#hegetsus — Public Fediverse posts

#HeGetsUs is cringe

#superbowl

Not generally a fan of the #HeGetsUs folks, but I have to admit that that #ad, using the phrase “this is what real Greatness looks like” is bold, given the political/social climate. It’s a bold move, Cotton. #SuperBowl

I should be able to get away from motherfucking religion in my own fucking home.

#HeGetsUs

Today on Superbowl Jesus Part 6: The Ultimatum, we discuss the final three images of the in some detail, riff a bit more on the AI art because how can you not, and wrap up by discussing the overall message and intent of this supposedly conciliatory campaign from the Christian fundamentalist authoritarian right.

https://solarbird.net/blog/2024/02/21/superbowl-jesus-ad-part-6/

This concludes the series. I hope you'll forward it around a bit, and use it to inform others about the nature and intent of this particular sort of propaganda. I've always seen myself as kind of a one-person intelligence service, and, well - forewarned is forearmed.

Thank you to those who encouraged me to write it, and to all of those who read along.

#superbowl #HeGetsUs #fascism #uspol #uspolitics

wednesday, in episode 6: the conclusioning about that horrible Jesus Superbowl ad

#superbowl #HeGetsUs

#HeGetsUs #BigLebowski #Meme

Today in the Superbowl Jesus series, we discuss the Racism Triptych, the centrepiece of which is the most overtly racist image on television since at least Bush I's "Willie Horton" ad.

It's _so_ racist that while I'm not Christian, I'm pretty sure mainstream Christianity would consider it actual blasphemy.

It may seem questionable to hang this much on imagery that has clearly been through the AI machine. My response is that these images were carefully chosen as part of a billion-dollar ad campaign, and in all the areas they care about, the symbolism is specific, precise, and clear.

And by the gods I am holding them responsible.

https://solarbird.net/blog/2024/02/20/superbowl-jesus-ad-part-5-the-triptych/

We will conclude with Part 6 on Wednesday.

#uspol #uspolitics #superbowl #HeGetsUs

superbowl jesus ad, part 5: the triptych

Welcome to Part 5 of a series of posts focusing on the fundamentalist propaganda “He Gets Us” Superbowl ad of 2024.

I strongly recommend you read at least the first section of Part 1 before proceeding, if you have not already done so. It defines a variety of critically important terms, outlines the overarching purpose of this entire series of ads – this billion-with-a-B propaganda campaign – and the relevant religious-political beliefs of those who designed it.

If I could summarise Part 1’s first section in a paragraph, believe me – I would. I have tried, without success. That’s why I point people back to it, because to echo Dickens – without that knowledge, little of what follows will have full meaning for you.

The next three images comprise what I think of as the Intentional Racism Triptych.

On our left panel, we have slide seven. It features one of the least obviously AI manipulated or re-drawn images of the entire selection. It shows an idealised, even nostalgically-rendered oil field with a small number of scattered derricks, with no fracking equipment visible. The field itself is semi-arid to arid, with a mix of brush, tumbleweed, and other similar low scrub plants scattered about. In the distance lie tall hills, somewhere between what I’d call mountains and foothills, without snow. Above that, we have a very blue sky with a smattering of clouds.

In the middle distance sits the a car, the driver’s door open. Strangely in this context, it is a car and not a truck, a four-door sedan/saloon car out of the 1980s, evocative of an early-80s SAAB 900 but with internally inconsistent headrests. (I see you there, AI image generator. Hello!)

In the foreground, in the middle of a dirt road which looks very much like a thin-layer-of-sandy-dirt soundstage, our Saviour – the man who has already found Jesus, an older white man who is an oil field worker – washes the feet of our Sinner, a young Asian woman who is dressed mostly like a hippie in flowing patterned silks and bikini top, albeit more of a 90s hippie revival variant than the original. To her side lies a protest sign reading “CLEAN AIR NOW.”

This Saviour was brought to you by Exxon-Mobil, apparently. He’s where he’s supposed to be, doing “Real Man” work, in a “Real Man” place, bringing oil out of the ground for capitalism. The oil field is pristine, and there’s not a hint of pollution…

…which brings us to the sins of our Sinner. She’s dressed inappropriately for the location, and immodestly on top of that. She’s somewhere she shouldn’t be – and being Asian, that’s not limited to “a protestor in an oil field.” And on top of everything else: she’s a liar.

The air is visibly pristine. Her call for “CLEAN AIR NOW” is therefore a lie, a demand for something she already has – and is therefore an excuse to shut down oil production and hurt the “real man” doing the “real work” and the economy.

I know, I know, as I said, they have their own definitions of truth, and don’t care if something’s an objective lie – but that’s only for them. Definitionally, she’s not one of them, so if they can call her a liar, they will.

She might even be a Chinese communist, since – as goes without saying in their community – all environmentalists are lying communists anyway, and Chinese people are always suspect. Making her ambiguously east Asian – one might say “Chinese enough” – just adds the spice of fashionable racism to the recipe.

“Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party?”

Senator Cotton will want to know.

Now, because the most important image of a triptych is always the one in the centre, let’s skip ahead to the right image first: slide nine.

This image shows a quiet evening scene in a suburban neighbourhood built… it’s hard to say, but I’d guess as early as the late 1910s, and the early 1950s. As always, in the nostalgic and “better” past.

We see two houses, separated by a single narrow driveway, both with established greenery and lush lawns. Two mixed-gender couples are arranged in front of the right house, one on the left side of the frame, and one on the right.

The left couple is clearly Muslim. The hijab-wearing woman – our Sinner – is sitting in an old woven-ribbon-style folding lawn chair, her feet being washed, as the man stands attentively behind her.

The right couple’s man is white, intended to be sitting on some sort of gardening chair, but it’s an AI mess and doesn’t work right but that doesn’t matter. He holds a green apple with a bite taken out of it, which in this context has to be symbolic of something, but the obvious meanings don’t make a lot of sense in this context. His eyes are closed, which also seems to me like it has to mean something, but I’m honestly not getting it.

The woman – our Saviour – is just ambiguous enough to be white, or not, depending upon the viewer. The way she’s rendered, she’s got that Kinda Ethnic vibe that they like when they want not to use a white person but don’t want to make it clearly someone not white either. She’s not wearing a head covering of any kind, obviously, but could be a convert from Islam who married a white man. That would make her okay, fit to lead our Sinner out of her sin – which is, of course, being a Muslim and holding Islamic faith.

