roberts who revealed back in 2010 that she practices Hinduism despite being raised Christian. Julia Roberts along with a long list of other celebrities have revealed to have converted or practice Hinduism. This list of celebrities include M.I.A., and Russell Brand whose 2010 wedding to Katy Perry was a traditional Hindu ceremony in India as well as Elizabeth Gilbert who is the author of Eat,Pray, Love along with many other books. These are just a few examples of a very long list of celebrities who practice Hinduism.

In addition to celebrities practicing Hinduism, religious symbols of Hinduism can also be mass recognized. Ganesha and the Om symbol are mass recognized even if people don’t know the names or the meaning behind them. Even if people don’t know the name Ganesha they can recognize the religious figure as “oh that’s the elephant guy” though most people don’t know what he represents as a god. Ganesha is believed to be the remover of obstacles, he is the patron of arts and sciences and the deva of intellect and wisdom. He is one of the most worshipped deities which could be a reason as to why so many people know of him, or can recognize him. Now Om is a spiritual symbol that materializes in a sound. Om refers to soul or self within along with something called Brahman, which is ultimate reality, entirety of the universe, truth, divine, supreme spirit, cosmic principles, and knowledge. It means different specific things in different schools and teachings and can mean something different to each person.

Some people don’t know the depth of these religious symbols when they go ahead and get an Om tattoo because it’s popular or “cool”. Or some people get tattoos knowing their meaning but don’t know what’s respectful or disgraceful in a religion on the placement of religious tattoos. For example, Buzzfeed posted an article about an Australian man who went on vacation to India. While eating at a restaurant him and his girlfriend were mobbed and harassed by locals. He had a tattoo of a hindu goddess tattooed on his calf which some locals found offensive. They even went as far as to threaten to skin off the tattoo on his leg. He was taken to the police station and was held there for three hours with the mob still outside. He was only released after being forced to write an apology letter. Another example of religious ceremonies being used as a “cool” thing to do is Holi. Holi is a religious ceremony that has become mass recognised and is practiced in non-Hindu communities. It is even enjoyed in the comfort of our Putney community. Holi is a spring festival also known as the festival of love or the festival of colors. It has become popular in the media and has a “cool” sort of feeling associated to it since it’s fun and colorful and you get to throw colored powder at complete strangers.  

In addition, we also have adapted some words from other religions and use them in our day to day vocabulary. The major one we use is karma. Now the word karma isn’t directly affiliated with media however it is a word that you hear fairly often in conversation. I hear people say pretty often say karma to explain a bad event. Karma (in Hinduism and Buddhism) means the sum of a person’s actions in this and previous states of existence, determining their future existences. Some people explain it as “what goes around comes around”. In addition, a hindu goddess also made an appearance during a light show on the empire state building. Back in August, the Hindu goddess Kali made an appearance on the Empire state building. The image of Kali was used because Android Jones the artist in charge of the light show wanted to provide a “fierce new avatar” in the fight against pollution, and extinction. Kali is the goddess of time, creation, change, preservation and empowerment.

Now let’s talk about the most followed religion in the world. Christianity. Along with it being the most followed religion in the world 77% of the US identify as Christian.However, even though the majority of the US identifies as Christian some branches of Christianity are viewed in a negative light on social media. Take Jehovah’s witnesses for example. They are viewed as annoying or bad in the media, there are numerous sites saying how to get rid of Jehovah’s witnesses or how annoying they are. Along with certain branches of Christianity being viewed in a negative light in the media, social media also shows people’s opinions which sometimes can take this religion lightly and devalue what the religion represents. For example here are some tweets about Jesus. “Big deal Jesus, so your dad sent you here to suffer & die, that’s what all the rest of us are doing too”, “Jesus died for your sin, cos, and tan so it’s OK if you’re bad at math.”, “Shark jesus died for my fins.”, “remember teens: even Jesus once logged off for 3 days”. Everyone knows about Jesus and has the general concept of what he did. But how does it effect a religion when it is popular and people who don’t follow the religion pass opinions on the religion? And this question doesn’t only apply to Christianity but also to Hinduism as well.

Now I’m going to move on to Islam, the second most followed religion in the world. Muslims face a lot of prejudice in our media, traveling, and day to day life in the US. After 9/11 this country faced many misconceptions about muslims all being terrorists, there are a lot of stories out there about Muslims having to be been faced with additional “random” airport screening the majority of the time they travel. An example of the day to day prejudice that Muslims face is a 19 year-old high school student from New Jersey had a video of her posted on snapchat without her consent. The video was taken by one of her classmates who has put the words “ISIS <3” and then put on her classmates story. She reported the offense to her school district who investigated the situation and told her that there was no evidence of “harassment, intimidation, or bullying”

Another example of not just Muslim prejudice but racism is what happened at a New Hampshire rally for Donald Trump. A man who was at the rally proceeded to ask Trump “We have a problem in this country, It’s called Muslims. We know our current president is one.You know he’s not even American. We have training camps growing where they want to kill us. That’s my question: When can we get rid of them?” to which Trump responded with “We’re going to be looking at a lot of different things. A lot of people are saying that, and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there. We’re going to be looking at that and plenty of other things” and then moved on to other questions. Obama was born in Hawaii and practices Christianity. However Trump has for a long time fed conspiracies about Obama not being from the US but instead being from Kenya. This doesn’t just show someone asking how we can get rid of an entire group of people solely based on their religion having extremists that have been responsible for terrorist attacks but also stating something about Obama has some truth to it but  overstates Obama’s relationship with the Islam religion that tries to discredit Obama’s presidency.