"Pope's Visit" Commercial

[Pia Jesu]

Surely, most have viewed the Twitter App (Moments) commercial featuring Pope Francis.  It shows the Holy Father joking, performing a "magic trick" (whipping off an altar cloth), spinning a basketball, losing a cap to a wind gust--and having his mozetta (cape) blow over his head.  Not knowing whether to smile or cringe (and feeling a bit of unease), I wonder if the commercial is...

--emblematic of some sort of postmodern understanding that authority figures (like the Pope, heads of state, even the police) possess undue influence on people and need to be "humanized" or possibly diminished in some way

--simply a media "grab" using a well-known, controversial figure to market a product

--an attempt to "reshape" an ancient institution that many believe to be in decline

--just another example of how well the media understands psychological theories of influence and persuasion

As a former teacher, I realize how levity (and humor) can help diffuse difficult situations (read recalcitrant students) and redirect behaviors.  Is this dynamic at work here?  Are Catholic conservatives (prelates, the laity and commentators) subliminally being targeted?  One of the comments on You Tube applauded the video saying that the Pope is "not for God, but for the people." 

[Era Might]

I haven't seen the video, but your point about postmodern "humanizing" public figures does get at something true about our age. The philosopher Slavoj Zizek has a good documentary where he uses movies to unpack ideology, but one of the examples he uses is from the Soviet Union, where the only way to really discredit the political system was not to condemn it, but to make a fool of it. So they would use movies to depict Communist officials as lackeys and buffoons. This can be a good technique for critique, but it also gets to the point where it's all we do is make fun and expose, and can't talk seriously about anything. The writer David Foster Wallace, who was sort of a postmodern literary genius, alsi used to lament that postmodernism easily becomes a cheap trick and we become ironic about being ironic, IOW we hide from serious thinking by cheap cynicism and seeing in life only tricks and buffoonery.

But,apart from all that, I think our culture, and especially our digital culture, is just designed to be infantalizing, and we like the lulz whether it's a YouTube video mashup or the funny car commercial...we're like babies laughing at keys jingling in our face, we want to be entertained. 

[Gabriela]

2 hours ago, Pia Jesu said:

Surely, most have viewed the Twitter App (Moments) commercial featuring Pope Francis.  It shows the Holy Father joking, performing a "magic trick" (whipping off an altar cloth), spinning a basketball, losing a cap to a wind gust--and having his mozetta (cape) blow over his head.  Not knowing whether to smile or cringe (and feeling a bit of unease), I wonder if the commercial is...

1 emblematic of some sort of postmodern understanding that authority figures (like the Pope, heads of state, even the police) possess undue influence on people and need to be "humanized" or possibly diminished in some way

2 simply a media "grab" using a well-known, controversial figure to market a product

3 an attempt to "reshape" an ancient institution that many believe to be in decline

4 just another example of how well the media understands psychological theories of influence and persuasion

As a former teacher, I realize how levity (and humor) can help diffuse difficult situations (read recalcitrant students) and redirect behaviors.  Is this dynamic at work here?  Are Catholic conservatives (prelates, the laity and commentators) subliminally being targeted?  One of the comments on You Tube applauded the video saying that the Pope is "not for God, but for the people." 

You seem to be trying to discern Twitter's intent from people's reactions to it. That's a bad method.

Regarding 1: Maybe, but I think that it's too nice to be that. Never shutting up about the priest scandal is a much more postmodern way, IMO, to cut down authority. Here he comes off as nice and likeable. What's wrong with that?

Regarding 2: Yeah, for sure. And probably targeting a demographic that Twitter doesn't often target.

Regarding 3: Why would Twitter be interested in this? I seriously doubt they care.

Regarding 4: Well, yeah, most high-quality commercials are.

What concerns me is that someone made a touching ad using our Holy Father, and immediately people are suspicious. But the popes have been saying for decades that a big part of the new evangelization involves the use of new communications technologies. So now we've got even the goyim doing it. I'd say that's a good thing, not a bad thing.

Also, remember that Pope Francis is the first pope to actually use social media regularly himself. Especially Twitter. So it seems plenty appropriate to me.