While religious conversion isn’t intrinsically racist, in this case, it obviously totally is. See everything from “Jews for Jesus” to the “Muslim Ban” that Trump is pledging to reinstate.

Finally, we move to our centre image, slide eight – by far the most overtly racist image of the set. I want to make that very clear, as I will be describing the intended racist message in explicit terms. That description of their message is fucking well not an endorsement of that message.

Read on only if you understand that last paragraph, because this one’s bad.

In this image, the thin veneer that is the top-level message of compassion, equality before god, and reconciliation has been ripped away; this particular slide is propaganda against refugees and asylum seekers from the south.

Our scene shows a bus full of people unloading passengers on a Chicago upper-middle-class white-picket-fence residential street in the very late evening. It’s essentially one of the Republican “migrant buses,” the kind DeSantis and Abbot have been using to send asylum seekers away from services to a blue state without coordination, notice, or compassion, often in the winter. This exportation of people – arguably kidnapping – serves a variety of purposes which have been discussed elsewhere. The driver is Christian – it’s not ambiguous, there’s a cross hanging above him – and unhappy.

In most of these images, the “saviour” and the “sinner” are on similar levels, physically. Often one is sitting and the other is kneeling on the ground, but there’s interaction to it, an acknowledgement of each other. They’re communicating, sometimes quite clearly. It’s part of the top-level intended message of reconciliation.

Not here, though.

I want to stress, this next sentence is how they know this will be read by their own people:

Here you have the angry dirty brown illegal Sinner carrying her anchor baby at full height, looking away, with a mixture of anger and fear, while the white Saviour woman kneels on the ground, looking down, washing the Sinner’s feet. There is no sense of communication between them; our Sinner is ungrateful and unreceptive. Our Savour, the white Christian, is looking down, tense and unhappy, at clean water turning a dark, filthy brown as it washes from the Sinner’s foot back into the basin.

Please understand – the washing water is clear and clean in every other image where it is visible, no matter how dirty the feet are; after all, it represents in part the forgiveness of Jesus, so stays forever whole.

But not here.

That difference means it’s not the dirt on her feet spoiling the water: it’s her, herself, spoiling the water – the water of God’s forgiveness.

One might even say it’s meant to show a kind of poisoning of the water, instead of the blood.

This image is out-and-out racist hate propaganda, pretending – just barely – to be merely one more variation on the theme. Our Sinner’s sin is being here at all and not white, and she is not worthy of redemption.

Even the gay man in image twelve is treated better than this, and believe me, I still have things to say about that image.

I don’t know if I have any Christian followers reading this, but… this is… serious business blasphemy, right? Top level scream-it-to-the-heavens blasphemy against the core message of Jesus. Isn’t it?

You might want to consider yelling about that.

Next. Slide.

[link] #politics #USPol #writing #fascism #HeGetsUs #superbowl #uspolitics

Part four of the Superbowl Jesus series kind of turned on me, becoming a meta-analysis of _why_ they'd lie so transparently about the AI images used in the Superbowl "He Gets Us" propaganda piece.

The lie is _so obviously_ a lie. Why do it?

It ended up being a deep dive into how the the fundamentalist authoritarian movement behind these ads defines "truth." Spoiler: it's not how most of the people I know define truth. But it should seem familiar to you, once you see it.

https://solarbird.net/blog/2024/02/19/superbowl-jesus-ad-part-4-a-lie-so-blatant-it-must-be-true/

#superbowl #HeGetsUs #fascism #uspol #uspolitics

superbowl jesus ad, part 4: a lie so blatant it must be true

Welcome to the fourth post of a series analysing the imagery from the billion-dollar “He Gets Us” propaganda campaign to recruit people into fundamentalist evangelism, focusing specifically on the ad run during the 2024 Superbowl.

I strongly urge you to read the first section of Part 1 before continuing, if you have not already done so. That first section explains the overall theological structure of the ad. Without understanding that structure, the terms “Sinner” and “Saviour” as used in this series will not make sense, but I don’t want to have to paste that explanation back in to each of these posts.

Caught up? Nice.

One of the more curious parts of this event has been the maker’s disclaimer stating that they absolutely did not use AI, that they hired a photographer – they even named someone – and that these images are photographs.

I suggest you revisit Part 3 of this series if you still give that any credence.

Personally, I’m willing to accept that a photographer played some role. I’m convinced that the images actually used were at very least heavily reworked with AI tools, if not re-created from whole cloth using the photographs as training material, but I admit that it’s possible that in some way a photographer was involved. Maybe in the rough drafts.

But why lie about it?

AI art is, obviously, huge right now. A lot of tech is super into it; several months ago, it would’ve got them a lot of attention if they’d made interesting images and said upfront that’s how they did it. Maybe they decided to hide it because the mood on AI has shifted so much. I don’t know.

But that’s not the important part. The important part – the important question – remains…

…why lie about it?

Particularly given how obvious it is that it’s a lie?

Even though they absolutely couldn’t get images that weren’t obviously at very least heavily AI altered, if not entirely AI rendered, they decided to lie about it. Why?

The answer is very simple: they can’t not lie. They actively can’t. They can’t avoid it.

I mean, sure, they could’ve told the truth here, but the more they feel that being honest about it would hurt them in some way – even just making them look bad – the less likely that becomes.

I wish it were because of PR. I really do. But it’s not. It’s because they have adopted a very different definition of truth.

For most of us, truth is weighed against observable, measurable reality – at least, where that’s possible. The truth of science, or more generally, the truth of empiricism.

Empiricism is the idea that you can observe the world, measure it, test against it, and accept that what happens reveals things about the world (and the universe). It means you can use those tests – that data – to make decisions about your life. To improve it, even. It’s core of the scientific method, amongst other things.

Babies are, in many ways, empiricists.

But that’s not how the fundamentalist evangelical movement defines truth.

Their truth is defined by God Said. If observable reality differs, then it’s reality that’s wrong, and it’s wrong because God Said.

Yes, really. That’s the key. Right there. God Said, so It Is. It’s that simple.

This is an example of a group using inherited wisdom as its metric of truth. It’s pretty common, historically, and before empiricism took off, it was absolutely the standard in Western thought. It’s core to both western conservatism and their flavour of authoritarianism, and built upon the idea that we are all living lesser, degenerate forms of an ideal way of living that we must constantly strive to recover. In their case it’s extremely literal, in that it’s the Fall of Man in the greater sense from the Garden of Eden, and the absolute, perfect, and utterly unchanging Word of God as represented in the Bible.

