CALL 855 FOR TRUTH
AN EXPLORATION OF EAST TENNESSEE’S RELIGIOUS BILLBOARD PROBLEM.
WHERE ARE YOU GOING? HEAVEN OR HELL?
WHERE ARE YOU GOING? HEAVEN OR HELL?
WALMART IS NOT THE ONLY SAVING PLACE.
WALMART IS NOT THE ONLY SAVING PLACE.
JESUS IS COMING SOON! ARE YOU READY?
JESUS IS COMING SOON! ARE YOU READY?
Image: pasty-faced mouth-breathers pressed against windows, camera smushed to cheek. Here, I might embellish and add a steady line of drool dangling from the lip to match the steady line of cars oozing, leaking, radiating down the lane.
A bear frolics in the field.
Click, click, click.
A bird lands on a branch.
Click, click, click.
All the while, toxic emissions hemorrhage from the hundreds of exhaust pipes, both made from steel and mouth. Gas fogs the window, breath fogs the screen.
I slam my head against the steering wheel, sentenced to this terrible, impatient fate of one amongst many cattle.
The Appalachian Mountains cradle the skeletons of ancient creatures; wisdom wrought of bone and blood haunts this earth, thought to be older than the rings of Saturn himself. 1.1 billion years ago, the continents of Laurentia and Amazonia collided, creating a supercontinent called Rodinia. Many of the rocks and minerals that were formed during that event can currently be seen at the surface of the present Appalachian range—and now within the 6 inch universe of the iPhone. What should be marveled upon, unfettered by the compulsive urge to claw at permanence, has now been reduced to a grainy, pixelated, and derivative image fated to be shared to Facebook and eventually forgotten.
Cades Cove, I figure, must be the worst offender of them all. Not the environment itself, teeming with robust flora and fauna and pastoral beauty, but rather abhorrent, never-ending deluge of visitors who treat the valley like a drive-through for digital dopamine. Clearly, I do not mean to mince words here; it is the definition of everything that’s wrong with the late-capitalist hellscape. The “limestone window”(1), created by erosion that removed the older Precambrian sandstone, exposing the younger Paleozoic limestone beneath, has now become nothing more than a “photo-op.” Out of the two million annual visitors who visit the park, I would wager that half never leave the comfort of their air-conditioned cars. It is symptomatic of a strange disorder that plagues modern man—that is, the urge to create a facsimile of experience rather than engaging in the experience itself.
It worsens upon one’s exit from the park. Whether my drive back to Knoxville is guided through Newport or Pigeon Forge, I can expect to be inundated by slogans across the sky, as if scribed by the hand of God. And, even more disturbingly so, the mythological past collapses into the Dark Capitalist, consumptionary(2) present: right before the turn into a Best Western, the crucified image of Jesus hangs tall and gruesome. It reads:
LIVE FOR ME
Vive por mi
I DIED FOR YOU
Yo mori por ti
The image of the son of God is cut not from His flesh, but rather from mass-produced cardboard and vinyl, nailed into the long stretch of advertising space.
It is closely followed—not 300 feet away—by another billboard:
GUNS4US
OVER 450 GUNS IN STOCK
BUY TODAY!
The whiplash experienced along this stretch of Pigeon Forge (next comes Dolly Parton’s tits, a MAGA store, an ad for compulsory pregnancy) turns to immediate rage, resurrected from the smoggy venture through Cades Cove and placed upon the stack upon stack upon stack of metal cages that seem to extend for miles.
Another billboard: GOD SEES YOUR STRUGGLE.
Oh, good. Maybe he can send me a green light or public transportation or the wings of Angel to lift me out of what is quickly becoming Dante’s Eighth Ring of Hell.
***
These religious adverts dominate our skylines and interrupt the symphony that would be rolling hills of greenery and pastoral nature. It seems incredulous that such propaganda, which at its essence is one that calls for a connection to the Universal, is one that segregates us from the connective tissue of the sacred. I find more bounty in a single worm than in a cardboard cutout of cartoon Jesus. And while propaganda is not a new phenomenon within religious institutions, it has certainly evolved in step to the postmodern industrial revolution. We can look to centuries past of glorious cathedrals, stained glass windows, and haunting triptychs for plenty of evidence to that end.
Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights (ca. 1500) may provide a more effective propagandistic anecdote than a flimsy crucifixion installed next to a Best Western. Likely intended as an altarpiece, the triptych’s interior panels aim to demonstrate the fates of humans subject to the Last Judgment—namely, their descent into Hell following a life of hedonism. Notably, the center panel (sexual innuendos notwithstanding) demonstrate the destruction of disrespect enacted by humans upon the earth and nature. The right panel famous depicts their subsequent punishments: spectacles of cruel torture and retribution.
In essence, it is meant to be an artwork viewed for quiet contemplation and reflection. Viewers may spend time gazing upon these scenes—a quality that seems to be lost in modernity. Billboards are not cultural productions that are meant for evocative gazing and slow consideration. They are meant to blithely enter your peripheral and produce the greatest emotional reaction in the shortest amount of time, as one whizzes down the interstate at 80 miles per hour. Conscious delivery of these messages is rare; within the public sphere, billboard messages are targeted to a passive audience, thus overlooking avenues for civic engagement based on the capacity of these mediums to support participation and even dialogue(3). It is rare for these billboards to evoke anything beyond annoyance in me—maybe an eye roll—and even then, it is passing. However, Michael Parenti astutely acknowledges the intelligence of these strategies: “For manipulation to be most effective, evidence of its presence should be nonexistent”(4).
That is, until the presence demands attention.
From Newport to Knoxville, I cross a bridge that extends over what I recall to be the French Broad, a grand river of beautiful, powerful rapids with serpentine bends through the lush landscape. Instead of being able to enjoy the view, my vision is occluded by what I will refer to in this instance to be an enormous diptych, framed on either side of the bridge. To the right, something something religious, Jesus would be ashamed of you, choose LIGHT, blah blah blah. And to the left? A gun, loaded and pointed towards me, the viewer. It churns in my belly, this thinly veiled threat, this appeal to violence and hatred.
Of Garden of Earthly Delights, art historian and writer Walter S. Gibson points to the large explosions in the background of the composition as the primary source of light, wherein “their fiery reflection [turns] the water below into blood”(5). Indeed, I leave the French Broad behind with the taste of pennies in my mouth; I think of the flow of water beneath these calls to bastardized faith and the oil that runs through it. I spit this bile from my window, but the bad taste remains in my mouth for the rest of the day, with a gentle nausea percolating deep in my belly.
Billboards, of any kin, represent a gross bastardization of the sacred and spatial arena. As the third space dies a slow death in favor of mechanized existence, bids for your soul migrate to the myopia of our Capitalist landscape. I find it strange and alienating, this litter across our skyline. For while I may be susceptible to Instagram ads or coffee shop flyers, I would venture to say that I have never once been convinced by a billboard to buy a product, idea, or value. Rather, it breeds within me resentment for my city and the time in which I live. It is a purposeful clouding of perception and a purposeful deception as to what our landscape should look like. Our movement (transit, commute, whatever) should be informed by the pre-existing contours of space and time. Not manipulated into the funnel of consumption. In the words of Werner Herzog, “There is no harmony in the Universe as we have conceived it.”
***
Why should we concern ourselves with the place of the sacred in the visible, tangible, manmade landscape? Scholar Wilbur Zelinsky answers that these visual proliferations of signage inform and play a “considerable role in the less immediately visible economic, social, and political life of the nation”(6). The assemblage of objects that constitute the publicly visible religious landscape of the United States—most especially, the widely distributed signage promoting godliness and religiosity simultaneous to gun ownership and violence—suggest connections with much-deeper issues concerning the origin and evolution of society and culture. Rather than selling an idea, these signs are merely ornaments of value on our landscape of American exceptionalism. Wilbur Zelinsky argues that these “constellations of attributes set [the United States] further apart from the visibly sacred elsewhere in the world”(7).
What, then, does this array of Christian imagery and gun advertisements say about the United States? Pray tell, what might be the association there?! Could it be issues of grandeur, glory, and misplaced martyrdom?! I fear the subconscious associations to be made between the image of a gun and the image of God; let us look no further than the harrowing episodes of religiously-motivated shootings. I am not suggesting that these billboards are a direct cause of mass-shootings, but rather symptomatic of a psycho-cultural epidemic that conflates the two.
