Stripper Jesus
Apr. 21st, 2003 08:58 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cailjA couple of people have asked, so I'm going to include the opening anecdote from my introduction. It probably needs to be spruced up a little and it needs to flow a little more, but this will at least give you the bit that people seem to appreciate. :)
Early last year I was traveling along Interstate ten through Louisiana and Texas, on my way to San Antonio to visit family. Somewhere near the border, deep into one of the small towns where there are more churches than restaurants, I spied what seemed a very out of place billboard. As I began to approach it, I saw that a rather well built, traditionally "hunky" man, topless, with rippling muscles, long flowing hair, and a knowing look in his eyes, was offering his arms in an open embrace to all who drove by him. Behind him was a black background, reminiscent of velvet, edged with an almost naughty red color that seemed to emphasize the outline of the subject's very masculine physique. I figured that, despite the oddity of its placement in this town, it must have been an advertisement for male dancers or a strip club aimed at females. As enmeshed as I had already become in this study, however, I should have known better. As I drove closer to the billboard, I saw that my "stripper" was, in fact, a strapping vision of Jesus Christ, and the red edging was actually a banner advertising an Easter service at one of the local churches.
Half ashamed and half amused, I swore to myself that, on my way back, I would pull over and get a snapshot of the billboard. Unfortunately, my time in San Antonio was filled with so many other priorities that by the time I was headed back to New Orleans, I had forgotten completely about the church ad. It was only later, when rereading Ellen Rosenberg's essay "Serving Jesus in the South," that I remembered my billboard. In her essay, Rosenberg tells of a magazine published by the Women's Missionary Union and aimed mostly at southern women: "the tone is didactic and intimate...In one telling example, the solitary woman is urged to spread the word as she would if she were involved in a human love affair, telling the world about this person who has made her life so special" (133). It was easy to imagine the devastatingly handsome Jesus of the interstate billboard as one who could inspire just such feelings in single women. Providing a linguistic analogue to the almost erotic billboard, these newsletters send the message that Jesus is an appropriate lover and the one who should have full reign over the body and heart of, at least, women.
Early last year I was traveling along Interstate ten through Louisiana and Texas, on my way to San Antonio to visit family. Somewhere near the border, deep into one of the small towns where there are more churches than restaurants, I spied what seemed a very out of place billboard. As I began to approach it, I saw that a rather well built, traditionally "hunky" man, topless, with rippling muscles, long flowing hair, and a knowing look in his eyes, was offering his arms in an open embrace to all who drove by him. Behind him was a black background, reminiscent of velvet, edged with an almost naughty red color that seemed to emphasize the outline of the subject's very masculine physique. I figured that, despite the oddity of its placement in this town, it must have been an advertisement for male dancers or a strip club aimed at females. As enmeshed as I had already become in this study, however, I should have known better. As I drove closer to the billboard, I saw that my "stripper" was, in fact, a strapping vision of Jesus Christ, and the red edging was actually a banner advertising an Easter service at one of the local churches.
Half ashamed and half amused, I swore to myself that, on my way back, I would pull over and get a snapshot of the billboard. Unfortunately, my time in San Antonio was filled with so many other priorities that by the time I was headed back to New Orleans, I had forgotten completely about the church ad. It was only later, when rereading Ellen Rosenberg's essay "Serving Jesus in the South," that I remembered my billboard. In her essay, Rosenberg tells of a magazine published by the Women's Missionary Union and aimed mostly at southern women: "the tone is didactic and intimate...In one telling example, the solitary woman is urged to spread the word as she would if she were involved in a human love affair, telling the world about this person who has made her life so special" (133). It was easy to imagine the devastatingly handsome Jesus of the interstate billboard as one who could inspire just such feelings in single women. Providing a linguistic analogue to the almost erotic billboard, these newsletters send the message that Jesus is an appropriate lover and the one who should have full reign over the body and heart of, at least, women.