[Pia Jesu]

Twitter's marketing intent is obvious...!  I'm simply questioning (along the lines of the Zizek's [2005] documentary mentioned in Era's post) the choice of Pope Francis to "star" in it.  Current Christian/Church thinking is responding to a multitude of influences--from science (Climate Change!), sociology, process philosophy, the cultural experiences of sexual and ethnic minorities, etc.  And with the "blessing or bane" potentiality of the media...putting the Holy Father out there in such an "entertaining" and lighthearted way seems, in my opinion, to attach a certain use-value to him.  As head of the Catholic Church, he is also subject to the lack of respect, distrust of and opposition to authority that we see today.  Likewise, I think that people, in general, are susceptible to media import.  Is there any doubt that our information is manipulated by its sources or special-interest groups?  For Christianity, the consequences--both good and bad--remain to be seen.

[Era Might]

Just watched the video, I didn't get any nefarious vibe, seemed more just "public figure as celebrity" rather than anything serious. I didn't think it was really about the Pope or Catholicism, more about Twitter users following news. BTW what's this new Twitter App?

[Gabriela]

4 hours ago, Pia Jesu said:

Twitter's marketing intent is obvious...!  I'm simply questioning (along the lines of the Zizek's [2005] documentary mentioned in Era's post) the choice of Pope Francis to "star" in it.

Pope Francis doesn't need to make a choice to star in anything. Twitter owns the rights to everything posted on Twitter. They didn't even have to ask him. And he can't sue (not like he would...).

[Pia Jesu]

2 hours ago, Era Might said:

Just watched the video, I didn't get any nefarious vibe, seemed more just "public figure as celebrity" rather than anything serious. I didn't think it was really about the Pope or Catholicism, more about Twitter users following news. BTW what's this new Twitter App?

Yes...nothing nefarious...but a little "off" to me (and certainly not "touching.").  Seeing Pope Francis pull the cloth off the elevated High Altar of Sacrifice as a magic trick seems disrespectful.  After all, it is the sacred place of the Holy Mass--where the reparation and propitiation of all the sins of the world; past, present & future--takes place.  My Twitter days are over...perhaps another forum member can describe the new app!  Thanks for the insights.

[Guest]

Pharisees gonna Pharisee...

[Gabriela]

Priests like to have fun, too, you know. I thought the altar cloth trick was the best bit.

[Maggyie]

Seriously it's just a funny video. Nothing else to it. The Internet is 95% baby animal videos and 5% joke videos like this. They're not laughing at him, they're laughing WITH him is the vibe.  

[miserere55]

Pia Jesu,  I certainly agree with you that the twitter commercial is uncomfortable to watch and knowing that it was Ellen Degeneres' graphics team that put it together makes it even more uncomfortable.  The Pope walked up to the altar to lay flowers and pray, but instead they have him making a magic trick with the altar cloth.  This borderlines the sacrilegious.  He is the Vicar of Christ and when he is made to look like an idiot and fool, then so is Our Lord.  And as far as "having fun" is concerned, the silly glasses would rank as "immature fun."  This just backs up  what  Era Might says, "Our digital culture is designed to be infantalizing."

Along those lines, they often use people dressed as nuns in commercials and portray them as "stupid."  And yet, Roman Catholic Sisters are the most educated population in the world.

 

[Pia Jesu]

Amen!  The NY Daily News (and several other media outlets) reported that Twitter was "furious" about the Holy Father meeting (during his US visit) with Kentucky County Clerk, Kim Davis--who refused to sign the marriage license for a gay couple.  How interesting that the Moments App commercial was released the following month!

[Gabriela]

11 hours ago, miserere55 said:

Along those lines, they often use people dressed as nuns in commercials and portray them as "stupid."  And yet, Roman Catholic Sisters are the most educated population in the world.

LOL. Says who? I could buy the media portraying nuns as sex objects—that croutons is everywhere—but where are they portrayed as stupid? And even if they are, I seriously doubt they're the most educated population in the world. More educated on average than the average "career" demographic, maybe, but the "most"? Hardly.

[dominicansoul]

8 hours ago, Gabriela said:

I seriously doubt they're the most educated population in the world. 

Dominicans.  'nuff said.  

