The latest news regarding Pussy Riot: two of the band members are fleeing Russia for a safer place--all this, because of their act of defiance against the Russian religious establishment, which led to prison sentences for three of their members. Imagine this kind of thing happening in the U.S., where protesters, commentators, and satirists regularly make their opinions known...without fear of government reprisal. At least, not of the type being experienced by Pussy Riot in Russia.
People are up in arms over the punk rockers Pussy Riot staging a protest right in front of the altar, inside Russia's most prominent cathedral. They donned colored hoods and delivered an anti-Putin and anti-patriarch message that satirized Russian church hymns, complete with an expletive-laden refrain that mocked Orthodox litanies.
While this event may have been totally unexpected and unheard of, especially in buttoned-down Russia, where the memories of communist oppression still linger, it's not that different from more subtle and less outrageous parodies performed in this country.
One example dates back a few years, when a young 20-something choir director from a Russian Orthodox church found himself in the middle of a very wild Orthodox convention in the midwestern U.S. There had been a great deal of social drinking, some time after the business part of the convention had concluded. Caught up in the wild antics of the gathering, the choir director took out his accordion, and led an impromptu mock funeral service, revolving around a “corpse” who was actually one of the convention attendees who had passed out.
In this instance, the “service” included a mock litany that sounded just like an Orthodox church refrain, except that it mentioned a certain ethnic group by name, in a not very kind manner. While these goings-on weren't staged in church, in front of an altar, they nonetheless used the musical (and worship) traditions of the church to poke fun at the so-called serious business of the church.
On the grander scale, there have been numerous parodies of the church, its pastors and priests, and anything else revolving around topics of faith and religion, that are much bigger than the mock funeral described above, seen in major media like TV or movies.
Remember Father Guido Sarducci? Back in the late 1970s, one of the Saturday Night Live cast members, Don Novello, introduced the character of Father Guido, who was a hip, rebel, “cool” clergyperson – totally contrary to the stereotype of Catholic priests as humorless, rule-abiding, “establishment” types. It wouldn't have been surprising to learn that those thin Italian cigarettes he often held as part of his on-camera role were not the traditional, legal form of tobacco. Father Guido became famous for his very pointed, critical comments about the Vatican and Catholicism, made palatable by use of humor.
The “Vicar of Dibley,” a British TV show in the mid 1990s, featured Dawn French as an unorthodox, “boisterous” woman priest in the Anglican church, who was assigned to a very small rural parish in England. Her misadventures in dealing with oddball parishioners, and a church council dominated by a stuffy, conservative, old-fashioned gentleman farmer (and millionaire), led to all sorts of very laughable episodes that didn't always portray the establishment church in a very favorable light.
Back in the late 1960s, “Laugh In” took comedy in a countercultural, revolutionary direction – with recurring characters that fast became part of the American cultural landscape. Naturally, one of them was a “parson,” portrayed by Henry Gibson, who specialized in making pointed quips about religion while in the midst of a wild party attended by all the Laugh In characters. No denomination or topic was off-limits to his barbed comments.
“Amen,” starring Sherman Hemsley as a church deacon, was a late 1980's sitcom that took us behind the scenes of a small, urban, black church in Philadelphia. Hemsley's character's dishonest, harebrained schemes often got the church in hot water, contributing to the farcical goings-on presided over by the Rev. Reuben Gregory (Clifton Davis), who was a new, young pastor who frequently butted heads with Hemsley's character, while falling in love with Hemsley's daughter.
Compared to these (and other) examples of American religious satire, the Pussy Riot protest almost seems tame (except, perhaps for the extremely uninhibited, expletive-undeleted language they used at their cathedral performance).
Comments