I'm sorry, but seeing the character "Ninjew" made me wretch. I'm a Unitarian Universalist Neo-Pagan Atheist, but I've been married to a Jewish woman for almost forty years. It just struck me as a horrific stereotyping of a young Jew as a Japanese assassin/intelligence gatherer. As a matter of fact, having all of the "good" characters -- except Chriscross -- depicted as practicing a Chinese/Japanese martial art when those wouldn't be the norm in their part of the world just bothers me to no end! Hindu and Israeli people have their own martial arts. Why not use those instead? Just from what I've seen so far, I'd never let my kids watch this show -- even if we'd ever had them. Heck, I wouldn't even let my DOG watch this -- the Humane Society would be on my tail for cruelty to animals!
Cher Ami was a real life pigeon in World War I who, going through German fire, lost a leg and went blind in one eye. However, he was able to tell the American army to stop firing on the Lost Battalion and focus fire on the German line. He was awarded the Croix de Guerre, one of France’s highest military honors. When he returned home, he sadly passed away, but his body was preserved and is now the Smithsonian museum. Edit: Like the pigeon in the cartoon, Cher Ami also lost a leg! It was the leg that held the message, but it barely clung to his body enough for the U.S. army to receive the message.
Also If they always find some very possible explication for what just happened, or ask for proof of magic and any photo or video keep not catching anything
Omg yes! Like the mom in Phineas and Ferb! The only problem with that is then they play into the "atheists are just missing the capital T Truth" and if only they could see they would believe thing. Which is, not really the representation I would want.
My husband said they missed the opportunity to use the actual Israeli fighting style of Krav Maga for the Jewish character. He was raised Jewish (is now atheist) and is not necessarily offended by the name but thinks they could have done better lol but also thinks it's the best out of the four.
It feels like they all deliberately have styles that aren't really connected to their identities, and Israeli and Jewish aren't the same thing anyway, so it's probably an attempt to sidestep political issues with associating X religion with Y combat thing (still got those prayer beads though!)
@@cactustactics I highly approve. A know a lot of Jews who would cringe at Krav Maga supposedly representing their religion when Zionism is not at all Judaism and should not be the default representation.
Feels a bit weird in general that of all the Christian denominations, they chose to go with Southern Baptist in particular (dunno whether that's the most common in the US?), while e.g. Sumuslim doesn't even mention whether he's a Sunnite or Shiite.
I was raised catholic (I'm not anymore but) I was thinking a catholic character would be fun. Maybe like the christian guy's relative; like an aunt? But I do think they should focus on representation for other religions first. And the name you came up with is pure genius, that would fit in sooo well
I think that character was in Rise of Gru, so there could be some trouble with that specific name. Hilarious idea, of course, but potential problems down the line.
Thank you Emma! We love your review and will discuss your feedback internally. As you suggest, God's Gang is cool with everyone as long as they have good intentions and act with love, including atheists. If you want to interview the creator regarding your questions, please let us know 🙏 we can make that happen❤
Well, I am pleasantly surprised! Also - Ninjew, is a would be NBA Basketball fan...? Sounds a bit like Kyle Broflovski... Also, despite the dog character... very much, an anti-Dogma, show... so far.
Good to know the show isn't directly against atheists. I think most people here truly appreciate what you guys are doing and hope that you guys can support, include and unite all groups of people, even if not directly based off the 4 primary religions you guys use.
What would be neat is if all the villains represent the worse parts of each religion, like the TTT being composed of Christians just like it's equivalent or the mess that is Islamic science .
I find it funny when atheists try to associate and use the phrase "the worst parts of religion" when every intelligent, literate person knows that atheism always leads to Nihilism (except when the atheist preciously clings to the Judeo-Christian principles their society was founded on). Let's have an atheist boast howctge Nordic countries pride themselves of having a society with no Down Symdrome people or offering "non-desirables" to clinically off themselves
honestly it is refreshing to see a modern religiously affiliated cartoon that appears nice and well-made. if a religious family is gonna show their kid a religious cartoon, this is probably one of the better options.