The commercial association between violence and God is not new. As Noam Chomsky writes, “...the Bible is probably the most genocidal book in the literary canon”(8). Or take Douglas Rushkoff: “We each create a story for what’s going on in the Universe: a narrative, a picture, an allegory, a model. And then we fight—sometimes to the death—to make others believe in that model, or to be able to keep believing in it ourselves. In other words, we try to erase contradictory evidence to that model”(9).
Beyond these political overtures, I also worry about how billboards impact our relationship to landscape, to beauty, and to presence on a human-wide existential scale.
As such, looking beyond this stateside phenomenon to more global implications, scholar Michael J. Emeji examines the relations between the environment and human-made communications, and their significance to the aesthetic life of a given people(10). Conducting his studies in Port Harcourt of Nigeria (which can henceforth serve as a global anecdote, demonstrating that this phenomenon is not unique to East Tennessee), Emeji suggests that pollution in an oil and gas city such as Port Harcourt cannot be limited only to pollutants such as noise, oil spills, urban blight, or gas spills; rather, the visual communication systems created by Nigerian sign-writers have also been identified and classified as environmental visual pollution. It is argued here that specific abuses by this form of visual pollution degrade environmental visual order. Emeji writes, “In order to remediate the current trend toward visual pollution in Port Harcourt, environmental design educators should work with and educate cultural planners, city planners, architects, and engineers to enhance the visual aesthetic quality of the built environment in Nigerian cities”(11).
Emeji’s argument towards “educating” urban planners—that is, instigating a conversation with those who regulate the infrastructure of our embodied movements—might have a viable path forward within the context of East Tennessee. I do believe that dialogue always retains value; but whether or not ideas can evolve from dialogue into action is where purpose and regulation comes into play. Aesthetic regulations in general, and billboard regulations in particular, have long been a matter of contention in the courts as well as in the legislatures. Such as in the 1983 case of Metromedia, Inc. v. City of San Diego, legislative developments have largely negated judicial gains for scenic beauty proponents(12).
And so what is left? To echo my previous sentiments, I do believe that our urban planning (the space in which we live and move and interact) should have a symbiotic relationship to the natural environment and coexist with our circadian rhythms. It should orient us towards engagement with others and with nature. It should not create dissonance, anxiety, fear. It should create safety and belonging. And it is my belief that billboards, in their current form, should be classified and regarded as visual pollution––especially when their messages are both emotionally, spatially, and socially disruptive, and moreover endorsing religiously-sanctioned violence.
1 - Moore, Harry (1988). A Roadside Guide to the Geology of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press. p. 29.
2 - According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the only known use of the adjective consumptionary is in 1653, in the writing of John Gauden, bishop of Worcester. This text, entitled Eikon Basilike (Royal Portrait), is a purported spiritual autobiography attributed to King Charles I of England. It was published on 9 February 1649, ten days after the King was beheaded by Parliament in the aftermath of the English Civil War in 1649. It is regarded by historians as a masterful example of Royalist propaganda. I intend to revive this term in the context of our present moment of rampant consumptionary propaganda.
3 - Nikos Papastergiadis, Amelia Barikin, Xin Gu, Scott McQuire, and Audrey Yue, “Mobile Methods and Large Screens,” in Ambient Screens and Transnational Public Spaces, edited by Nikos Papastergiadis, 131–208. (Hong Kong University Press, 2016).
4 - Michael Parenti, Inventing Reality: The Politics of New Media.
5 - Walter S. Gibson, Hieronymus Bosch (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1973): 92.
6 - Wilbur Zelinsky, “The Uniqueness of the American Religious Landscape,” Geographical Review 91, no. 3 (2001): 565.
7 - Zelinsky, “The Uniqueness,” 565.
8 - chomsky
9 - rushkoff
10 - Michael J. Emeji, “Environmental Communication and Visual Pollution in the Nigerian City of Port Harcourt: Implications for Design Education and City Planning,” Visual Arts Research 37, no. 1 (2011): 42–53.
11 - Emeji, “Environmental Communication,” 42.
12 - Charles F. Floyd, “Billboards, Aesthetics and the Police Power: Legislative Developments Have Largely Negated Judicial Gains by Scenic Beauty Proponents,” The American Journal of Economics and Sociology 42, no. 3 (1983): 369–82.
