Making Fun of Religion
Last night, I saw the movie Borat (very funny if you like that kind of Anchorman or Napolian Dynamite type of humor). There’s a scen towards the end of the movie where they are obviously making fun of religion–the main character, Borat from Katzakistan, is “Christianized” by a fundamentalist group, by you can tell that he doesn’t understand the concept of Jesus or being saved.
A lot of popular culture these days makes fun of religion. We have two options here–be offended or laugh. I choose to laugh, because when it comes down to it, that scene in the movie is pretty funny.
Now, I’m not saying that we should make fun of God or Jesus or any other religions figure. It’s kind of like using the Lord’s name in vain–not a good thing. However, I think that sometimes we have to step back from it a bit and be able to laugh at ourselves: our religious traditions, our ideas, and our lifestyle. Seeing it through the eyes of someone from a very different culture makes this easy to do. It also makes us aware of our own prejudices and shortcomings.
Will some people be offended by the movie Borat? Oh yes. Very much so. I urge you to give it a chance, however, and if it’s not your cup of tea, at least give things that make religion laughable a chance. Life is funny, even religious parts of life.
movie, Borat, religion, Jesus, popular culture, laugh, God, funny
November 5th, 2006 at 6:33 pm
I have encountered this issue often.
I would be at home with my mother watching comedy central, and would both be laughing. Then a religous joke would come up and she would get stern faced, and more often than not I would laugh.
There are some people, like my mom, who don’t laugh at anything religous; I don’t blame them.
I have my lines though. People like Carlos Mencia who take religous jokes too far, and have no understanding of religion. (He claims after his religous jokes that since he is Christian all he has to do is say “sorry” and he is forgiven). After the raunchy jokes and such he performs, you know he is no sorry about them. But hey… let people like that make jokes… and then we can laugh when the are burning in hell… right? =)