on erasing the original cultural context from stories. (and on Klytemnestra's awesomness. <3)

[prozacpark]

I went to the most epic performance of The Oresteia this past weekend. The Oresteia is my favoritest play (or really, trilogy of plays) EVER, and it's extensive, long, and hard to put on, so it's never really done. But a local liberal arts (CHRISTIAN) college invited a Greek troupe to come and perform this here in Houston. The Christian part is

Comments

[prozacpark]

Despite Milton's many failings, I'm sort of a huge fan of "Paradise Lost," so I appreciate Christian context where it has a place. I'm actually generally a fan of stories using religious (any religion) context? Because when it's done right, it can be incredibly powerful and interesting (especially when it's deconstructive), and I enjoy fiction exploring different mythologies.

I don't even think it's so much Christianity, but Western thought, in general, has very much moved towards a binary system of good/evil? And everything gets categorized with no room left for ambiguity. Postmodernism is changing a bit of that, but culturally, we're all still sort of stuck in modernist binaries and this need to define and categorize everything, which, of course, often means reducing it to make it fit into preconceived ideas.

And yeah, everything gets traced back to Christianity, and what's interesting is how much people who have grown up with a Christian context miss it? Because they take that context for granted, and when you point it out, you're being oversensitive. Gah, I'm still bitter about how BSG made all its polytheism secretly all Christian, and the entire fandom MISSED it and if you point it out, they're all, "Oh, but don't angels exist in every religion?" Um, no?

[glitterberrys]

Never having seen an episode of BSG I can't comment on that specifically, but...yeah, that does sound incredibly frustrating.

I've never really encountered religious reimaginings of classic things - or really religious undertones in general - that were any specific religion besides Christian, except for those that echo Greek mythology. At least, none that I was aware of.

Of course, it doesn't really help that people are a bit sensitive now about religion from BOTH sides. Either anything echoing anything from a Christian path (I've not heard this complaint about other religious references, but again, I've rarely seen any that weren't Christian) is "shoving it down everyone's throat," and religious whackadoos insist that religion is under attack in the Western world...it makes it hard to discuss something's artistic or factual failures, because everyone seems to jump to the idea that it's a criticism of or a push towards the religion in question.