With the release of her new music video for “Something in the Water,” Carrie Underwood skips the religious iconography and draws on So You Think You Can Dance interpretive talent to show off her personal side. This time it’s not the highs or lows of lovesickness, it’s spiritual strength. And it takes just that – … Continue reading
Traditional media does not have a fantastic track record of significant, nuanced portrayals of religious belief and practice. Stereotypes abound in the studio-model of creating blockbuster entertainment media. As online video semi-democratizes content creation, though, is there a new opportunity? Might YouTube be a rich site for religious reference? Maybe… The best and brightest hope … Continue reading
Though at times they’ve looked for laughs when contestants have claimed to hear the “voice of God,” FOX’s American Idol openly embraced the Spirit as it wrapped its season 12 time in Vegas and moved back to LA. Demonstrating the power of song to move an audience and the potential for television to transcend itself, the success … Continue reading
Religious music is a huge industry. It has global fan bases that react viscerally to its messages and tunes, bringing in over a half-billion dollars a year in record sales alone. Yet it was not a part of Sunday’s three-and-a-half hour prime time Grammy Award presentation. Peculiar. TV’s “biggest night in music” hosted by CBS … Continue reading
It didn’t work out so well for France’s Joan of Arc, and it didn’t work out so well for American Idol’s Anastacia Freeman either. In the last round of auditions before Hollywood, the show made use of one contestant’s belief in hearing messages from God as material for one of its ridicule-bits, leaving viewers with … Continue reading
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