And believe me, they harp a lot on that perfect and unchanging part.

In practice, is any of this actually preserved across generations? Oh hell no. It’s basically two to three generations back, as modified to suit nostalgia, simplified re-renderings of memories from childhood and parental stories, and – of course – to serve white Christian cishet male dominance over others.

Don’t believe me? In the 90s, they didn’t really care about trans people. I’d see more hate-forward people try to tease those in authority forward on it and they’d be “That sounds very, uh, medical. Is it homosexual? Then whatever, we care about stopping the homosexuals.” Before the late 1960s, they didn’t even care all that much about abortion or birth control, because caring about those things was Papist, and they were way more concerned about race mixing.

However, they’ve decided hating trans people is eternal, so now, for them, it is. It’s always been true and therefore it’s always perfect and unchanging and God Said.

This next part’s really important to understanding what’s happening around us. I’m begging you, understand this. I’ve been trying to get people to understand it for twenty years.

If truth is measured against inherited wisdom, then the truth of a statement depends upon conformity to that inherited wisdom.

That stays true even if that inherited wisdom is in the form of a Perfect and Unchanging Word Of God that changes a lot every generation and a half. How much something supports your worldview – again, God’s Word – becomes the only measure of truth, regardless of anything reality might have to say about it.

This literally is how you get most flat earthers. This is how. Right here. This. They’ve decided that’s what God Said, so God Said, and that makes it real. I have seen this happen, someone already deep in that community going over the edge to flat-eartherism, because someone proved to him that the Bible says the earth is flat, and so, he said, “You’re right. The BIble does say the earth is flat. So it is.”

This definition of “truth” – this definition that has zero direct reliance upon observable reality – is also how they can so guilelessly set up lie factories to manufacture new types blood libel against their enemies.

It’s how they could say for decades that “homosexuals” were violent vicious evil mentally-ill psychopathic paedophiles who want to rape your children, give them AIDS, and turn them gay because it’s the only way we can reproduce. It’s how they can say the same sorts of things – often exactly the same things – about trans people now, along with all the other insanity they make up.

They are aware, of course, that whose who “haven’t found Jesus” have different definitions of truth. Their leadership in particular has always been highly aware of this.

The way they’ve gone about handling that hasn’t changed much in decades. First, get a couple of fundamentalist or socially-allied “sciencey” people to either cherry-pick or just straight-up fabricate data (the “make shit up” method) and publish papers that look like science, that look real to people who don’t know how their whole system works. Paul Cameron was a particularly famous foot soldier in this part of the war; look him up, if you want. He was a professional liar generating blood libel to get people killed.

Then set up some “sciencey” or “policy-ish” sounding sockpuppet groups, and have them generate a bunch of bullshit that sounds like research or analysis. The important part is that whatever they do has to be towards the goal of ‘proving’ the desired result, as opposed to studying the actual data and seeing where that leads them.

Footnote each other back and forth for a while, then generate some another layer of new sockpuppet organisations, referencing the first two. Then the first layer can start referencing the third, and your bullshit generator is up and running.

Eventually, you get enough noise that the credulous media starts hearing and parroting it and treating your bad-faith horseshit as legitimate, both-sidings it against reality for the horse race and the views.

That’s what they did against against lesbians and gay men people for decades. That’s what they’re doing to trans people now, with the absolute intent of going back to doing it against LGB people if they manage, in the end, to “ditch the T.”

If there was one thing in the world I wish I could do with this knowledge, it’s get it into the heads of journalists and in that way convince them to stop playing along. To stop meeting bad faith with good, to stop parroting bullshit because it’s “both sides.” Just fucking stop. I don’t care that they can lie to you with sincerity, they can lie with sincerity because they’ve decided God Said This Shit We Made Up, and because of that, actual reality doesn’t matter.

It’s not even that they don’t know. They know their methods are bullshit. They know their data is bad. And they don’t care, because their own data doesn’t matter, not even to them. The lie serves God – in that they’ve decided it serves their goals that they’ve ascribed to God – and that makes it true.

Even though it’s in every way a lie, a knowing lie, made in the most complete possible bad faith, that’s what they’ve decided.

So when it comes to lying about something as obvious as this AI art bullshit…

…they can no longer even tell they’re lying.

It’s better for them and their movement, they’ve apparently decided, for then to declare that this isn’t AI art. That it’s photography, as nonsensical as that is. So despite all the obvious bullshit of that statement – despite everything your own lying eyes tell you – that’s what they’ve decided is true.

So that’s what they rationalise, and that’s what they say.

If that sounds like everything you know and hate about MAGA, and everything you know about how Donald Trump works…

…congratulations. You have connected the dots.

Now.

Where we were, before this got so long?

Ah, yes. Slide seven. Tomorrow.

[link] #politics #USPol #writing #fascism #HeGetsUs #superbowl #uspolitics

GH Gerberding, Lutheran synod president, writes on the conversion of a jailer in Acts 16. Hands that directly carried out cruelty, upon receiving mercy, now wash and clean those feet. Exercising mercy is a sign of having obtained mercy. Is this a measure many would accept today?

If we are called by our duty or contract to do difficult things, can we find ways to knock off the unnecessarily harsh or cruel edges from the tasks?

#christian #sjw #sacrifice #lifeisshort #heartforjesus #hegetsus

In Part 3 of my deep-dive into the "He Gets Me" Superbowl Jesus ad, I address questions raised by readers, then get into image six: the alcoholic.

They're selling "reconciliation," but as explained in Part I, they don't actually believe in that. So I'm taking apart what their images say and mean to their own people.

Fair warning, today I am partially thwarted by the incredibly, and I really do mean incredibly in the vintage sense of "their denials are not credible," bad use of AI tools. There is genuine wow here, and maybe that's appropriate given that it's the weekend.

https://solarbird.net/blog/2024/02/17/superbowl-jesus-ad-part-3-some-notes-and-more-images/

Part 4 - where I get into _that_ aspect of this visual nightmare - will be out Monday.

