Bobbleheads

Probably the central symbol of the commodification of religion: the bobblehead! Lets see what we can dig up.

 Some Jesuses first then.

 Swing it, Jesus!

 Add a little bit of Moses.

 Add a little bit of pope.

 This Rabbi looks like he had a hard day at the synagogue.

 Buddha? Buddha!

Rubber Duck Divinities

Currently I'm reading the book Understanding Evangelical Media by Quentin J. Schulze (editor) and Robert Herbert Woods Jr. (editor). Finally I got to the chapter Merchandising Jesus Products by Diane M. Badzinsky. I thought it would be a treat. And indeed it was.

One of the things this chapter treated me to was this Jesus rubber duck. I love him so. With his little sheep! I thought then though, hey but so what about the rest of the gang? Yeah some team members jumped into the swimming pool as well. This stuff makes me want to own a bath tub!

 Looking good there, Jesus!

 Be the rubber duck!

 I wonder what happens if you put this one in the Red Sea.

Find yourself stuck? Ask Rabbi Rubberduck!

Buddha Bikini

So yesterday I talked about the Lakshmi swimsuit. I wondered if this was the only swimwear with religious imagery printed on it out there. Heavens no! Next one I found was this Buddha bikini. The choice of placement of Buddha on that first one is ummm... striking.

Buddha's Brassieres

Siddhartha Gautama was a member of a wealthy royal family in India. At one point in his life, he found a poor man, a sick man and a dead man laying next to a road. This led Siddhartha to ponder on life and death. He abandoned his life of wealth, secluding himself in the woods devoted to a life of poverty trying to come to terms with life's conditions. After a while he realized that it is not wealth nor poverty that can lead to a happy life, and he devised a golden way, in the middle of all extremes. It is also said that he realized that to live is to suffer and that this suffering is increased by being attached to things. This man is more popularly known as Buddha.

This is the short short version, based on what I remember reading about it. There is more to say about it of course. The story struck me as intriguing, I must admit. I felt it was a brutally honest story in a way, placing death and suffering center stage on the theater of life. It is for this reason then, that I wonder: What the hell is Buddha doing in a lingerie shop?

I passed this store up and couldn't help but think: Buddha, what are you doing in there? How did you get there? Now I don't like contrasting "true" Buddhism to "false" Buddhism, I just think there are a lot of Buddhisms out there, just like with all other religions. But, judging from the popular story above about the life of Buddha, I really wonder why a lingerie store would want him prominently featured in their display. What could have made them choose to do this? Buddha is a popular boy anyway. When I walked around in a popular neighborhood and I sort of casually tallied Buddhas vs. Jesuses, Buddha won by a landslide! But why? What do people want to express when they put a Buddha statue in their windowsill or in their display? That they associate with spirituality but not necessarily with tradition? That they are "thinking outside the box" because of this? That they value peace, a value attributed to Buddha, or that you will feel relaxed like Buddha the moment you put on one of their bras? That acknowledging the centrality of death and suffering to life is no reason not to still look just absolutely smashing and gorgeous? I don't know about the truth of any miracles that are attributed to him but appearing next to a decapitated mannequin with no limbs and just some undies on is quite a miracle he pulled off indeed!

Buddha Buddha Life

So after yesterday, I realized I had hardly anything on Buddhism. So let's continue this trend. There is so much Buddhist beauty out there! I knew of great Buddhist statues because I spotted one at someone's house once. I searched for that one but found far better ones. These Buddha piggy (no disrespect there Buddha, it's just what they're called) banks!

They sort of remind me of the Chibi Jesus art, but then Buddha style. Website: http://buddhabuddhalife.com

Huggable Buddha

Have you followed the eightfold path? Have you severed all ties with family? Have you not spoken in years? Have you given up all your belongings? You've reached Nirvana and it sucks big time? Then have no fear for the Huggy Buddha is here, to give you a great big hug!

Order yours today! http://www.bigbuddha.nl/

Bible comics

So there are a lot of Christian comics out there. First there is the Picture Bible by Iva Hoth and Andre LeBlanc. It seems to be a classic in its genre but it does look more like an illustrated Bible bordering on the comic book than a real comic book. There are probably more advanced geeks with a whole repertoire of comic book theory that are better suited to judge this than me. Say what you want, but Moses sure is looking mighty pissed on the cover of this one!

Next we have the Action Bible. Amazon tells me that "in February, 2006, [Sergio Cariello, the illustrator of this work] was contacted by David C. Cook to gauge his interest in a new project; completely re-illustrating Cook's classic Picture Bible." There seems to be some continuity there. It looks a lot more modern than the Picture Bible does and a lot more like a proper comic book too actually.

Another one is the Picture Stories from the Bible series, published by All-American Publications in the 1940s. The publishing company seems to have a big reputation in the secular world of comic books, so I'm thinking that it's not necessarily written with a religious agenda. They look fantastic!

One also very recently published (2006-2008) is the Testament series by Douglas Rushkoff & Liam Sharp. Wikipedia tells me that "the story takes place simultaneously in the near future and the biblical past to illustrate the most prominent theme: that history repeats itself." This means that it does stray from the strict biblical narrative, but I'd consider it a Bible comic still. It seems to make minced meat out of all the other comics mentioned above anyway.

Then there also seem to be some manga/anime comics. The MANGA Messiah and the Manga Bible.

I can't resist mentioning also the comic Saint Young Men. From Wiki: "The series is about Jesus Christ and Gautama Buddha living together in a Tokyo apartment while taking a vacation on Earth." I decided not to depict the front but an illustration from it because it says more than the front seems to.

Finally then I'd like to mention the recent work of comic book artist Robert Crumb, Genesis, illustrating the entire book of Genesis (including all the family trees!) which is a really huge project.