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

[solarbird]

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.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.