29th Annual Student Research Conference
The Son of God Can Sing and Dance: Comparing the Masculinity of Jesus in Musical and Biographical Films
Ian A. Wohlstadter
Dr. Paul Shapiro, Faculty Mentor
This study explores the masculinity of Jesus Christ as portrayed in three musical films in comparison to four non-musical, biographical style Jesus films. This comparison is made using quantitative content analysis of each film by documenting instances of action or expression which exhibit traditionally masculine traits such as authority, strength, and aggression. These were added into a composite masculinity score for each film. Occurrences of sensitivity such as compassion, humbleness, and sadness were also recorded and scored. At first, unadjusted scores for the musical films presented a statistically significant less masculine Christ, but after standardizing scores to control for the lengths of each film, no significant differences were found. These results support the notion that, using a traditional definition of masculinity, the musical Christ is not inherently less masculine.
Keywords: Jesus, Film, Musical, Masculinity, Content Analysis
Topic(s):Sociology
Philosophy & Religion
Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: -3
Location: VH 1328
Time: 8:30