My Response to "I'd first like to thank GOD!"

This is my response to Vanessa's post about celebrities thanking God during their acceptance speech:

Your post got me thinking about another group that praises God regularly: athletes.

As a sports fan, I often find it ridiculous when athletes, after a big win, will start their post-game interview by saying, "First, I'd like to thank our lord and saviour Jesus Christ." Former St. Louis Ram, New York Giant and Arizona Cardinal quarterback Kurt Warner was fond of saying this. In Warner's eyes, God, it seemed, had a vested interest in the goings-on of professional athletes.

The thing I always wondered was: do these same athletes praise God after they lose or is God only on their side when they win? Did Kurt Warner thank Jesus after his Arizona Cardinals lost to the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Super Bowl XLIII? I wonder.

Then something occurred this past NFL season that surprised even me. After he dropped a game-winning touchdown catch in overtime against the Steelers, Buffalo Bill wide receiver Steve Johnson went on Twitter and actually blamed God for dropping the pass. Yes, he blamed God. The Tweet went as followed:

"I PRAISE YOU 24/7!!!!!! AND THIS HOW YOU DO ME!!!!! YOU EXPECT ME TO LEARN FROM THIS??? HOW???!!! ILL NEVER FORGET THIS!! EVER!! THX THO..."

While most people ridiculed Johnson's statement as asinine, I found it refreshing that Johnson would not let God off the hook for his drop, even if he still manages to thank God at the end.

But Johnson's tweet was exactly what I was looking for. He brought home the point that if God is with you when you win, he must also play a role when you lose.

I do not know if these athletes and celebrities are consciously making a decision to thank God (OK, Kurt Warner most definitely is), but the end result is still the same.

Whether Scarlet Johannson or Kathy Griffin's quotes are crass or not is beside the point. Think about what Johannson said. At the end of the day, does God really give a darn if Kurt Warner won a football game or if so-and-so won a Golden Globe? According to the people who thank God, I suppose he does.

My Beef With Dustin Kidd

The Notorious B.I.G. said it best: "What's beef? Beef is when you need two gats to go to sleep. Beef is when you roll no less than 30 deep. Beef is when I see you, guaranteed to be in I.C.U."

My beef with Dustin Kidd does not go that deep. There will be no East Coast-West Coast feud here. I will not take the roll of Tupac to Kidd's Biggie Smalls. As they say in the rap game, I'll keep this on wax.

That said, I do take issue with his article. The crux of his argument, based around Emile Durkheim's theories on the usefulness of crime, posits that there are five ways (creating norms, maintaining boundaries, developing rituals, producing innovation, and producing social change) in which to judge the validity of pop culture. The example that Kidd uses is the Harry Potter series.

After spending his time defending Harry Potter, Kidd takes a shot at reality television and pro wrestling by saying on pages 86-87 that those two "may really be the cause of some social ills in the twenty-first century."

I stated in class that I am an unabashed fan of pro wrestling. In fact, I have been for over 25 years. My first experience was when my Dad took me to Copps Coliseum to see Hulk Hogan take on Roddy Piper in 1986. From that day forth, I was hooked. I make no apologies for my fandom. I am not ashamed to admit that I watch Monday Night Raw and Friday Night Smackdown every week, or that I attended SummerSlam at the Air Canada Centre in 2004, or that I count being at the SkyDome in 2002 for WrestleMania X-8 to witness The Rock take on Hulk Hogan as one of my life's greatest moments. I am proud to be a fan of professional wrestling.

My problem does not lie with Kidd not liking pro wrestling. That is his decision to make, after all. My problem lies with him categorizing pop culture institutions into the spheres of defensible and indefensible. As we saw with Elona's post, you can find a way to defend nearly anything.

And that, in the end, is my problem. Kidd has created a checklist for us to measure our interests against. It is almost as if Kidd's need to justify his choices to someone who questioned him means he believes that we all must do the same. At the end of the day, we like what we like. So Kidd can read his copy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets while I to pop in my DVD copy of WrestleMania X-8 and relive the epic encounter between The Rock and Hulk Hogan, with neither of us having a checklist by our side when we do so.

My Response to "Are the Duggars Good Role Models?"

You can read Georgia's post in its entirety, and I suggest you do, but here is my response to what she wrote about the Duggar family from TLC's 19 Kids and Counting:

Well, I'm glad my post could inspire another. Interesting because when I was thinking about Ned and the gang, I tried to think of other families on television that might also be ripe for criticism. The Duggars were not one of them, if only because I do not watch their program.

