"Hop"

Blog #8

       I have been thinking a lot about how important the senses are to religion and its many different holidays. Since Easter is what my family celebrates, and having gone home to celebrate the holiday so recently, my thoughts on what the many practices of the holiday symbolize are still running through my brain. It is funny to think that a generic looking rabbit is probably more well known as the face of easter than Jesus Christ. Why is that? When did easter turn from resurrection to rabbits and colorful pastel eggs? Furthermore, is the reason for having a bunny be the mascot for Easter the same mentality behind having the jolly Santa Claus be the official mascot for Christmas? Is there something about these symbols that make them more friendly to the public? Perhaps this coincides with our generations visible lack of comfort with anything extremely religious, and instead turn to words like "spiritual" and "energy" to express their beliefs.
       Pictured below is Pope Snowball, the bunny in the Easter episode of South Park. Much like all of the other South Park episodes, this one was amazingly ridiculous and investigates the origin of the "bunny" in the history of the Easter holiday. If you like south park, (professor I know you do) or anyone else in the class, this one is definitely worth watching. I posted the link below just in case anyone who hasn't seen it before would like to!
                        LINK:  http://southpark.cc.com/full-episodes/s11e05-fantastic-easter-special

In case anyone was wondering my curiosity brought me to the world wide web and I decided to research where the image of the bunny came from. Apparently, the Easter bunny was an image brought to America by German immigrants who told stories of an egg-laying hare. And apparently the origin of the decoration of eggs dates back to at least the 13th century. The tradition of eating candy is more of a modern add on. In the end, my research was non specific and not really what I was looking for. Even if the German immigrants are the source of the bunny influence, what made it catch on? What about the bunny is so appealing? 

It is clear from all of the images above that it is not just Easter that has a cute mascot. Almost all well known American holidays have a cute symbol. Which brought me to my two final points on the subject. I believe that almost everything in the world revolves around money, marketing and financial gain. I think that over time, these religious holidays became more and more commercial and began to coincide with more and more accessories so that people would have to spend more money to properly practice the holiday. On top of this, a bunny is more appealing to MOST people than an image of a bloody man nailed to a cross, or the picturing of a man rising from the grave. I believe that the fluffy Easter bunny is just another way for people to show their low level of comfort with aggressive religious symbols. Lastly, there is something to the sense of sight and how important it is for people to have tangible and visual representations for their beliefs....we definitely like to see what we believe.