#superbowl #HeGetsUs #fascism #uspol #uspolitcs

superbowl jesus ad, part 3: some notes, and more images

Welcome to the third post of this series analysing the imagery from the billion-dollar “He Gets Us” propaganda campaign to recruit people into fundamentalist evangelism, focusing specifically on the ad run during the 2024 Superbowl.

I strongly urge you to read the first section of Part 1 before continuing, if you have not already done so. That first section explains the overall theological structure of the ad. Without understanding that structure, the terms “Sinner” and “Saviour” as used in this series will not make sense, but I don’t want to have to paste that explanation back in to each of these posts.

Back already? Good job.

Before we return to the images, I want to address a couple of issues which have been brought to me, and highlight a comment made elsewhere.

First, I want to be very clear: this is an analysis of propaganda more than of theology. In the case of a deeply religious political movement, the two certainly do blur together! But I am not engaging in a theological critique. I am reporting upon how these propaganda images are intended to be read by their own, by their co-religionists, and – naturally – what that says about the thoughts and goals of their movement. While some of those meanings are in part theological, they are also political and must be read as such.

Secondly, pointing out a relevant meaning – particularly a politically relevant meaning – does not imply that other meanings do not or cannot exist. The washing of the feet, for example, has other meanings in addition to the one I mentioned, even for them. But where those are either strictly theological or do not contradict the top-line message they do not believe in but are trying to sell, I don’t bother discussing them.

To give one example, however – and this ties directly into the washing of the feet – I had a commenter elsewhere ask what it meant that both the washer (Saviour) and the wash-ee (Sinner) had bare feet. This ties back to the more mainline Christian theological interpretation of the footwashing event, a statement of a kind of equality, where Jesus, the leader, is serving his apostles, and in doing so, saying that in some ways we are all equal in this.

That’s also what everyone having their shoes off means here – though in their case they would frame it less as “we are all equals in this” and more “we are all sinners in the eyes of (an angry) god.” That “angry” part’s important, though I don’t want to get into it here – but when they say “god-fearing Christian,” they absolutely mean that part about the fear.

Regardless, even in that more antagonistic framing it is an equalising message and they do mean it to some degree. But since it’s not in contradiction to the topline political framing of reconciliation, I hadn’t discussed it.

There are other examples, which you may choose to discover on your own.

Finally, Part I of this series got shared around a little on Facebook, which was nice. The first comment I saw was from a former evangelical, who was kind enough to say that as an ex-fundamentalist, everything I said in Part I was extremely obvious to her.

I like to hear things like that, because every so often, I get pushback on this sort of analysis when I post it, always from people not of that particular community. And every time that’s happened so far, an exvangelical or other former fundamentalist has come in and said “No, she’s right,” in one form or another.

I’m not saying that will happen every time or that I can’t be wrong, because of course I can. But it is nice to get that validation, and Part 1 received that explicitly.

Now, where were we? Ah yes, slide six. Here’s a partial:

And they say this commercial wasn’t made with AI. Hilarious.

I don’t see a lot here that isn’t obvious, frankly – including all the obvious AI usage. You have Shower Valves of Mystery, you have floating bananas and a CRT television that can’t’ve received a picture in decades and isn’t actually a television but is a computer monitor, you have a row of cabinets built to be above either a sink or maybe an oven which is above neither a sink nor an oven but does have a doormat labelled… is it NICE or is it NICK? I read it as NICK. Is Nick her husband? Is he a doormat? Is that part of the message, that she lacked a sufficiently strong man at home and thus fell into…

Oh surely not. It must be NICE. But if not… if it really is NICK… is that the core message? Is that the second level under “She’s a prescription drug addict and an alcoholic and also a smoker so needs Jesus to get out of it?” I mean, that’s Alcoholics Anonymous version 1.0 since forever, and they absolutely do assert that this is basically what happens with basically every single mom and that every marriage not dominated by a strong man is doomed to collapse and ruin. So is that the subtext here?

That’s a lot to hang on a doormat hung on a wall over where either a sink or a stove should be, so I’m not going to leap to that with assurance. But… it would fit.

Honestly, all cards on the table… I’ve spent so much time on this one because I just can’t get over the AI-ness here. It’s even on the central figures. If there’s a photographer involved, as they say there is, there is something very, very wrong with their camera.

I didn’t describe the scene, so: the image is of a small kitchen, old, intensely cluttered except for a clear spot on the floor in centre where our Sinner and our Saviour are placed. Our Sinner is a “mom” figurine, broken down, her feet being washed by our “Saviour” who is kind of signalled to be her daughter. There are a fleet of prescription medication bottles higher up on the counters, alcohol bottles everywhere, and an assortment of ashtrays scattered about the room; all the cigarettes appear to be tobacco.

And there’s an absolute avalanche of AI-like whatthefuckery, even in the main figures, even in the figures who are supposed to be the entire point of this image. I mean, look at this:

(one billion dollars. a one billion dollar ad campaign. billion. with a b.)

That’s six slides down of twelve, just like the apostles. Despite how shoddy this mess is in some ways, that’s probably not a coincidence. It’s not unlikely that this has theological ties I’m not catching. But that’s okay; I’m just here for the politics.

Next slide, please.

[link] #politics #USPol #writing #fascism #HeGetsUs #superbowl #uspolitics

A sneak preview from Part 3 of the "Superbowl Jesus" ad analysis series:

#superbowl #HeGetsUs #propaganda #AIArt

Continuing with Part 2 of my deep-dive into the "He Gets Me" Superbowl Jesus ad, and the meaning of the iconography _within_ the far-right fundamentalist authoritarian community from which it came.

The surface meaning of 'reconciliation' is what they're selling, but as explained in Part I, they don't actually believe in that. Herein, I'm continuing to take apart what these images say and mean _to their own people_.

https://solarbird.net/blog/2024/02/16/superbowl-jesus-ad-part-2-theres-so-much-more-to-unpack/

If you missed Part 1, read at least the first portion of it before reading Part 2, or various terms will not make sense to you.

Also, Part 2 gets rough at the end. You have been forewarned.

#superbowl #HeGetsUs #fascism #fundamentalism #uspol #uspolitics

superbowl jesus ad, part 2: there’s so much more to unpack

This is the second in a series of posts analysing the imagery from the billion-dollar “He Gets Us” propaganda campaign to recruit people into fundamentalist evangelism.

