Why is Luigi being crucified?
Also, Oscar Issac was in a Christian ska band
Oscar Issac was in a Christian ska band
This week Oscar Issac has been trending mostly because of a horny moment on the red carpet of the Venice Film Festival. In response, Tyler Huckabee reminded the world the Star Wars star was once in a Christian ska band called The Blinking Underdogs.
The fact he could have gone from the guy in the pic above to a sex symbol and star of one of the world’s most popular franchises should bring hope to us all. Thank you, Oscar Issac, for showing us all we need to transcend such awkward beginnings is to be fantastically sexy and talented.
Anyway, here he is singing a song called “Salvation” during an event called “Spanky’s Battle of the Bands” in 2001.
Mayhem Miller said be not afraid
Unintentional pornographic energy
Look, I’m not sure how else to explain this. There are some very respectable people who subscribe to this newsletter, and to you I am very sorry, but this is exactly the crossover between gay Twitter and the religion beat this newsletter was founded to cover.
Yahoo Finance did a story about a COVID outbreak at the conservative evangelical Liberty University and accompanied it with this picture of Jared Marshall and Jake Baker, two Liberty students. Extremely normal. Well, with apologies to these probably very pious Christian men, the gays had other ideas.
Please note: this quote tweet has 51.2K likes and over 5000 retweets.
Not that I would know (😇) but they’re not wrong. Everything from the plain, underfurnished apartment, to the moustache, to the arm band tattoo is overwhelmingly porny. For those who need extra help decoding, Twitter user @PartyFridge has you covered:
It’s pretty common for Christian media to have unintentional innuendo in it, but way more unusual for it to occur in secular media reporting on Christians. Anyway, the more you know.
Lady Gaga: I BELIEVE IN GOD
Here’s a tweet by Lady Gaga featuring Big Chungus and a Minion saying “Do I look like someone who cares what God thinks?” It’s possible I don’t fully understand what’s going on here.
Luigi is (a terrible) God
Not sure if this really counts as a story, but I came across this tweet this week and had a little chuckle. Luigi is the cowardly brother of the Nintendo mascot Mario.
Funny! I love it. But where did this church get the graphics to make this sign? Is it just a strange mishmash of Luigi found on Google images and out-of-context theology? Or is it referencing something else? The tweets underneath it are full of Mario Bros inspired Christian iconography, and many people are acting like the sign is too spot on to be real.
While I couldn’t find an origin, there’s a lot of stuff out there, including a video in the style of the Mario Bros cartoons of Luigi being crucified. It’s almost certainly YouTube Poop, but I can’t find the source material it came from.
Actually, Luigi on a cross seems particularly popular with fan artists, and while there are quite a few examples of crucified Mario too, it isn’t nearly as common. Maybe Luigi really was crucified in and episode of The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, but who knows!
Luigi is a meme in and of himself, so maybe it’s just a matter of volume. If there’s enough memes about a character, at least some of them are going to be made by suburban kids putting a fresh spin on what they’re learning in Sunday School.
Or maybe it’s a hyperbolic fan response to one of the most beloved losers in video game history. Or am I missing something? If you know, please tell me.
Cars Pope
This was going to be in last week’s issue, but I delayed it for space and got scooped by Ryan Broderick in Garbage Day.
But anyway, I still want to say, the Cars Pope car is the perfect visual gag, but these aren’t the only troubling questions it poses about the Cars universe.
A Cars pope doesn’t necessarily imply the existence of a Cars Luther, because who is to say that cars would feel the need to reform the Catholic faith? But it does imply the existence of Cars Jesus in which case, is the holy symbol of Cars Christianity still the cross? Cars Jesus doesn’t have arms to outstretch and therefore allow crucifiction!
Interfaith movie night
King James Onlyism
Finally, a quick update on my neighbours, who are also my brother-in-law and his husband. I wrote about last time they got a Chick Tract in the mail, and guess what - it happened again!
This time the church responsible put their website on the back. It turns out they are King James Onlyist Baptists, which I did not realise was a thing in Australia!
King James Onlyism is one of those things that exemplifies why I find religion so interesting. How did this unlikely belief system come to be?
Religion for Breakfast did a good explainer.
Meanwhile, can someone please buy me this King James Only poster so I can hang it with all the other religious oddities I’m gradually collecting.