Gods Behaving Badly: Media, Religion, and Celebrity Culture

In Gods Behaving Badly, Pete Ward explores the evolving relationship between popular culture and religion by highlighting the convergence of theological themes, religious practices and celebrity culture. The goal of this study is twofold. First, Ward traces evolving notions of the religious and secular, as theological tropes and rituals are no longer confined to traditional forms of religion. Ward finds a family resemblance between theological tropes and semiotics and the words and symbols used by a Western (more specifically, American) population increasingly infatuated with celebrities and celebrity culture. Ward parts with scholars before him who have argued that celebrity culture is a form of religion. Instead, Ward argues that celebrity culture or celebrity worship is a new form of para-religion that emerged after World War II when the Protestant majority lost its stranglehold on the USA’s religious sensibilities, resulting in increasingly malleable religious and cultural boundaries. Second, Ward documents new forms of subjectivity and the self, as Americans construct their own identities in relation to the celebrities they simultaneously admire and critique. Celebrity culture or celebrity worship is a veiled glorification of the self insofar as we project our dreams, insecurities and aspirations onto celebrities. Ward concludes, “Celebrities are sacred because they represent the sum of the possibilities for the self” (111).

After a brief introduction in which he states his thesis and outlines his project, Ward divides the book into five chapters. Chapter one addresses the merging of the religious and the secular in celebrity culture where non-celebrity “devotees” refer to celebrities as sacred or semi-divine figures. Chapter two addresses celebrity representation and the process by which Americans become familiar with celebrities. The media provide initial and often conflicting impressions of celebrities. Devotees then actively alter media representations as they construct meaning out of celebrities and celebrity culture. In the process, they create notions of the self that are mediated through a celebrity culture that closely resembles celebrity worship.

Ward finds that celebrity culture is ripe with theological language and practices, so in chapter three Ward considers whether or not celebrity worship is a new form of religiosity. Ward identifies striking similarities between celebrity culture and religion; however, celebrity worship is different from traditional forms of religiosity in several important ways. For example, there is no church-like community of believers, nor is there official doctrine. Ward concludes that celebrity worship is a form of para-religion insofar as it employs religious language, symbols and practices outside the boundaries of what is traditionally considered religious.

Chapter four addresses the apotheosis of celebrity, as people refer to celebrities as semi-divine. In the process, we project our own meanings and insecurities onto celebrities, who seldom live up to the high, ideal standards we expect of them. Via celebrity worship, “we worship ourselves not simply as we wish ourselves to be but also as we see ourselves failing, being imperfect and unworthy of worship” (107). In the final chapter, Ward addresses common theological themes in celebrity worship.

In Gods Behaving Badly, Ward engages several historiographies, but two emerge as particularly relevant. First, Ward cites scholars such as Malcolm Boyd, Gary Laderman and Ian Bradley who have previously addressed the issue of celebrity culture, theological rhetoric and religion. Second, Ward incorporates the insights of several of the classic theorists of religion such as Émile Durkheim, Mircea Eliade, Rudolf Otto and Clifford Geertz.

Ward admirably identifies various ways that people negotiate identity in and through celebrities and celebrity culture. He insightfully situates individuals as active participants in these processes, rather than as passive observers who simply absorb the often conflicting representations of celebrities. Ward is less convincing when he argues that celebrity culture represents a form of religiosity. The reader wonders how recent critiques of the category religion might have impacted Ward’s argument. For examples, Talal Asad’s critique of Geertz is conspicuously absent, as is any critique of sui generis religion. By omitting these critics, Ward ignores the arguments that potentially...