I strongly urge you to read the first section of Part 1 before continuing, if you have not already done so. That first section explains the overall theological structure of the ad. Without understanding that structure, the terms “Sinner” and “Saviour” as used in this series will not make sense, but I don’t want to have to paste that explanation back in to each of these posts.

Back? Great.

We left off part one three images into this collection, so here, we start with image number four. If you want to see the images as we go, you can find them on youtube. I won’t be (re)linking, since most of the people with it are horrible, but it’s not hard to find. We’re going through them in the order they appear in the video.

I have learned since Part I of this series that there is a credited photographer for these images, and that the surreal nature of them is intentional. I am reasonably willing to consider that some parts of these are photographs, but I also have a very difficult time believing they are not heavily manipulated using AI tools given the various very clear tells. But that’s speculation on my part, and in the end, not really important; I only mention it because if the AI commentary in Part I.

Image four is … wow. What the hell am I even looking at here? What kind of dreamscape nonsense are they presenting us this time? Seriously, it’s taken me a few goes just to try to start on this one.

First, you have what amounts to a day-for-night sky, which, of course, never works. Then in the background you have Discount Vasquez Rocks with extra greenery and none of the light matching anything else in the image. In front of that on the left, you have an early-1960s pickup truck that looks like something from Tremors (1990); in centre we have a strange land of discontinuity and a partially-derendered metal guardrail where distance means nothing; and on the right, we have some soundstage alien trees that remind me of Lost in Space and a smouldering campfire pit and two remarkably, and I do mean remarkably, large oil lanterns of a kind I saw featured in a Technology Connections youtube video, except those were normal sized.

Moving forward you have another discontinuity and a transition to what looks like a matted-in and fairly sloppily-dressed soundstage. On the left, we see what looks like some strangely vivid purple meadow sage, which isn’t even a North American plant but also does look kind of like something I’ve seen but don’t know by name. I’m honestly wondering if they wanted purple sage because of the Zane Gray novel.

On the right you have some sort of vegetative mass reminiscent of… honestly the only thing that comes to mind is the creeping terror from The Creeping Terror (1964). Matte vegetation like that does exist, but I’ve never seen it look like this myself.

(one billion dollar propaganda campaign. a billion dollars. they put this on during the super bowl.)

Forward centre we have our Sinner and our Saviour. The Sinner is an older Native/First Nations man of indeterminate tribe who is sitting on a long piece of desert driftwood, his foot being washed in a metal washtub by our Saviour, an older white man, who carries vague cowboy iconography including… I honestly don’t know what that’s supposed to be. It’s placed and shaped a little like a holster and sits vaguely like leather but it’s also reminiscent of a bandana hanging out from his coat.

All of the foreground pieces are set on a television-grade thin-sand-on-a-soundstage “ground” and I am so psychically damaged by this cowboys-and-indians-but-fundamentalist mashup of stereotypes that it’s genuinely hard to piece together. If they didn’t lean so much into anti-Mormon hate I could take that approach to it, but the thing is, they really do historically hate what they call “the cult,” so I have a hard time thinking that’s a factor here.

Not gonna lie, this one’s pretty opaque in the specifics just because it is such a visual clusterfuck. I can’t tell if they tried too hard or not hard enough and had to rush it and just ran with the inchoate melange we see here.

Regardless, the intended surface-level read is “reconciliation” with “through Christ” on the side. That’s the same for all of these. That’s the sales pitch.

But the deeper read – I think the key here is that in their culture, God gave the White man this country and a manifest destiny to “settle” it – and Christianise it. It was a holy mission; you can even see it referenced as such in secular cowboy films of the mid-20th Century such as Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

In that context, the Native man’s sin is a combination of not being white, not being in the Bible and not yielding to the Manifest Destiny of Christian America. The white man is good in terms of being surface-level gracious to his inferior, and also for being a vaguely cowboyish rural white man with an old truck which has a rapidly dying battery because he left the lights on, I guess.

Because the white cowboy is always the good guy, right?

I’d guess this is also pushing back a little on land-back and treaty-rights movements. But the iconography is so vague and unfocused I can’t point to anything and say, “See? This means that” so I won’t.

(one billion dollars. for the love of the gods. a billion dollars.)

Next slide, please.

This one is much simpler and at first glance doesn’t need much analysis, but bear with me – it does.

A 1960s modernist building with long-brick walls and no windows fills the left and centre background. It has two metal doors which do have windows, and an armoured and very obvious security camera not really pointed at anything in particular. There’s a small anti-abortion protest on the right, beyond which we can see a somewhat shabby motor hotel with a cleverly branded rooftop sign reading MOTEL, in case you weren’t sure. Beyond that are palm trees, implying California, though it could as easily be Arizona or… sure, even Florida, the colours on MOTEL could be right for Florida.

But given who they hate and the small size of the crowd, I’m leaning towards California.

In front of the clinic on a badly-decayed concrete sidewalk there is a bench, on which sits our Sinner, a young white woman not visibly pregnant but she’s wearing baggy clothes so there’s room for ambiguity. Her jumper is thick and has extra long sleeves, and we’ll get back to that. She has a tattoo on her right leg, and we’ll very definitely get back to that. Her left foot is being washed by our Saviour, one of the anti-abortion protestors who, like everyone else in her group, is both white and overdressed for the weather.

This one in at first glance seems less bad than most, if you ignore the underlying meaning of the ad’s framework. But the combination of MOTEL, “bad part of town” (via the trifecta of decaying infrastructure, generic family planning clinic in an old building, and security camera), and most importantly the tattoo give it away.

Our young woman is placed in the role of the Sinner here because she’s been sex trafficked. The tattoo is an ownership indicator. MOTEL is indicative of where she’s forced to work. She might be seeking an abortion, she might just be seeking birth control, and both of those are sins too, but the big red flag here is putting her in the role of Sinner for being trafficked for sex.

Being a woman, she’s always at blame for anything related to sex, up to and including being kidnapped for forced prostitution and raped, so naturally, having been trafficked for sex makes her the sinner in this perverse little diorama.

By proximity and habit, they’re also implying collusion between the “family planning clinic” and the sex traffickers. This has been a trope through their modern history, since at least the early 1990s and almost certainly before. They also have a history of asserting for internal consumption that “family planning” agencies aid child molesters and other rapists.

I don’t know that the extra-long sleeves imply she’s hiding needle tracks in her arms, but they might.

If she had Jesus in her heart, whispers the theme, she wouldn’t be here. That’s both the general miasma of their belief system and the specific context; accept their version of Jesus and she can get out.

