Business..Parody... Religion

The visual and textual rhetoric of these shirts are unbelievingly disrespectful and humiliating to those who greatly practice the Christian religion as well as those of other strong faiths. Both shirts elicit the same reaction from me. The designers of both of these shirts, wanted to appeal to the religious community, clearly to gain business from them. The designers didn’t not take one important factor into consideration when creating the different ideas of the shirts; religious Christians will be intolerant of parody. As a religious Muslim, I perceive these images a parody because as Paul Mitchell said, “In the end Christianity is not a brand-it’s a relationship whose depth can’t be reduced to slogans.”
Paul Mitchell said, “Christian sloganeering-which is of course, not restricted to the fashion world-has become too similar to the world’s omnipresent advertising slogans. Consequently, it has diminished its ability to grab people’s attention.” This is not true because different fashion companies that are integrating religious symbols and figures have been successful in the sense of propagating their designs to younger religious groups. This is proven by the robust sales of the Teenage Millionaire, the Los Angeles-based makers of the “Jesus is My Homeboy” which sold 10 million up from 2 million three years ago.
If the shirts only contained text, this would have a different impact to the consumers but not to the intolerant groups of parody. To most of the consumers, text may not be sufficient to represent their faith publically; therefore a visual would further demonstrate their ideology of their religion. On the other hand, we have seen as religious consumers that the mainstream culture has made a mockery of these shirts; in addition, it has become more acceptable.
The rhetorical message of the Jesus in both shirts is clearly disrespecting and Jesus has been thought of an ordinary figure not a religious figure that serves as a role model to many religious communities. In the center, the shirt displays Jesus as a “Home Boy” and advocating peace. The positioning of him is not revealed in a religious way but in a street-like manner. The color of the shirt is plain; there is clearly an emphasis on the text and visual which allegedly implies the “phenomenon” of the Jesus to the targeted consumers. The designer draws “Jesus” face in a non-purely way which gives off a sign of disrespect. The shirt to the left, Jesus was given the holy face, but he was wearing a black shirt and not religious attire which is shocking and brings to us as religious individuals that the designers are directly attacking the Christian faith. The positioning of Jesus is ironically holy, which means the designer was trying to integrate some methods of religion to garner as many consumers as he can. The designers played with the fonts to emphasize certain ideas and grab the attention of the consumer. The usages of different color schemes implicate the importance of the message.