@@maevethefox5912I read the Narnia books as a kid and I thought it was a little odd they had Christmas in a fantasy book but I never noticed the other christiany stuff since I never went to church or knew much about it
@@bookshelfhoney I still like the Narnia books, even though I don't believe in their message to compare Aslan with Jesus - there was a guy who wrote a thesis that the 7 Narnia books correspond to the seven planets of astrology (so that includes the Sun and the Moon as "planets" along with Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Venus and Saturn) which I find fascinating and convincing - and for him that means that Father Christmas fits in the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, because he's basically an example of the jovial (to do with Jove = Jupiter) influence of cheerfulness.
@@paulhammond6978 definitely an interesting take on the books. Although worth noting Aslan is fully intended to be the literal Jesus (the character all but says so at the end of Voyage of the Dawn Treader), which I say not to be pedantic but because I also only learned that pretty recently and find it kind of hilarious (definitely didn't remember that from reading it and I did go to church)
He also “tells stories” as a superpower which are some kind of weird hypnotism/illusion thing. There’s not actually any real cultural connection on these characters. Their actions, superpowers, and dialogue are all based on extremely superficial stereotypes. I have no idea how the ethno-religious consultants were convinced to sign off on any of these concepts.
@@irenafarm I would assume the consultants were the like of Cool hip Pastor types who try their damnedest to appeal to todays youth. Not exactly the most accurate of the faith but...probably a bit more easy to swallow than fundamentalists.
I love everything about this, they're unironically bringing Blacksploitation characters back in 2023 and that's kind-of glorious, lol! My one big complaint so far is that everything outside of the main team seems pretty Euro-centric, right? Like we're dealing with Christian Angels, Christian devils with horns and stuff, the KKK... where's the villains that feel specific to the other religions? Shouldn't we be busting out big bads from all faiths? Where's the Yokai? Where's the Chinese style vampires and the Golems? Like if your entire show is themed around global religion then you might as well use it to teach people about mythology and lore for other cultures, you know? Let's fight a pun-based Wendigo or something and have some fun with it. I want to see Ninjew fight a fucking mummy and they have to use their skills to translate The Book of the Dead or something, but it'll be like an ancient Egyptian princess and make mom jokes because she's "The Mummy". Give me more dumb stuff like that, lol!
I like the Mummy idea 🤣 I think the show has just started. they might have more down the line for their first season. as far as the other faith type stuff out side the Abrahamic Christiain stuff, I don't know. Probably haven't thought of it. they might be starting out basic Satruday Morning Cartoon style for now. And will work their way to the other stuff. I don't know what they're funding model is and how they'll be able to produce each season. But i do hope they get to some of the other stuff like the Chinese Vampires, Golems, Dybbuks, yokkai, etc. also i think it depends if they're able to pay their interfaith council and advisors to have on as support. i think that'll be another factor as far as getting the other stuff.
definitely, it seems very Christian-centric. golems are kind of misunderstood though, they aren't bad exactly. in the most famous tale about a golem, the golem was a protector of the Jews of Prague against antisemitic attacks. they're not inherently good or bad since they just follow the orders of their creators without thinking, as far as I understand it
They could have an opposite hero team called "The Ethics Board" that are a group of scientists that make up different subjects. Physics, Chemistry, Theory, Meteorology, Earth Science. Could be like the Avengers and they fight the really mad scientists cause they act without ethics
Fun fact; Basketball (now seen as a highly African American dominated sport) was once heavily played by Jewish people, mainly Jewish immigrant children.
What GG needs is an atheist antihero, a green ranger equivalent. They clash with the gang at first, but set aside their differences for the greater good. And we learn that they do have faith... in their friends.
@@ravenstone1292 French. That or French Gnosticism, which I just made up independently, but it's apparently a real thing, as verified by a quick Google search. In all seriousness, I think Le Dove is supposed to be the dove that brought Noah the olive branch in the old testament. He's even holding it in the end credits.
-Surprised you didn't comment on the theme song including "our enemies without faith", priming kids to see anyone without faith as "the enemy".- I'll retract this. I went to the web site and played the trailer directly. When listed to more clearly than a video of a video, it does sound more like "enemies without *fail*" in the lyrics. I apologize for potentially spreading bad information. Thank you @sumroy for the correction.