You’ll excuse me if I throw up in my mouth a little bit at these self-righteous motherfuckers, particularly since if she’s there for an abortion, they will absolutely demand that she carry her rapist’s child to term if she wants them to help. After all, it is go, and sin no more.

Not sinning any more includes delivering that rapist’s baby.

Otherwise, she’s on her own.

Next. Slide.

[link] #politics #USPol #writing #fascism #HeGetsUs #uspolitics

For #Lent, #HobbyLobby & #HeGetsUs should cease #selfrighteous, #feetwashing #ads.

The #Jesus #SuperBowl #commercials #mocked a #solemn #Easter tradition, by treating the #marginalized as criminals & undermining #Jesus' humility.

#Women #Transgender #LGBTQ #LGBTQIA #Spirituality #Religion #Conservatives #Extremism #Fascism #Hypocrisy #RepublicanParty #Hate #Bigotry #Violence #Genocide #Discrimination #Racism #Homophobia #Transphobia #ThePartyOfHate #EmptyThePews

https://www.advocate.com/voices/jesus-superbowl-feet-washing

"That’s why the campaign itself is destined to stop short of reaching the audiences it’s trying to target. Its targets on the left are wary of the sort of hollow proselytizing that claims to love the sinner while casting their intrinsic identity as something sinful. And its targets on the right are too busy viewing those on the left as something sinful to truly consider what it might mean to love them."

#exmo #ExMormon #lgbtq #exvie #exvangelical #deconstructing #ReligiousTrauma #Christianity #USpol #HeGetsUs

https://apple.news/A0C7IbUmCS0KKbZXpgK3Qkw

I decided I wanted to do a frame-by-frame analysis of the Super Bowl "He Gets Us" ad, getting into the iconography and meaning of this recruitment attempt tailored to attract moderate to liberal non-Christians and cultural Christians into the fundamentalist evangelical belief system.

It got long. REALLY long. Long enough that I'm dividing it into several posts. Here's part one:

https://solarbird.net/blog/2024/02/15/superbowl-jesus-ad-part-1-lets-frame-by-frame-it/

And if you get tired of the frame-by-frame and can't deal with it, there's a TLDR at the end.

eta: the easiest way to follow this series would be to follow my blog, which is fully federated as @solarbird

cc: @floatybirb by request

#HeGetsUs #superbowl #uspol #uspolitics #evangelism #fundamentalism

superbowl jesus ad, part 1: let’s frame-by-frame it

Let’s talk about that superbowl foot-washing ad from the far-right fundamentalist network trying to recruit more minions into far-right Christianity by teasing them in with a centrist and even liberal-attractive billion dollar ad campaign.

The top level organisation behind it funds anti-LGBT hate groups, the most extreme anti-abortion groups, etc etc etc. You know, the usual worst of everything. The Texas Observer has all the details – and how they don’t believe the very theme they’re selling – and you can read about it in their well-documented writeup.

But I’m not writing about that today. That’s covered already. I want to write a little about the imagery; what it means, what they’re saying, and how they’re saying it.

First, let’s talk about the whole foot-washing thing. It’s not complicated. Jesus washed the feet of his followers just before all the shit went down. It echos baptism in a common practice of the day, God in the form of Jesus washing away the sins of those who follow the Christ, a.k.a., the saviour-king.

(Christ isn’t a name, it’s a title; I don’t know how many people get that, but there it is. It’s Jesus, the Christ, not first name Jesus last name Christ, Jesus T. Christ or Jesus H. Christ as someone might exclaim in an old comedy.)

When you wash the feet of someone, you’re standing in for Jesus, communicating the idea of that forgiveness of sin. That’s the role of a priest, in Catholicism; in other versions of Christianity, who can do it varies. In American fundamentalist evangelism, it can be anyone – or no one, if you decide you’re being moved properly by the holy spirit of Jesus yourself.

But what’s left out of this ad is the critical follow-up – now, go and sin no more. That’s why the fundamentalists and their co-travellers are upset about the ad. It’s meaningless – religiously, spiritually – if you don’t agree you have sinned, and pledge that you will stop sinning.

Critical to that saving is the acceptance of Jesus, as represented by accepting the washing of the foot – and the sins. Without the vital, absolutely necessary part of accepting and becoming a follower of Jesus as they see him, by their rules, none of it means anything.

So when you see Person A wash Person B’s feet, what’s happening here is that Person A is being put in the position of the literal saviour, and Person B is being put in the position of the sinner, the one who must come to redemption through Jesus or burn in hell forever. The one apparently serving – by washing someone else’s feet – is, in reality, the one in the position of power over the one whose foot is being washed.

Now, keeping all that in mind, let’s take another look at those pictures. Buckle up, this is gonna be a long ride.

The first image is a dining room featureing an older white man, sitting in a dining chair, weirdly positioned far away from a dinner table, somehow underneath the ceiling light that should be serving the table but is instead brought forward to be used as the light of god as the son washes his father’s feet, whose feet are being washed by a much younger man, presumably his son. Two women are in back around the dinner table, where they belong, a mother setting up the table, a daughter sitting and wearing an inexplicable combination of some kind of robe and high leather boots.

(I see that strange costume along with the weird not-being-washed visible feet as one of the details saying “AI image generator says what,” but it could just be a combination of “artist ironically not really good at feet” and “artist doesn’t care about the women in the background.” Either way it’s pretty shoddy for the latest ad in a billion dollar propaganda campaign.)

There’s a small amount of Christmas paraphernalia in the background past the table; a small amount of tinsel, a tiny Christmas tree, a tiny Santa figurine.

This image is talking about a few things, any number of which could be picked up by the fundamentalist audience, while being accessible on another level to their target audience.

The message the fundamentalists might pick up is the idea of a shallow celebration of Christmas in particular as a cultural and therefore meaningless participation in Christianity. They’re big on that. The family shown is making the token efforts – putting out the symbols, none of which actually involve Jesus, the Christ – and getting together as a family, but no more. They are not “real” Christians. As such, they are the sinners, bound for eternal hell.

But the son, the bright one with the short hair, illuminated by the light of the overhead lamp, er, the light of God, has found the true way, and is working to bring his family to Real Christianity, which is to say fundamentalist evangelism. It’s a call to action; you must do this, to save your own.

