Celebrity prayer candles are a thing.
Earlier today, Patheos‘ own Deacon Greg Kandra posted a link on Facebook to an Etsy site selling parodies of prayer candles featuring Catholic-themed pictures of “The Golden Girls.”
But it’s not just these four ladies. Apparently all kinds of celebrities get their faces plastered on prayer candles, complete with saintly robes, Sacred Hearts and all the rest — Saint RuPaul is especially charming — and obviously Catholics are expected to take it all in good humor.
Usually, we do. But sometimes, you just have to wonder.
I went to a press event for The CW’s “Jane the Virgin” in January, and we received boxes on the way out. The picture above shows you what was in them.
For those who haven’t seen it, “Jane” — an American version of a Venezuelan telenovela — stars Gina Rodriguez in the title role of Jane Villanueva, a Catholic girl saving herself for marriage. She goes in for a regular pap smear, but is instead accidentally impregnated with sperm from a cancer patient (who saved it before chemo, just for this purpose), which was meant for his (adulterous and nasty) wife.
True to its telenovela roots, the story is incredibly convoluted and packed with scandal. For example, the doctor, Luisa, that impregnated Jane is the lesbian sister of the cancer patient, Miami hotel owner Rafael (Justin Baldoni, whose own wife is pregnant with their first child).
Incidentally, there seems to be an unwritten rule now that there has to be a gay character in everything, and if they’re women, they have to be hot (unlike the ordinary-looking gay male couple on “Modern Family”). Work out the psychological underpinnings of that with fear and trembling.
Anyway, the botched insemination happened because New Age devotee Luisa was discombobulated after catching her female lover having sex with her assistant. She’s also a recovering alcoholic who had an affair with the woman who married her father, and the stepmother/lover later had Luisa committed to a mental institution (there were hallucinogenic drugs and a visit to an ashram somewhere in there).
On the other hand, Jane’s mother, Xiomara, defied the advice of her own mother to have an abortion and had Jane as a teenager; and Jane herself is having her unplanned child. And, despite her panicked advice to her daughter, Jane’s Spanish-speaking grandmother, Alba, told Jane she regretted ever suggesting an abortion and emphasized her love and gratitude for her granddaughter. Alba is also portrayed as a devout Catholic, and both priests and nuns have been featured on the show, in generally positive or at least neutral ways.
Obviously, “Jane the Virgin” is a very mixed bag for Catholics, but the show’s use of Church-related themes probably inspired the creation of the candles. The image of Jane (center) is especially cringeworthy, as it shows her holding a positive pregnancy test stick, and being surrounded by a halo of positive and negative sticks (but her holding a pregnancy-test stick is one of the show’s signature images, so it makes sense from a marketing perspective).
However, unlike a lot of the celebrity candles, these promotional items, while they resemble the general style of devotional candles, don’t feature any actual Catholic imagery.
Again, Catholics are asked to take all this in stride without losing their minds or threatening anyone. But it’s just another example of someone using the Catholic faith — along with, in this example, Hispanic Catholic culture — as props and window dressing, while not letting the actual tenets of the Faith derail juicy plot twists.
Oh, and Cosmo lauded “Jane the Virgin” for pushing the idea of being pro-choice to the Hispanic community, because why should they miss out on getting rid of unwanted babies?
None of this is surprising, because the show isn’t being run by a writer who’s a serious Catholic. But executive producer and showrunner Jennie Synder Urman does have talent, a track record in television and a lot of experience — including “90210” and “Gilmore Girls” — and that’s what got her this job.
I’ll keep saying it until it sinks in — you’re not going to be represented on TV if you don’t represent. We need to get into the entertainment industry, work hard and succeed. It’s only then that you get control of the message. And today, the message the media puts out has as great, or greater, an effect than family or faith on many in society, especially the young (and that also includes Catholic youth).
Avoiding and hiding from media may feel good in the short term, but if we are truly to make disciples of all nations, then it’s our duty to be in the game. You gotta be in it to win it.
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