Talk:Portrayals of God in popular media

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This article was nominated for deletion on 13 April 2009 (UTC). The result of the discussion was keep.

Proposed changes

I propose that, consistent with the article Cultural depictions of Jesus, this article be moved to Cultural depictions of God, and restructured. The following sections seem a reasonable approach:

Depiction of God in religious works - how God is represented in the Bible and the Koran, e.g. as a shepherd, old man, father, builder, etc.
Religious views on the physical depiction of God - summarizing the various views of different religions regarding the physical representation of God
Art - e.g. Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam
Literature
Film & television (dozens and dozens of depictions)
Controversies - I found several news stories regarding controversial depictions of God

This should give us a better balanced and more informative article than we have at present. Any views?--Michig (talk) 14:08, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's probably a supertopic of this, if anything. This is more like Portrayals of Mormons in popular media. I've re-started it in much the same way, in fact. ☺ Portrayals of God in popular media is probably the way to go, with Cultural depictions of God (which can include paintings, statues, and so forth — none of which have ever been in this article) as a supertopic. Uncle G (talk) 15:36, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Sounds reasonable - sourcing films, tv, and books should be relatively easy, and cutting the scope down as you suggest would mean the article can be brought up to scratch fairly quickly. I'm not going to make a big effort though until I know it isn't going to get deleted.--Michig (talk) 15:40, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  - I shall boldly rename it forthwith, then. Uncle G (talk) 16:32, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Expansion

Even with the topic limitation set out above, there's an awful lot that isn't here yet, from the Islamic view of portraying God in film and television, to portrayals in non-U.S. cinema (such as the portrayals of Hindu god(s) in Bollywood films). Be bold! Uncle G (talk) 17:27, 13 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Scope

The article seems to assume that God is the deity of the Jewish/Christian/Moslem religions and their offshoots. This perhaps needs to be explictly stated if we don't want the article to also include The Mighty Thor, Buddha, Apollo, etc. Colonel Warden (talk) 13:07, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree - this needs to be made clear at the very start of the article.--Michig (talk) 13:08, 14 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What counts as "popular media"?

The article seems to deal only with 20th century movies and television, excluding even modern written works, let alone older written works like Milton's Paradise Lost where God is featured as a character. It's not clear what the criteria are for something to be "popular media". What about expanding the article to the more general topic "Portrayals of God in fiction" or something along those lines? Hypnosifl (talk) 22:43, 20 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Look up ⇑ and read. Uncle G (talk) 04:55, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- I don't know what the ⇑ symbol means here (it just looks like a square on my browser, is it supposed to be an arrow pointing up?), but if you're just talking about the earlier discussions on the talk page, I did read those, but the first is broader than what I'm proposing--it includes things like the various roles God plays in actual religious texts as opposed to just depictions in fiction, and it also includes purely visual depictions of Biblical scenes which I also think are conceptually different from fictional works where the author has God doing and saying things that the author doesn't claim as revealed truths. The second discussion seems to be just talking about non Judeo-Christian versions of God in modern movies and TV, and the third doesn't propose any expansion, it just says the beginning of the article should make clear what the scope is supposed to be. In any case, all those earlier discussions are from 2009 and it seems nothing was done about them, so I thought it'd be worth starting a new one. Hypnosifl (talk) 05:56, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - You haven't looked up ⇑ hard enough. ☺ Uncle G (talk) 14:10, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - I thought you were saying "look up" as in physically look upwards at comments above mine on this page, not "look up the symbol &uArr on the internet". Anyway, I guess it's supposed to be an upwards arrow. But I just noticed the smiley face at the end of your post so maybe you were just making a pun about the meaning of "look up", humor on the internet is very complicated ;) Hypnosifl (talk) 18:53, 21 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
      - Indeed it is, but you still haven't looked up hard enough. Look up. Uncle G (talk) 06:26, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
        Could you just tell me explicitly what it is you want me to look up *at* instead of being so cryptic? I already explained in my first reply to you why I didn't think any of the previous suggested changes quite matched the change I was proposing. If you're not saying I should look up at earlier suggestions on the talk page, then I don't see anything else "up" on the page that's relevant. Hypnosifl (talk) 23:01, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Article missing

This article links to Depictions of Jesus yet that article makes virtually no reference to film and TV depictions. Surely there should be a Portrayals of Jesus in popular media counterpart to this since (due likely to the issues discussed in this article) film and TV depictions of Jesus outnumber that of God. (Notwithstanding the view of some that they are one and the same, of course, though if that view is followed then this article need expansion). 68.146.52.234 (talk) 04:23, 9 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Supernatural

This bit has been added to the article:

God as a character is often mentioned or intervenes in the plot of the CW show Supernatural. He seems as a loving, smart, serious, strategic, all-seeing, father, that observes events play out, but ignores them unless he absolutely needs to fix something

I have a few problems with this. In terms of Wikipedia content, I think it would be much better to classify occurrences and give brief examples, rather than dwell on the specifics of any show. It's also not punctuated.

It's also incorrect in two ways:

The implication is that mentions and interventions are approximately on-par. But this is not so! God is mentioned in dozens of episodes, but appears in only a handful to intervene.
I'm not sure why anyone would think that the deity portrayed in that show as "God" is loving, serious or strategic, and I'd want to see a source for such characterizations. Without dipping into spoilers, God is portrayed as a bit inept, easily irritated and at best enthused with his creation, if not emotionally attached to it.

- Miskaton (talk) 20:54, 27 March 2019 (UTC)[reply]