2 episodes
Monster in the Mirror Axis Mundi Media
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- Arts
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4.8 • 25 Ratings
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Monster in the Mirror is a spinoff series by Straight White American Jesus - written and created by Lucas Kwong.
This series examines how narratives perfected in novels like Dracula and War of the Worlds, prototyped the conspiratorial blend of fact, fiction, and faith that has become “all the rage” on the contemporary American Right–in more ways than one.
With its millenarian fantasies of “taking America back for God,” U.S. Christian nationalism has received analysis as a spur to extremist violence, a political theology birthed in the Reagan era, and the latest iteration of an American preoccupation with manifest destiny. But the narrative of heroic white Christians rallying against a foreign and sexually ambiguous threat also finds precedent in an unexpected source: the vampires, mummies, and aliens of late Victorian fiction.
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Alex Jones, QAnon, and Vampires
When it was first published in 1897, Bram Stoker's Dracula immediately triggered a spate of strong emotional responses. These responses partly stemmed from its action-movie depiction of Christianity, but also partly from the xenophobic fears of European Jews that lurk beneath its titular monster. Dracula also introduced the idea of a holy conspiracy, whose members must conduct their sacred fight against evil in secret. In this episode, we talk about how a century of adaptations has preserved the notion of dueling conspiracies, and thereby provided the narrative that fuels QAnon, the Oath Keepers, and other modern Crusaders consumed with their own secret plot to take America back from the "globalist" monsters they fear and loathe.
Pre-Order Brad's new book: https://www.amazon.com/Preparing-War-Extremist-Christian-Nationalism/dp/1506482163
For access to the full Orange Wave series, click here: https://irreverent.supportingcast.fm/products/the-orange-wave-a-history-of-the-religious-right-since-1960
To Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/straightwhiteamericanjesus
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Voice acting: Christian Young Valdovinos, Alfred Kwong, Lucas Kwong, Naomi Kwong
For Further Reading:
Stephen Arata, Fictions Of Loss
Barbara Belford, Bram Stoker: A Biography Of The Author Of Dracula
Roger Luckhurst, ed. The Cambridge Companion To Dracula
Raymond McNally and Radu Florescu, In Search Of Dracula: The History Of Dracula And Vampires
David Skal, Something In The Blood: The Untold Story Of Bram Stoker, The Man Who Wrote Dracula
Bram Stoker And Valdimar Asmundsson, Powers Of Darkness: The Lost Version Of Dracula.
Bram Stoker, Dracula.
Audio from various films used under fair/educational use laws.
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Ep. 1: Christian Nationalism's Gothic Genesis
Monster in the Mirror is a limited audio series produced by Straight White American Jesus, and created and written by Dr. Lucas Kwong.
Monster in the Mirror is a series about monsters. It's about how the fantastical beasts who stalk the imagination of contemporary Christian nationalists were birthed in another white God fearing empire. It's about how Christian nationalism's past and the clues to its future line, the pages of some of the most popular novels in English.
Christian nationalism isn't just a set of policies or a material network of influencers. It's a story, a story that seduces the imagination, one that's been told over and over, but that is now enjoying a renaissance. And if we wanna trace today's reboot back to its source material, we have to go back further than the Reagan eighties or even the Billy Graham fifties.
We have to go back to another time and place where the script that MAGA religion has now revived first entered white Christian consciousness, not as an explicit political ideology, but as entertainment. That time and place is late 19th century Britain. Monster in the Mirror explores how at the height of its powers, the British Empire began to suffer nightmares, visions of an apocalyptic future, of a decline.
That in some sense, actually is happening today in our place in time. And we're gonna see how the monsters that today's Christian right blames for that decline originated in the stories that the late Victorians told themselves about Christianity's enemies and protectors.
To Donate: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/BradleyOnishi
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/straightwhiteamericanjesus
SWAJ Apparel is here! https://straight-white-american-jesus.creator-spring.com/listing/not-today-uncle-ron
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Customer Reviews
Amazing show!
So well made and told. Very creative. So glad SWAJ highlighted it.
I’d like to hear more from Lucas.
Great job!
Very interesting....
Very interesting hypotheses on historical roots in literature for some of the current thinking among the Christian Right. At times the correlations are too forced and a bit tedious. Less audio distractions of music, sound effects and voice distortion would have been a plus.
A brilliant, creative, artistic and entertaining audio dissertation
Every episode is filled with audio surprises, fascinating connections, and personal insights. Establishes a clear connection between Victorian horror lit and the apocalyptic scenarios of white supremacy.