I do have Outrage Exhaustion at SPN's blatant constant offensiveness at this point, BUT...

[cimorene]

Since I have a blog (tumblr) whose entire purpose is picspam, when I was fuming over SPN's representation of non-Abrahamic religions in 5.19 a couple of days ago I decided to have a day (which expanded then into three days) just for picspams of the gods in question, to wash the taste out of my mouth.

But in making said picspam, the ridiculousness of the episode was really borne in on me again, for several outstanding reasons:

• Dead pantheons: Dead pantheons - the Norse gods and Greco-Roman ones - were given equal weight with Hinduism, one of the world's largest living religions and one which exists in North America as well as in India. Chinese deities like Zao Shen (the kitchen god) are not included in the typically-taught list of Five Major World Religions as transmitted in American school, probably because China is officially Atheist, but then, Tibet and Taiwan are also officially part of China, and it's not like that is taught in school, is it?



• Exclusion of major living religions: The "Five Major World Religions" concept is obviously problematic for the above reason, but it's still bizarre that Buddhism and Shinto - both on said list because they're ginormous in reality - were not represented at the Elysian Fields motel at all. I mean, I wouldn't expect the Buddha himself to be there; but given how willing they were to fuck with two of the biggest gods of Hinduism, it's hard to believe they left it out from consideration or politeness, you know?

Gods present who were listed in the credits by pantheon:

• Hindu Kali and Ganesh;


• Norse Odin, Baldur, and Loki (the latter wasn't invited, so you could argue that representation was meant to be equal with Hinduism's);


• Chinese Zao Shen;


• Roman Mercury.

The other gods were unnamed, but included another white guy, a black man who was evidently Baron Samedi, and one silent, thin blonde woman¹. However, there weren't very many of these non-speaking roles. Even assuming that each pantheon had sent a delegation of just one or two participants, that doesn't include very many religions at all.

And even assuming that only living religions were meant to be represented (Roman and Norse worship are dead, of course, but their deities have been co-opted to varying degrees by modern pagans), the pool of religions was far too small. Probably they didn't include any native North American deities because they already felt they had too many non-white people in the episode, but again... several of the world's biggest living religions absent while three Norse gods were there.

It might be a coincidence that the Norse pantheon is the one most associated with the modern white supremacist movement, but I'm inclined to say it isn't. Even if the non-coincidence is just that both of those are caused by the glorification of violence / conquest / Manifest Destiny bullshit and deeply-rooted doctrine of white superiority a la The Bell Curve still present in American culture.


1. I had been assuming the blonde woman was meant to be another member of the Norse pantheon because of her hair color, but the fact that they cast a French-looking guy with a French accent as Baldur as well as a black man as Ganesh seems to indicate that they practice appearance-blind casting where the only division is between "white folks" and "chromatic folks". So perhaps she was meant to be the second half of the Greco-Roman delegation. Must be Vesta or something, because most of the Greco-Roman goddesses I can think of are hardly the wallflower type.

Comments

[torachan]

Yes, it was so strangely unbalanced.

[harpers_child]

as a pagan i feel compelled to point out that the pantheons you've classified as "dead" and "co-opted" have traditions that are unbroken as well. not everyone converted to christianity and practice in secret existed. additionally there are several reconstructionist movements going through archeological records and written records to rediscover more historically and culturally accurate modes of worship. the pagan religions of europe are just as alive as the pagan religions of asia and africa and the americas. (i'm using pagan here as an inclusive for any non judeo-christian pantheistic religion.)

[cimorene]

Really? I've never heard anything, in my frequent dealings with various pagans, to indicate the existence of unbroken traditions of worship in those pantheons. Of course I've never known any devotees of those gods in particular, but I've read plenty about them as well, and all the necessity of past secrecy aside, I'd intuitively expect to see more evidence of such. Instead we have huge gaps in our knowledge of Norse and Greco-Roman worship practices. But perhaps continuing archaeological investigation will be able to shed more light on the authenticity of traditions whose origins are unclear.

[alexseanchai]

Squinting at the screencaps of blonde chick (whose name tag is never in focus) tells me her name begins with a tall skinny letter, maybe I or J or L, and has two or three other letters that don't go above the middle line or below the bottom line. Poking at Wikipedia, the possibilities seem to be Juno (Roman), Iris (Greek), Isis (Egyptian, though if that's the case why's she blonde? because Cleopatra might have looked as Greek as Helen of Troy but Isis predates Greek influence on Egypt by a long damn time), Lua (Roman but ain't nobody ever heard of her), and maybe Eir (Celtic). I looked at all the lists of goddesses Wikipedia has, on the off chance that she might be from a chromatic pantheon anyway, but these were the only names that fit what I can see on the nametag.

[cimorene]

Huh, interesting. I find it hard to believe Juno could be there and utterly silent - she's just too important. Iris, on the other hand, kind of seems too unimportant to be there. Of the two, it's probably more likely they'd fail to give Juno any lines though...

[phosfate]

I'd guess Persephone, but that's without seeing the episode.

[alexseanchai]

Persephone would be fun, but there's just no way that's the name on Blonde Chick's tag.

[lanjelin]

The whole part with the gods was just so strange. I just can't get over them eating people. I mean, where did that even come from? And just as you say, the gods seemed to be completely random!

I'm also wondering about the easy way they all died. Sure, if they were representations of those gods' power in the U.S. it makes a little more sense, but why does the apocalypse seem to involve the entire world, then?