Film & TV Reviews

Review: American Gods

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Neil Gaiman’s 2001 novel American Gods is a popular read in Pagan circles, and the new Starz television series was greeted with excitement by many of the book’s Pagan fans. Debuting on April 30, the series has aired three episodes as of this writing. The story revolves around the riveting premise that the old gods, being immortal, still exist. However, due to a lack of worship in the modern world, they are old and haggard and blend into American society, having arrived there when their followers immigrated, sometimes involuntarily. At the same time, America’s new gods, or the gods that represent the targets of modern worship such as media, computers, and globalization, are strong, vibrant, and at war with their predecessors.

Paganism

Column: Pagan Women Respond to Unbalanced Dress Codes

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As spring gets into full steam and the weather gets warmer, clothing often tends to become more revealing. Men begin to wear more shorts and t-shirts while women move their wardrobe toward sundresses, skirts, and tops that reveal both midriff and shoulders. It makes perfect sense given the warming weather, but different expectations for how men and women dress can often be disproportionate and inappropriately sexualized. Hollywood has weighed in on the problem.The 1992 film A League of Their Own touches on the very real and quite dangerous practice of requiring female professional baseball players to wear skirts. 2016’s Hidden Figuresstepped into questioning the requirement of skirts and high heels.

Culture

Column: Jen Shakti, the Modern Tattoo Shaman

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The tattoo has been an important sacred trial for individuals across multiple cultures for generations. The path of pain, identified in Western Witchcraft by Gerald Gardner and other early 20th-century esotericists, has a long history of altering consciousness and manifesting changes in people’s lives. Native cultures around the world have been utilizing the tattoo to mark sacred life passages for centuries, and those of Western heritage have been doing so for almost as long as they have had co­­­­­­­­­ntact with outside cultures. Whether it is a sacred mark of a warrior initiation, or a mark of military service, sacred ink that tells a tribal person’s life story or a mark of one’s alma mater, tattoos have long represented what is important in the narrative of people’s lives. As often happens when indigenous ceremonies get translated into new cultures, the sacredness of the tattoo became diluted as Western culture embraced it.

Paganism

Column: Aradia Inspires a New Generation of Resistance

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Within 24 hours of President Trump’s inauguration, resistance movements exploded onto the national, and even international, landscape. The Women’s March on Washington was so large that attendees could not march because they filled the entire marching route. The same was true in Los Angeles, and sister marches attracted hundreds of thousands of people all across the country and around the world. Within the first week, the new president started a war with the National Park Service, suspending their social media privileges. The NPS fought back by creating “rogue” Twitter accounts assigned to unknown federal employees and quickly gained thousands of followers.

Paganism

Column: Iceland: Fire, Ice, and Sustainable Energy

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In seventh grade world history, I learned two things about the country of Iceland. The first was that the name of the capital city was pronounced “REJ-a-vik.” This was incorrect. The second was that Iceland, despite its name, is a land full of fire. It utilizes natural heat from the earth to provide heating and electricity to its people. This second part was true.