Involuntary reading all the ‘Father Jim is evil!!!’ essays has reminded me why I have avoided the fandom for the past few weeks.
A priest in a music video made by an anticlerical band committing all the most common clergy sins in a way that leaves nothing to the imagination is a bad person?! No shit Sherlock!
Then follows some purity culture adjacent policing of ‘you can’t depict this guy in your works in any way that doesn’t explicitly state that he is evil!’. Sure, let’s get rid of any nuance in art as people nowadays are too stupid to understand it anyway… also, everyone must deal with religious trauma in the exact same way or else!
Where I live I never had reproductive rights for the entirety of my life as abortion was banned due to the influence of Catholic Church. When more facts are exposed that John Paul II had been protecting and promoting predators members of the parliament, whose salaries I pay with my taxes, are holding JP2’s photos and shouting that it’s an attack on the church. You can be sued in a court of law for ‘hurting someone’s religious feelings’ by saying something blasphemous or wearing a band T-shirt (Nergal’s civil case for stomping on a picture of Holy Mary has been going on since 2021 and the court has just decided not to dismiss it as they need to investigate his right to free speech…).
Watching this video felt like a victory, like a glimmer of hope that you can live in a society where artistic freedom is not repressed and you can depict a figure of a sinful priest in any way you want to heal your religious trauma. Ghost fandom, people who consider themselves progressive and accepting, has quickly reminded me that I won’t experience it in my lifetime and my hope in humanity was lost.
*A chasuble is traditionally worn only by the celebrant (=the priest who says the prayer over the wine and wafers) during mass (=a church service where they serve the eucharist that depending on the denomination is either believed to be wine and bread or actually the body and blood of Jesus).
The reason for this poll is that Genesis’ “Jesus He Knows Me” is specifically aimed at televangelists, which carries over to the Ghost video with the prosperity gospel stuff. Father Jim DeFroque is supposed to be a type of megacurch televangelist but he wears something similar to a chasuble.
Please add the denomination in the tags if you feel like it and reblog for a bigger reach.
But yall gotta realize that a large number of people in this fandom have priest kinks and this was gonna happen
(Just to clarify: no, i dont like defroque as a person either but its not some kinda moral dillema- hes a good satire on televangelists/corrupt priests thats kinda the point)