Taking a step back up the rabbit hole, it can also be taken as a reminder that faith must be renewed, even in “good” families. It’s a nice house, after all, even if the decor et al is quite dated. (Hi 1990s thermostat, I see you.) That’s something middle-ground Christians might pick up upon, and even take it as a bit heartwarming.

Then one level up, you have stated intent, the idea of reconciliation across boundaries, in this case, generational boundaries within a family – something possible, this implies, only through Jesus.

What it’s about in the end is that insufficient Christianity is just as false as not being Christian. You aren’t safe unless you’re with them in particular. If you aren’t living their version of Christianity, you aren’t Christian at all, and you need to be saved.

Even if you’re upper-middle-class white people who see themselves as Christian.

Next slide, please.

A healthy-looking Black man has one foot up on a milk crate, foot being washed by a cop. The cop could be white, could be hispanic; I read him as hispanic, but I’ve seen other people reading him as white, so I dunno. The important part is: he’s a cop. They’re placed in a dirty alley with a token piece of graffiti; the cop’s car is in the background at the end of the alley and faces the viewer with lights on, though it’s not implied to be in motion.

This one has even more severe AI generation feels; that whole “black velvet painting” vibe is strong and some of the trash objects are genuine nonsense. Also there’s that odd “tied-together bundle of papers” trash stack that comes straight out of 1950s iconography – which is where most of these people live anyway – and vertical neon, the light of cyberpunk and the devil.

Obviously, the healthy-looking Black man is The Sinner. The (Possibly White) Cop is the Saviour. That’s enough right there, obviously, but bear with me, there’s more.

On the right, there’s a bare implication of a cardboard bed. It’s thin, but present at a glance, and an implication of something pillow-ish at the end, meaning there’s an implication here of homelessness. And yet, the Black man is healthy and despite his dirty shirt (and hoo boy we can go into that iconography) has decently done hair and wears a thick gold necklace.

The Black man’s sins here are a combination of poverty and sloth. He’s visibly healthy and has some indicators of wealth and so by implication chooses not to work. Or perhaps he’s chosen crime; since they consider homelessness a crime anyway, there’s not a lot of difference. And, of course, he’s Black.

The Cop – the man in authority – is, naturally, there to save him. In real life, that’s by… doing homeless sweeps, I guess, taking all his property, roughing him up, and maybe throwing him in jail. Remember, the literal iconographic role of the Christian Cop here is as Jesus, the Christ, so I’m not reaching. That’s literally what they mean.

Even when they’re maybe kinda trying not to be racist, they get super racist.

Next slide please…

A scene in a school hallway in front of a trophy display case containing an assortment of generic trophies, some blurry photographs, and two generic sportsballs, neither of which look like any particular sort of sportsball. (Insofar as they do, one could be a football, the other a dodgeball ball.)

Above the trophy case is some sort of spreadsheet-like display, filled with numbers and words in a grid of boxes, too blurry for me to make out. Gonna keep it real with you chief, I have no idea what that display is about unless it’s some sort of “public school makes you all into numbers” thing but I’m not going to go there.

There are lockers on either side of the display case, and several students in the background, with one heading off-screen left; we’ll get to one of them in a minute because he matters. The lighting is murky in both that dreary underlit gloom and AI-light-from-everywhere way except for the focus characters and the trophy case – where the shadows are occasionally dramatically wrong.

(Billion dollar ad campaign, you say. Wow. But to continue…)

The focus is on two white students in the middle, both girls, on the hallway floor. The anatomically-improbable girl on the left is the “sinner.” She’s in trousers, short sleeves, and has short, spiky hair which is dyed a red that’s a little past fire-engine and juuuust heading towards but is definitely not yet purple. It looks like the AI also tried to draw her a choker but changed its mind. She’s sitting on her skateboard, next to which are her boots (definitely not Doc Martins, definitely not, fuck these people are so old) and a couple of scattered books, none of which have visible words.

The blond-haired girl on the right – our “saviour” – has long hair in a ponytail and sports a cheerleader-type look. She’s sitting demurely, modestly dressed in long sleeves and a skirt. Her books are neatly stacked behind her with words on the spine, the biggest and clearest being HISTORY, in all caps. She literally has the bulk of history behind her.

Just past her on the upper right, a Black student stands against the locker wall with his skateboard; he’s the only other person with a skateboard. He’s looking at a girl with black hair getting something from her locker; we see her only from behind.

There is so much here. A lot of it, I think you can get from my description; these people aren’t subtle.

The meaning of the darkness of the public school is self-evident. The only light comes from the sports display cabinet – the part of schools they still like, particularly in the South – and the Christian saviour girl.

Our “sinner” here is an inadequately gender-conforming, rebellious girl. She has an unnatural hair colour, she wears trousers and yes they still care about that, hence her Christian saviour being in a skirt. She has a skateboard, a hobby of ill-repute (particularly for girls), and is possibly friends with and maybe even by implication involved with the only other skater in the image, who is Black.

Her books are uncared for and by dint of having no words are shown to be meaningless and void; her saviour’s books do have words, the most important of which is HISTORY and therefore knowledge of what they see as tradition, which she exemplifies by being white, by being modest, demurring, and gender-role compliant, and most of all again by being white.

I assure you if the audience had specifically been their own people, the word HISTORY would’ve been replaced by HOLY BIBLE.

Our sinner’s sin is rebellion against proper authority, in the form of rebellion in general and in her failure to perform gender according to their expectations, with an overtone of race-mixing dogwhistle to the most overtly racist. The pure white girl who is Christian and in the role of her saviour is all of the things they demand she be.

We’re only three images in and this post is already incredibly long, so I’m going to turn this into a series, showing how each frame sends a different aspect of the same message. It’ll be a little like Das Kapital in that approach, so if that’s a bit much for you and you’re not into it, the takeaway is very simple:

The message is to submit to White Male Fundamentalist Christian authority and live your life within the constraints they lay down, or burn forever in Hell. It’s a demand to live according to the rules of Christian Nationalism, a teaching guide to tell you how it works…

…all disguised as liberal Christian reconciliation.

That’s it. That’s the message, and that’s the method.

Next slide, please.

[link] #politics #USPol #writing #fascism #HeGetsUs #uspolitics

I grew up Independent Missionary Baptist (our heaven was very, very small, and not all of us would make it in because sin was everywhere), but I learned that Jesus was nice to those in need and brutal to the religious industrial complex.

