In this episode Alastair, Daphne and Elizabeth discuss the eighth episode of the Starz adaptation of American Gods, Come To Jesus!
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Show notes:
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- Under the Stairs (Instrumental) by Josh Woodward
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Judy Garland in Easter Parade (with Fred Astair as one of the children) – Alastair gets a pass but pop culture yanks should know this!
Media is Judy Garland and the “Children” are Fred Astaire in the movie “Easter Parade”.
Media is Judy Garland and the “Children” are Fred Astaire in the 1948 film “Easter Parade”. I was also stumped until I saw Bryan Fuller identify her in an interview. 🙂
I’m not English speaker so for this I’m sorry for my mistakes and for sounding rude or like I didn’t enjoy the episode, far from it, I just disagree with these points:
Bilquis was a woman before she turned into a goddess. She was the Queen of Sheba, married to Solomon and gave birth to a son. Just like Mad Sweeny was a man, a King before he turned into a leprechaun and like Jesus, who was a man before he turned into a god as well.
We already saw another religion with extremist believers: In the Coming to America with Mexican Jesus, the men killing those immigrants were Christians or Catholics. So why showing them being Christians/Catholic extremists but not showing Muslims extremists?
Like Huginn and Muninn, the bunnies are sentient beings who are spies for Ostara. Mad Sweeney gave gold to the bunny in exchange for its help, so he could stop Laura because that’s what Wednesday asked him to do.
Nope, there can’t be several Odins (taking him as an example) in the USA because Odin is not popular as Jesus. But there is a European Odin. It’s about the immigrants bringing him to that country, so that’s why there are so many versions of Jesus and only one Odin. Everybody thought it was hilarious and fits perfectly in America when this episode was premiered.
You have to remember that gods die if they’re not remembered and Jesus is remembered and needed all the time given his popularity and that’s why Odin said: “Well there’s a lot of need for Jesus, so there is a lot of Jesus.” There’s not a lot of need of Odin, so there are not a lot of Odins.
Again with the continuity issue: Odin in America is the same Odin in Finland. Ostara in America is the same Ostara in Germany. She, as an entity, is 12,000 years old. No god will talk about itself in terms of time and space as an independent entity from the other god in another country because they’re the same thing. Their minds, thoughts, and memories are exactly equal. The only difference is that European Odin looks probably better and is a little more powerful than American Odin.
Shadow’s nature is good, he not only wants to be, he is good (if you have an idea of who he really is by now, you’ll know that his nature is to be good.) but also is amazing how a nice, good person can have issues, weakness and different aspects of his personality and not shallow and thin layered.
All the commentaries about Bilquis (women) versus Men in Power trying to take her power, her independence, are all the same: from the first King in Mr. Nancy’s story to Technological Boy.
Media will always be a character from a show or a movie, never the real actor. She wasn’t Marilyn Monroe, she was The Character (all of them) Marilyn Monroe portrayed in her movies. Now she’s Hannah Brown (Judy Garland) in “Easter Parade” and the faceless children are Fred Astaire as Don Hewes.
Laura said, “you’re not a god” because Mad S. literally said it to her that he wasn’t. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t think he’s a mythological creature.
Gillian Anderson is channeling Judy Garland in ‘Easter Parade’.
On the off chance no one else has told you yet–Media is dressed as Judy Garland in Easter Parade. The “children”with her are dresssed as Fred Astaire from the same film.
I believe that Oestara came to America with Christians. Not the Pilgrims; they weren’t into celebrating holidays. But other English speaking Christians. In the Romance languages, the word for Easter is a variation on the Hebrew word for Passover. Pesch, or something like that. English is the one whose word for that holiday is taken from the name of the Saxon goddess of the Spring. Easter, like Passover, is associated with the Spring Equinox: the first Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox(the first Sunday after Passover which was why Jesus was in Jerusalem at that time). And Oestara is associated with rabbits and colored eggs. As a child, I could never understand the Easter bunny. It’s actually the Oestara Bunny. Early Christianity co opted the celebrations and sacred sites of the European pagans and turned them to their own uses.
Media probably started with the printing press, so an early form of her may have existed when Oestara became Easter. Or perhaps Easter did it on her own and that’s where the new gods got the idea.
I probably wouldn’t have watched this except for you. I do enjoy hearing you talk about TV and books and films. I like the book better than the show, but that is usually the case for me.
Hello!
Sorry to bother you but I can’t seem to download this episode. It says error 404. I can’t get it through my podcast app either. Of course this is killing me because I love your podcast and it’s the season finale! I’d even read a transcript if that’s the only option 🙂
Thanks for all your work!
Jess