Talk:Cultural depictions of Jesus

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Contents

[edit] The Merge

Discussion of the merge is taking place on Talk:Dramatic portrayals of Jesus#Concerning_the_merger_with_Jesus_in_Pop_culture Copysan 23:30, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Jesus action figure? Arch O. La | TCF member 19:52, 4 March 2006 (UTC)

Yeah...haven't you ever heard of it?--ikiroid | (talk) 20:01, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
Theres even a related Moses action figure. Copysan 23:01, 4 March 2006 (UTC)
I was not aware of that...is there a Moses in Pop culture article?--ikiroid | (talk) 03:20, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

Judging by the red link, no. I'm a little uncomfortable about religious action figures...I don't exactly worship G. I. Joe! Arch O. LaTalkTCF 03:25, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Move to In Popular Culture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:In_popular_culture There is a category called In Popular Culture, with many other pages like this. Maybe this page should be renamed and then join this category? Dwayne Kirkwood 05:08, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Valid Content & Paintings

Hey. Please stop removing valid content, eg NOFX, etc. that has been recently added. In Regards to "In Painting", I suggest that you add examples, as this is the basis of 'in popular culture'. Please make sure they adhere to 'in popular culture' also. You mentioned paintings over the last 2000 years, not exactly popular culture. Thanks Dwayne Kirkwood 20:07, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Define "valid content". There are literally thousands of songs and TV shows that mention Jesus, but so what? This article is not List of everything that ever mentioned Jesus. wikipediatrix 15:31, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
I would think that shows that actually have him as a character are valid. Mentions obviously is not as valid, as you point out. Dwayne Kirkwood 02:28, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] NPOV

There is a particular issue here, however, that I am surprised has not been addressed sooner. Does wikipedia's policy on a neutral point of view extend to the information itself, or does it only neutralize the presentation of the information? As I understand it, it only extends to the presentation of the facts, and not the facts themselves. Of course, I may be wrong, but you don't see other articles about controversial topics counting the "good" and "bad" facts and making sure they equal each other.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 01:35, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

NPOV specifically speaks to the elements/facts of the matter being described. When discussing Satan, Hitler, or Saddam Hussein, there's no need to only list enough evils to equal the few virtues of the person/entity. As long as the facts are presented in a neutral manner, they are valid for inclusion. Omission of any other pertinent facts (such as virtuous facts for Jesus in pop culture) does not constitute an unbalanced article, it just constitutes an article in progress (as is the definition of wikipedia). If someone feels the article is unfairly balanced in representation, then they should effect the improvement of the article by adding appropriate virtuous facts as they see fit. ju66l3r 10:09, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
I concur entirely in the sentiments of Ju and, to the extent that the latter are ostensibly orthogonal with the former, of Ikiroid as well. Joe 03:57, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] This article should NOT be a list of trivia

I never expected that this article would end up like a list of trivia, but it has. Is the fact that there is a statue of Jesus in a videogame notable? No. Why not define the pattern and effects of Jesus in these different media, instead of listing a series of random examples? Any ideas?--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 15:44, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

From what I can see from other "in popular culture" articles, they tend to be lists of where the particular subject appears in popular culture, or as you put it, trivia. I do agree the statue reference was weak, but I'd argue the television references should be left as seperate mentions rather than a combined reference that loses all of the point (as the detail is mostly erased). Dwayne Kirkwood 21:35, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Maybe not trivia, but I do think significant usage of Jesus in culture should be used. I think the reference I added to the Jesus Show on radio station KFI is significant. Los Angeles is not a small market, and it is a whole show "hosted" by Jesus, so I see it as worth noting. Bytebear 04:57, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam

The song by the Vaselines is called "Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam" - See The Vaselines compilation album. The Nirvana cover is incorrectly labelled "Jesus doesn't want me for a sunbeam", as the main lyric is "Jesus doesn't want me for a Sunbeam". Still, the song is not called that, so please don't correct it as it's in reference to the Vaselines. Dwayne Kirkwood 23:56, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural depictions of Jesus?

I see that Jesus already has three cultural pages and that a merger is under discussion. I'd like to suggest a model for resolving this: Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc is a featured list that covers various aspects of high culture and popular culture in organized sections. It's an approach I'm suggesting for other biographies included in Wikipedia's Core Biographies project and might be a good model for editors here. Respectfully, Durova 18:11, 17 October 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Article Name

The article name should be "Jesus Christ in popular culture". "in popular culture" is in lower case, which matches all of the other in popular culture articles (see the catagory linked at the bottom of the page. Also, there shouldn't be a fullstop at the end of the page title as there is now. If someone can get it moved that'd be great. Chopper Dave 22:27, 18 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recent Reverts

Incase you haven't noticed, the article is already well overflown. In most cases that i've seen, eventually the article is selectively edited - however it is edited around verifability, rather than user POV. Considering the clothing section of the page is sparce, reverting new verified content here is ridiculously. What could be reduced on the other side of things is the music section - references like "The lead single off The Killers sophomore album Sam's Town, "When You Were Young" features a line stating "He doesn't look a thing like Jesus" in the chorus." are not notable at all and should be removed. Infact, most of the music section should be stuck into a simple table, Artist & Track. Chopper Dave 23:38, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