This might help explain my unending well of anger at the utter chutzpah of these people.

Here’s a breakdown of the imagery of that #HeGetsUs campaign. Notice something?

The White Hero imagery … goodness.

The reactions received by the #HeGetsUs ads during the #SuperBowl clearly demonstrate that #Jesus doesn't have a PR problem--the #Christian right does.

The ads don't work because the problem is their complete lack of understanding and empathy toward nonbelievers and everyone sees it but them.

The lack of understanding of all the old people behind the #HeGetsUs campaign:

Reaching to young millennials and Gen-z … with a campaign that uses old media and online ads … to a group who knows how to do research, find people, and troll them from their phones

Utterly cynical Gen-X folks are trusting, drooling idiots compared to how jaded and savvy their target generation is to advertising and social media.

They don’t get it. Never will. Idjits.

#exvangelical #Christofascism

Looks like “He Gets Us” is now run by Come Near … which boasts only having 5 employees on LinkedIn.

Last year, “He Gets Us” was run by the Servant Foundation, known to fund anti-abortion and anti-LgBtQ+ causes.

I am sure someone out there could do a deep dive and find out if Come Near is just a whitewashed version of The Servant Foundation.

#HeGetsUs #exvangelical #fascists #Christofascism

Yes, the "He gets us" Superbowl advert is an expensive "Look at me" by Hobby Lobby, a company owned nasty piece of work, and it cost a lot of money that could have gone to supporting those in need, but ...

1. The message is accurate; the Christian Right is anything but Christian, following money rather than Christ.
2. Pointing out hypocrisy is good, even if it costs money to do so.
2. Even JC is written as saying that sometimes something is worth more than its monetary value (don't sell the ointment).
4. Every single Superbowl advert costs over $7,000,000 to place; all of that money should have gone to those in need.

#SuperBowl #HeGetsUs #HobbyLobby #Religion #Christianity #Atheist

@TexasObserver I’ve been Larry of those ads to begin with. I get this pay to pray message. #PayToPray #HeGetsUs

Nobody is surprised. Is Christ a bigot? If no, then why are Christians?

#hegetsus #christianfascism #christianhate #hategroup #evangelical #evangelism #christian #bigotry

Funny the #HeGetsUs media marketing blitz to greenwash #ChristianNationalism and try to erase #EvangelicalChristianity's role inspiring and supporting #Jan6th has decided not to allow comments on their advertising. Probably because someone would immediately point out its backers are some of the least Christ-like people in America.

@trbutler and Jason Kettinger speed through a bunch of sports related topics — including the return of #baseball and the #superbowl — and then turn to the #HeGetsUs campaign, the #AsburyRevival and controversy around the old praise song #AboveAll. #music https://podcast.ofb.biz/sa1083

The real proponents of any #war are the one's who play both sides.

#Jacobin = CloudFlare.
#HeGetsUs = CloudFlare

Fight!

#divideAndRule #panemetcircenses #cloudFlare #cheatingHumanity

Please join me for a #Steadfast that talks about #ChurchConflict, the #SuperBowl and #HeGetsUs as part of understanding what is going on in Philippians 4:2-3. https://youtu.be/VQ6WejNBglY

TBH I think ppl who are offended at #HeGetsUs campaign don't really understand #Jesus. "How could a loving God (or a God-loving person) expend something really valuable just to reach out to a few sinners?" That apparently
#extravagant #wastefulness is the scandal of #TheGospel !!! #sin #atonement #JesusAds

https://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-anointed.html

TBH I think ppl who are offended at #HeGetsUs campaign don't really understand #Jesus. "How could a loving God (or a God-loving person) expend something really valuable just to reach out to a few sinners?" That apparently
#extravagant #wastefulness is the scandal of #TheGospel !!! #sin #atonement #JesusAds

https://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-anointed.html

TBH I think ppl who are offended at #HeGetsUs campaign don't really understand #Jesus. "How could a loving God (or a God-loving person) expend something really valuable just to reach out to a few sinners?" That apparently
#extravagant #wastefulness is the scandal of #TheGospel !!! #sin #atonement #JesusAds

https://www.gotquestions.org/Jesus-anointed.html

Since the Super Bowl has everyone talking about Christian Nationalism now, here's something I wrote not too long ago about these yahoos.

“Despite the high theological language, Christian Nationalism is just white ethnonationalism with extra steps.”

#ChristianNationalism #Jesus #HeGetsUs #SuperBowlAd
https://readcultured.com/an-appeal-to-heaven-the-terrifying-christian-nationalist-logic-behind-the-jan-6-insurrection-a730086f286e

‘He Gets Us’ Super Bowl Ads for Jesus Flagged by Fans Criticizing Company Funding Them
Devon Forward • Yesterday 4:29 PM
$20 million to air two commercials promoting Jesus.
‘#HeGetsUs’ Super Bowl Ads for Jesus Flagged by Fans Criticizing Company Funding Them
people started looking deeper at the campaign and the company behind it, there is strong criticism against it.
the campaign has some controversial ties.
donors of the campaign and the organization behind it known as the #ServantFoundation, or The Signatry, are anonymous, known conservative, anti-contraceptive billionaire #DavidGreen, the founder and CEO of #HobbyLobby,
Lever News reported that the Servant Foundation has donated more than $50 million to the #AllianceDefendingFreedom, an organization declared a #hategroup by the SPLC that is intensely anti-#LGBTQ+ and has played a role in legislature pushing to ban #abortion and allow for #discrimination
hypocrisy $20 million on a Super Bowl commercial
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/he-gets-us-super-bowl-ads-for-jesus-flagged-by-fans-criticizing-company-funding-them/ar-AA17ota9?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=7b12b71273e04b53b458b32091611eba

Why do I bring this up on a motorsports oriented channel? Well, #HeGetsUs was a sponsor for #JoeGibbsRacing in #NASCAR last year, personally sponsoring Ty Gibbs's #54 Toyota Supra in the #Xfinity series for 2 races.

"He Gets Us is a unique campaign sharing what I believe to be the most important message we can share with others," said Joe Gibbs at the time.

https://speedwaydigest.com/index.php/news/xfinity-series-news/70086-he-gets-us-campaign-and-joe-gibbs-racing-announce-two-race-partnership

#NASCAR #HeGetsUs #SuperBowlLVII