The Neverending Godfomercial, Part n.

Definition of terms:

(From Wikipedia)

Advertising is the commercial promotion of goods, services, companies and ideas, usually performed by an identified sponsor, and performed through a variety of media. Marketers see advertising as part of an overall promotional strategy. Other components of the promotional mix include publicity, public

Infomercials are television commercials that run as long as a typical television program. Infomercials are normally shown outside of peak hours, such as late at night or early in the morning. As in any other form of advertisement, the content is a commercial message designed to represent the viewpoints and to serve the interest of the sponsor. Infomercials are often made to closely resemble actual television programming, usually talk shows, with minimal acknowledgement that the program is actually an advertisement.
Infomercials are designed to solicit a direct response which is specific and quantifiable and are, therefore, a form of direct response marketing (not to be confused with direct marketing). The ad response is delivered directly to television viewers by infomercial advertisers through the television ad. In normal commercials, advertisers do not solicit a direct response from viewers, but, instead, brand their product in the market place amongst potential buyers.
Infomercial advertisers may make use of flashy catchphrases (such as "Set it and Forget it"), repeat basic ideas, and/or employ scientist-like characters or celebrities as guests or hosts in their ad. Because of the sometimes sensational nature of the ad form, consumer advocates recommend careful investigation of the claims made within any infomercial ad and investigation of the company sponsoring the subject product of the infomercial before purchasing the featured product or products. Infomercials are for the largest part shown late night to early morning between 2:00am and 6:00am.

(Mine)

Godfomercials are any materials (books, plays, movies, TV shows, video games, etc.) promoting the underlying tenets of religious belief. These include, but are not limited to: supernatural beings, life after death, non-corporeal intelligences, an overweening metaphysical “battle” between forces of “Good” and “Evil”, “proper” behaviors being “rewarded” with “luck” or good fortune, judgment post-mortem, “angels” and “demons” or other mythical beings interfering with daily life, possession by evil spirits, and zombies and other living dead things, and dead persons and pets coming back to life. Basically anything that falls into the category of Superstitious Fiction.

The Sunday Sermon, TV Evangelism, Mandatory prayer at specific times, and New Age Medicine Shows also qualify as Godfomercials. Basically, any presentation of superstitious material that is designed to put the listener into a near-hypnagogic state, and then reinforce through repetition those ideas being promoted until the instruction bypasses the listener’s natural skepticism or discrimination.

The Neverending Godfomercial is the constant barrage of superstitious, religious, and pseudo-religious themes in movies, on television, and in print. I believe that this bombardment actually creates demand for like product, like the saturation advertising of Coca-Cola creates demand for that product. This creates a self-feeding system that promotes itself. The large number of Freddie Krueger and Jason sequels in contrast to the usual two sequels spawned by most movie genres supports this theory.

The visual and anecdotal validation of the “existence” of supernatural demons “validates” the belief in the existence of life after death, and the concepts of Heaven and Hell. I’ll explore how this happens in my next post.