 

[dominicansoul]

 The Pope needs to be defended against attacks and i find your zeal to do so commendable.  But we do not know the real intentions behind this.  I believe if they meant him to look like a fool or blaspheme they failed miserably.  Ths makes him look cooler than he already is.  People love the Pope because he connects with everybody.  Hes not always serious snd i believe this video touches on his fun side.  He may have been amused by it himself.  

Edited December 6, 2015 by dominicansoul
Using iphone with my fat fingers

[Maggyie]

Yeah I don't think anyone watching that video thinks to themselves "lol the pope looks stupid."   Cathokics need a sense of humor! What did St Teresa of Avika say about sour faced saints?

[Pia Jesu]

Vatican spokesman, Fr. Thomas Resica recently stated that "there are limits to satire and humor" especially in the ways we portray and speak of faith & belief.  Undoubtedly, Pope Francis enjoys being with people and is joyful in the Spirit, but he bears the weight of the Church on his shoulders (especially during this horrific period of history). The media's caricature of him as a rock star and cool dude who "performs" a magic trick diminishes respect for the Holy Office of the Papacy.

[Era Might]

44 minutes ago, Pia Jesu said:

Vatican spokesman, Fr. Thomas Resica recently stated that "there are limits to satire and humor" especially in the ways we portray and speak of faith & belief.  Undoubtedly, Pope Francis enjoys being with people and is joyful in the Spirit, but he bears the weight of the Church on his shoulders (especially during this horrific period of history). The media's caricature of him as a rock star and cool dude who "performs" a magic trick diminishes respect for the Holy Office of the Papacy.

So, to try and take this beyond the Twitter commercial, we no longer live in a world where there is a "Holy Office of the Papacy." I think the Popes themselves have long ago come to terms with that, and aren't bunkered down against modernity like the Popes before the turn of the century. The church has let go of its role as head of western civilization, it had no choice, society has changed. I think personally that the church needs to radically rethink its institutions, because the world has fundamentally changed.  The church since Vatican II has nominally been doing that, but I don't think mere reform is radical enough, it's only an adjustment to reality...but in adjusting to reality, the prophetic is lost, I think. I don't think the video is offensive, but I'm not looking at it from a perspective of sacred/profane because I don't think the world really makes that distinction anymore. I don't think the Pope is ever going to be head of civilization again, even if he walked around on a throne and tiara, which would only look absurd in the world we live in, because its symbolic value is lost. So, to me, the real trouble with the problem you raise is what is Christianity in the modern world? Another way of saying that is, what would you do differently if you were Pope? It's easy to say you would do this or that differently, but you would quickly realize that you're not living on your terms, you live in a world that has its own assumptions, and you can choose to scold the world, but that would quickly make you,and the church, an easy object of derision, and not just derision, but public absurdity. The church would not be triumphant, it would be grotesque. It would be like a monk having a family and treating his family like a monastery...family life has a very different character, and pious seriousness would not suit...which is why the monk is not in the world in the first place. The Pope is in the same kind of situation, he knows the world is not a house of Jesuits or a conclave of Cardinals. Never has been, but in the past the ordinary people didn't concern themselves with their rulers, they had their own culture...Carnivals, etc. But today there is not only a loss of secular/sacred distinction, but also no ritual/vernacular distinction. Culture and politics are irreversably democratic.

Edited December 6, 2015 by Era Might

[dominicansoul]

3 hours ago, Pia Jesu said:

The media's caricature of him as a rock star and cool dude who "performs" a magic trick diminishes respect for the Holy Office of the Papacy.

Or makes those who never paid attention to the Pope take notice of the papacy?  I've been surprised at how the people who you think hate the church have embraced our Pope.  When ISIS threatened him the first time, even secularists were saying "they better not mess with our Pope!"   I don't think the video is as bad as you're  perceiving it to be.  It's not like he was juggling chalices with The Blood of Christ sloshing around... In an age where everything offends everybody, we should save our complaints for the real hate that's out there...

[Gabriela]

Some people really need to get a sense of humor.

The Pope's got one.

12 hours ago, dominicansoul said:

Dominicans.  'nuff said.  

They tend to be highly educated, but dilute them in the mass of Franciscans and run the stats again.