Cult of Strongness.

I named this post to play off the book I'm reading in my sociology of gender class, 'the cult of thinness'. The concepts between the obsession with women's need to be skinny mirrors some of the same ideas that go along with the way in which the power team justifies themselves. As we were discussing the article "The Power Team" written by Sharon Marzer in class today, I was talking to a classmate about his experience of attending one of their show's and how incredibly eery it was. In asking him if it was just like the way Sharon had described the experience, he agreed and we both came to the conclusion that this performance of the power team was almost like a cult. Yes they were initially trying to influence good decisions such as 'don't do drugs' and 'love god'. But really they were doing it in a manipulative way, putting forth unrealistic ideals and the whole thing was in the end a way to make money.

The whole time I was reading this article all I could think about was the one time I had agreed to attend a church service for my aunt when I lived in Orlando, Florida. The church was that of an evangelical stance, so here it already has a minor connection to the power team. After walking through the front doors of the church the floors were marble and columns lined the hall as if I was in the colosseum. Not to mention the table set off to the right that had various t-shirt and souvenirs for the service held that day. This wasn't the most surprising part of my experience, it was when we came into the main room when my jaw dropped. It was a massive stage with a sound proof drum set area, tons of speciality lights and a few cameras scattered throughout the room. The fact that during the whole service I felt like I was in the club from the volume of the music and the fact that a camera on a pulley rod was swinging back and forth nearby my head was just adding on to the crazy antics of the whole show. In the end I connected it back to the ideas surrounding how even though the power team is trying to insist on good ideas, it uses manipulative ways to do so and uses them to make money.