News > March 27, 2008

By Haowei Tong | Staff writer

Mark Pinsky, author of The Gospel According to the Simpsons and religion writer for the Orlando Sentinel spoke on March 25 in Annenberg Forum in Carswell Hall.

click to enlarge

Mark Pinsky, author of The Gospel According to the Simpsons, spoke March 25 on the influence of religion in popular culture. (Haowei Tong/Old Gold & Black)

The audience was engaged by a dynamic lecture on the influence of religion on popular culture.

Pinsky extensively discussed a variety of books, movies, television shows, music, radio stations and even video games.

In addition to referencing a broad variety of contemporary subjects, he provided a wealth of knowledge about respective industries.

He noted that the publishing industry, for example, involves significantly less financial risk than the movie industry.

Pinsky challenged the audience to consider the nature of Christian romance novels in particular.

“Christian companies are buying secular companies and vice versa. You can make money propogating the world,” Pinsky said.

Pinsky also spoke on the evolution of Christian influence in several specific movies.

He discussed Mel Gibson’s Signs, released before The Passion of the Christ, and highlighted the decreasingly secular nature of such sequences.

“Signs is about a former Episcopal priest who has lost his faith in God, has contact with aliens and ultimately regains his Christianity.

“It was the one of the highest grossing films of 2002 and followed by Gibson’s hit two years later,” Pinsky said.

After surveying the audience about Veggie Tales, a popular Christian television show catering to children, Pinsky informed the audience that, “the creators are two bible school dropouts, but believers.

“Their jokes were good, and their songs were good. They targeted a burgeoning market, and now they’re in Target and Costco,” Pinsky said.

Pinsky’s wealth of knowledge and ability to connect background information with the underlying religious tones impressed many.

“I liked how the speaker delivered his thoughts on Christian evangelical influence in our contemporary culture. He was able to be convincing as well as entertaining,” freshman Mary McGowan said.

Pinsky garnered a few laughs with jokes and impersonations.

He kidded about the philosophical justification of Christian professional wrestling and stand-up comedy.

Other seemingly bizarre Christian institutions included the Holy Land Experience, an evangelical theme park.

The designers of Universal were hired, so though the park itself is significantly smaller, it is equally as sophisticated.

“You must entertain first and do the rest later, if you can,” Pinsky said in regard to the theme park.

Pinsky asked the audience to consider the perspective of other nations on the religious disposition of America.

“If the French watch Friends, they think we’re atheists, but if they watch The Simpsons, we appear to be churchgoing,” he said.

Following his lecture, Pinsky showed a series of clips from the television show, The Simpsons.

Most of the audience connected especially well with the clips featuring the infamous family, evangelical neighbor Ned Flanders and cynical Reverend Lovejoy.

“I had not considered the concept of evangelical influence on popular culture, so the talk was really interesting," junior Timothy Kawira said.

“The Simpsons clips really emphasized his points."

During the Q&A session following his lecture, Pinsky mentioned that there appears to be a slight decline in bawdy rhetoric since the first ten seasons.

“There is a loss of writers over time, but it’s in its eighteenth season,” Pinsky said.

“The key thing is that there is a market for such shows.”

“I thought the talk was really entertaining and engaging,” sophomore Rebecca Dore said.

“My only complaint is that I wish it had lasted longer and gone more in-depth.”