Oh, My Pop Culture Religion: Gods of Egypt & the Problem with a White God

Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it: I’m sick of white gods and religiously-themed stories about white people. I really am. At this point I’m willing to give points to movies, even bad ones, for featuring people of color as gods or at least the main characters in a spiritual movie, because this is starting to get ridiculous. No, scratch that—it has always been ridiculous, but I feel like we should know better at this point.

For those of you who have not heard, there’s a movie coming out called Gods of Egypt. It features an all-white cast with the exception of one Black character. Yep, a whole movie about Egyptian gods—but the gods are played by white people.

There is so much wrong with all of this—not just from a representation standpoint, but from a theological one as well.

Oh, My Pop Culture Religion: Religious Colonialism in Welcome to Night Vale

via vexingvendiblesarchieve

Welcome to Night Vale is a show that gives us a great example of what intersectional feminism actually looks like in popular media and storytelling. It has excellent female characters, most of whom are women of color; it has characters with disabilities, two queer main characters, and often points out problematic issues surrounding race, sexuality, gender, and disabilities. I am rarely, if ever, disappointed in Welcome to Night Vale, and now I have yet another reason as to why I love this show so much. Welcome to Night Vale is one of the few shows in recent memory to address how sinister the effects of religious colonialism can be on people. Religious colonialism is when the invading culture forces its own religious beliefs onto the native peoples it is conquering and simultaneously demonizes and outlaws the native religious beliefs.

Spoilers for the Strex Corp storyline below the cut.