While we can argue whether the Duggars are role models for young people – the show is on TLC after all, not exactly a known hotbed for young viewership – the fact still remains that they have a platform to espouse their beliefs. On top of which, TLC, by airing their show, bares some responsibility for what information the Duggars present to their audience. It is a slippery slope to air a television program that would have these anti-birth control beliefs as its premise, which is exactly what this show is based around, or at least conceived (pardon the pun) around. This show would not exist had the Duggar parents not been anti-birth control. There would be no 19 kids, there would be no television cameras, and there would be no fame. Like you said, the Duggars created their own fame. This is just as dangerous as what Paris Hilton did. I do not mean to offend anyone by comparing the Duggars to Paris Hilton, but their respective rises to fame are not all that dissimilar.

The other area that I am equally as uncomfortable with is the idea of the “buddy system.” These children did not choose to be in this family, yet they bear the responsibility of raising their brothers and sisters? Something about that just doesn’t seem right to me. Thrusting child rearing on them does not seem like the right way to go about teaching your children about responsibility. Besides, what kind of example are the parents setting by basically saying, “Have as many kids as you want. You can just get the older ones to raise them.” Not a good one, in my opinion.

Very thought provoking post.

Are the Flanders Good Christian Role Models?

The Flanders Family

Alright, here goes the first one.

Everyone thinks of the Flanders family from The Simpsons as a good, wholesome, Christian family. They care for others, they go to church religiously (pardon the pun) and seem to be pure and good in every possible way.

But one thing springs to mind when looking at the Flanders: are they good Christian role models?

In class we watched the classic episode of The Simpsons entitled "Homer the Heretic." In that episode Homer quits going to church. During the course of the episode various characters try to convince Homer to return to church: we have Marge questioning whether Homer has lost his faith and Rev. Lovejoy going to the Simpson residence for dinner (and sharing a hilarious exchange quoting Bible verses). But it is the lengths that the Flanders go to "win [Homer] back to the flock" that have me questioning whether they are good Christian role models.

It almost seems as if the Flanders view Homer's desertion of the church as some kind of personal insult. They ambush Homer while he is at home, knocking on his door to sing the Christian hymn "Rise and Shine" in the hopes that he will change his mind Then, after Homer rebukes them, they ambush him again by continuing their singing while Homer is driving his. When Homer attempts to speed away, the Flanders give chase. The whole scenario ends with Homer headed to Garbage Island.

The lack of tolerance for Homer deciding to discontinue going to churhc shows that the Flanders are more interested in keeping their church's numbers up than they are in being true to any faith. This lack of acceptance is something I find very problematic.

So, are the Flanders good Christian role models? I'd have to say, based on how they are presented in this particular episode, no. The Flanders clan comes off as pushy Christians who believe that the only way is their way.

P.S. If Marge and the kids are at church when Homer sets the house on fire, how is Ned available to save Homer from the fire? Shouldn't Ned have been in church as well? Hm...

Blog Title and Me

Alright, so you see the name and you probably think: Um, what the heck?

Let's see if I can explain this.

Buddy Christ

Please tell me that I'm not so old that I was the only person in this class to see Kevin Smith's Dogma in theatres when it was released in 1999?

You should all know what the Buddy Christ is. There is a bobblehead version of the Buddy Christ on the course syllabus!

In case you still do not know, the Buddy Christ was brought up in the film Dogma by George Carlin's character as a way to make the Catholic Church cool again. They unveiled this new Christ near the beginning of the film.

Make sense so far? Good.

Next up...

Jesus Piece

You know Kanye West, right? Of course you do. He's only one of the biggest-selling recording artists in the world. If you have not heard of Kanye West, well, um...

Kanye, for some reason, likes to wear a chain with a diamond-encrusted Jesus on it. Kanye's weird, I think we can all agree on that. Talented people tend to be a little off (see Wilson, Brian). Kanye wearing a chain with Jesus's face on it would be weird enough. Add in the diamonds and it goes way out there. But without Kayne's eccentricities, I would not have a pithy title for my class blog. Thanks Kanye.

Me
My name is Smith, Josh Smith. (I've always wanted to do that.)

I am unsure of how much you really need to know (or, honestly, really care to know) about me. You have my name, you have my picture (Side note: that was taken over a year ago. My beard is much smaller now... but should be that large again by the end of the semester), and you have this address. You probably do not care what I am majoring in, when I will graduate or anything else personal. If you do want that information, just ask me. I'm the big Ginger with the beard who is always wearing Hamilton Tiger-Cats stuff (Hamilton, represent!) that will likely be listening to an iPod. One thing I will not be doing, however, is rocking a Jesus Piece. That is just ugly.

While I do plan to take this seriously, I will use humour from time to time to get my point across. Let's be honest, we watched The Simpsons on the first day of class. I think humour is to be expected.

Alright, that's a long enough introduction. I'll get to the serious stuff soon.