Essentializing the Evangelical - Representation: Constructing the Mythology of the Evangelical (Part 3)

This is a paper that I have developed for a class I am taking at New York University on Interpreting Popular Culture.

I would love to hear your feedback and recommendations.

If you have missed any parts of this paper, you can click on the following hyperlinks:

Part One: Introduction
Part Two: Defining the Evangelical: Melting Pot or Mosaic?
Bibliography
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There are two aspects of the representation of evangelicals that I will explore in this section.

First, I would like to suggest that there is currently a homogenized and essentialized representation of evangelicals in popular media culture which is circulating a dominant mythology of evangelicalism; and that while this representation may be true of some evangelicals, it is not true of all evangelicals.

Second, I would also like to suggest that there are a plethora of possible representations which cross the boundaries of ethnicity, class, gender, nationality, political, and theological persuasion. However, most representations paint evangelicals in a negative light, and are cast as white, suburban, middle class Americans.

In this proposal, I am not excusing evangelicals from creating this representation – in many ways; we unfortunately confirm this by our own lifestyle choices. I am simply suggesting that this is not the only evangelical that exists, and that there are a growing group of evangelicals outside of this stereotype that deserve a representative voice in popular media.

Go to part 4 - Defining the Evangelical - The KKK Evangelical Mythology