schmevil

Hindus are upset over the depiction of their gods in "Hammer of the Gods" episode in the "Supernatural" TV series reportedly aired on April 22 and say that such trivialization of their sacred deities was disturbing.

Acclaimed Hindu statesman Rajan Zed, in a statement in Nevada (USA) today, said that Lord Ganesh and Goddess Kali were highly revered in Hinduism and such absurd depiction of them with no scriptural backing was hurtful to the devotees. Ganesh and Kali were meant to be worshiped in temples or home shrines and not to be thrown around loosely in re-imagined versions for dramatic effects in TV series.

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I don't buy arguments that the writers didn't know what they were doing. Of course they knew - that's why they came up with the idea of gods eating people in the first place. (Pagans + cannibalism = you know what the hell it equals!) They've extended it from ancient pagan gods, to those of contemporary world religions and of course they knew that people would be offended. They also knew that by throwing in some fights and a world turtle joke, a lot more people would laugh it off.

On the other hand, I don't think that they were deliberately tying to hurt people. They were ~pushing boundaries with their edgy humor. Rationalization, right? They knew people would be offended, but you know, it's just a tv series, and what's a little cannibalism between friends? We're writing fake!gods who eat people, so why should we research them thoroughly? La la la. That, I think is the thought process: We aren't trying to depict actual gods and goddesses, so why should we bother with accuracy?

I think... I think Stargate handled gods-as-people-exploiting-creatures better.

And it's funny. The episode was undeniably offensive, but I can see why they went there. It makes sense in their internal mythology. They'd already established that 'pagan gods' were actually creatures who fed off of humanity's devotion, and sometimes even its flesh. They'd already more or less established that the Abrahamic god was THE god. So it's easier from a storytelling perspective to make all contemporary gods into pagan gods. They don't have to deal with the issue of rival pantheons, or rival apocalypses. Not really. But that's an easy choice that leads to some bad - and hard to resolve - results. The better choice may have been to showcase an assembly of cannibal-gods from extinct religions. Another option was to introduce the gods earlier in the season, and treat them with some kind of narrative respect. Developed them as individual supporting characters. Or even developed the idea of pagan gods more thoroughly.

What do you think? How could they have maintained their "the gods are a sham! also, they eat people" thing, and not racefailed all over the place? Can that problematic trope be presented in a non-racist (albeit not unproblematic) way? Point me to some fiction where this was done really well.


Yes, this post was inspired by the numerous threads on the anonmeme.


Also, hey, speaking of the anonmeme - I fully anonfailed there the other day and asked for recs from the latest D/C exchange. None were forthcoming. Got any for me flist?

Although I read (and sometimes write) slash, I've never really considered slash to be an important part of my fannish identity. I'm as likely to fall for a het ship, or femslash ship, as a slash ship, and it's even more likely for me to not ship much of anything at all. And although I have many friends in the slash community, I don't consider it to be my fannish home base.

So what makes a slasher? Are you a slasher? Why do you consider yourself to be (or not to be) a slasher?

[Poll #1347864]