The clothing section is sparse because there isn't enough notable material to justify having a separate clothing section in the first place - I'm therefore going to fold that one back into the Miscellaneous section, which should have been done some time ago. If you want to reduce non-notable entries in the Music section that's fine - but then don't keep adding additional non-notable entries elsewhere. The reason the Music section is large is because there happens to be a large number of well-known songs - and an entire Christian music genre - which mention Jesus. CC80 12:08, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
The Cradle of Filth entry is only the fourth sourced item on the page. If you want to remove something else due to space considerations, pick something else. I also see no reason to have removed the clothing section, except to try to further rationalize your removal of the Cradle of Filth entry. It's sourced, it's valid, it relates to a different part of "popular culture" than the rest of the article, therefore there is no valid policy-based non-POV reason to remove it. wikipediatrix 15:05, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
If someone wants to add a new entry, then it's up to that person to justify it. We can weed out older non-notable entries if you wish - but the presence of any such entries does not justify adding yet another non-notable item. CC80 19:22, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
I'm sorry you think it's non-notable, and I'm sorry you felt it necessary to violate WP:3RR. Since Cradle of Filth is notable enough to have their own article here, and since the t-shirt incident was notable enough to be reported in the news media, I have no idea what standard of notability you are applying. Feel free to quote any Wikipedia policy you think supports your idea of notability. If you intend to continue reverting this information, let's go ahead and take it to mediation or arbitration. wikipediatrix 20:19, 20 October 2006 (UTC)
Not only has the uproar caused by the shirt been notable enough to have been included in the news media, but it has also been mentioned in a couple of books, some of them also notable enough to have their own WP articles, such as Lords of Chaos. The reference I included was just the first respectable thing that came up on Google, but others could very easily be found.
One interesting thing about the portrayal of Jesus in contemporary popular culture is that not all portrayals are warm and fuzzy, or even respectful. For example, Piss Christ, a rather infamous photograph of a crucifix submerged in a jar of the artist's urine. There is an increasing trend to blaspheme and desecrate the image of Jesus, which would previously have been unthinkable but is nigh unstoppable under contemporary freedom of speech laws etc. And many artists are taking advantage of this, to make some pretty provocative statements.
I think that the proposed merge with 'dramatic portrayals of Christ' won't work, because there are many important facets of the Christ-meme in popular culture which have nothing to do with theatrical/cinematographic representations, but are notable enough to be included in an encyclopedia because they are topics on which a reader might conceivably want to conduct research. I have read about the concept of a 'POV fork' on WP, and it would appear that this proposed merge is similar, only not a fork.
While the editor who keeps removing the statement claims it is not out of a desire to censor the encyclopedia, personally I have my doubts. Nonetheless, I hope that my argument above, as well as those of the other contributors who can address the situation critically, will help to convince everyone that that paragraph should be included.
As far as the music section goes, I agree it could be chopped a bit, to remove redundancy. And there is not really any mention of how black metal artists, among others, choose to portray Jesus...but I shan't bother adding to that yet, until I can find proper third-party references. The Crying Orc 13:00, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mege

I have merged Dramatic Portrayals of Jesus into this page. YankeeDoodle14 06:44, 27 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Where is Africa?????

check this, the largest following of Jesus is where? Brazil and Africa. Yet where are the Black versions of Jesus. this article is not a worldview hence the tag. See Ethiopia if you cant find an image. --HalaTruth(ሐላቃህ) 00:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

An traditional Ethiopian depiction of Jesus and Mary with distinctively "Ethiopian" features.
An traditional Ethiopian depiction of Jesus and Mary with distinctively "Ethiopian" features.
    • If you'd like to add information about African depictions than do so. Just make sure that they are well sourced and organized. The reason there are so few references to Africa is that America and Britain produce a huge volume of movies and television shows, especially in comparison with Africa - and therefore there are going to be more Anglo-American movie and television listings than there are for other countries. Since, as you can see, movies and television depictions take up most of the room in this article there are a disproportionate amount of Anglo-American depictions.
Also factoring into this is that the majority of editors on Wikipedia (myself included) are American, and know comparatively little about African culture.
All of this said, the lack of African depictions listed in this article has nothing to do with race, and a lot to do with lack of information among the editors of this article. So please, if you can add references to African depictions, do so. YankeeDoodle14 18:43, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Music

I find it weird that the section on music deals only with popular, and not classical, music. Why is there nothing about the oratorios and the stuff by guys like Bach (St. Matthew Passion, etc.), Handel's Messiah, etc.? Tom129.93.17.135 03:23, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Someone could add reference to Queen. They have at least two songs about Jesus, other one is named "Jesus" from the album Queen I (lyrics: http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Queen/Jesus.html) and the another one "Mad the swine" (lyrics: http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/Queen/Mad-The-Swine.html) it is about second coming of Jesus and how the people think he's just a madman claiming to be reborn Jesus —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.166.118.95 (talk) 08:51, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fair use rationale for Image:JesusActionFigure.jpg

Image:JesusActionFigure.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Wikipedia:Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images lacking such an explanation can be deleted one week after being tagged, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.

BetacommandBot (talk) 19:02, 2 January 2008 (UTC)