I think you have misheard the lyrics … here they are (and no mention of "our enemies without faith"). We love everyone, however they choose to believe or not 🙏 Friendship and laughter and flying kicks Only together the world we can fix… GOD’S GANG! CHORUS Four different faiths, One god, one love. Saving the day With some help from above We may not agree On when to pray But when we join hands, Help is on the way! Chris Cross is kind But never weak He’ll blow you away With his other-turned cheek. NinJew has the power to analyze 18 ways to stop the bad guys. TaeKwonHindu can hear the words Of animals, insects, plants, and birds. Sumuslim can spin a tale To capture our enemies without fail. CHORUS Four different faiths, One god, one love. Saving the day With some help from above We may not agree On which path to take But when we join hands, Help is on the way!
It should be noted that Hinduism isn't strictly polytheism or monotheism. The term that fits Hinduism best is henotheism, where there are many gods, but they are all ultimately a part of one universal power/force/godhood. It would be super interesting to see that be brought up in the show.
I think that is the major reason I find it hard to explain being Hindu to people at my school. There is a lot to unpack about Hinduism even if you are giving a brief overview of it.
Good point, but it's still like... so distinctly different from how Christians, Muslims, and Jews think of their God, so it does kind of feel like Hinduism is the odd one out.
If you look back at that council, the interfaith council matches the respective characters of each faith. The singular woman is the Hindu specialist. Even the Baptist pastor is a black man. It’s like they just made the characters cartoon versions of the interfaith council. Just something I noticed when you brought up the gender imbalance towards the end.
After seeing so many heartless religious shows (looking at you Caleb and Sophia), this actually looks like a product of love and positivity. I hope it stays that way!
It looks really well, produced and the concepts are pretty well developed. I'd love it if ran on a level of preachiness 1/4th the level of Caleb and Sophia.
Caleb and Sophia isnt comparable to something like this imo. Regardless of your opinions on the content of either, (GG has definitely got some concept reworking to do, intent aside there’s some harmful stereotypes people have pointed out that shouldn’t go unaddressed) Caleb and Sophia isn’t something id call a show to begin with. It’s just thinly veiled cult propaganda masquerading as one.
I got a chuckle at the puns for the superheroe names, but when they were said out loud in the trailer, something felt... off. I know now : If you accept these superheroes have no secret identity, ChrisCross is the only one who has a name, like an *actual* name. The others just have "Religion + Fighting style = Pun" as their name.
I agree with Emma that the message of this show is refreshingly positive, but the show does feel too on the nose, even for a kids show. Maybe I wrong but I feel like after six episodes they are going to run out of child friendly relgious puns and the show will peter out. I'm far from an expert on children, but I feel like they would reach more kids if they made a more straightforward superhero cartoon but prominately included the characters religious practices. Like give the Muslim character an actual name, but have one episode where he's observing Ramadon, so the rest of the team gets up early to have breakfast before sunrise with him and then they go fight a robot or something. The kids watch for the superhero vs robot fight, but they are introduced to Ramadon and the idea that different religous practices can coexist.
I wonder if those are the religions of the people who started making the show? Maybe they're starting from what they know best, and other religions could be represented by side characters.
@@georgogiannakis6123 Buddhism is very common 535 millions Buddhists worldwide compare that to the 15 millions jews, which also include the non religious jews (so the ones actually practicing judaism are even less) but heh, buddhists don't believe in god, so including them would be like including the nonbelievers : complicated with the title (also they said "same god", despite the fact that this would only apply to the tree abrahamic faiths, the hindus don't believe in "a god" but multiple gods, they are polytheists)
@@wikipiiimp9420 yes, that’s why I said barring Judaism. Christianity and Islam are the two most common religions, to my understanding. Followed by Hinduism, and then followed by Buddhism. That’s why I suspect, they chose Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism. I imagine one of the original creators is of an abrahamic religion and that’s why Judaism was chosen, as it’s the only one that breaks the trend I described. You’re probably right in your interpretation of why Buddhism was not chosen though.
That was my thought. Calling them god's gang and then featuring non-abrahamic religion representation is a weird choice. They could have been called something else that sounds more hero-like yet still theology themed that would allow for other religions to be represented in way that doesn't sound centered around a monotheistic world view
Two things: First, while watching Ninjew go through those moves in the intro, I honestly thought the character was female. Maybe it's because he's a dead wringer for a female rabbinical student I knew briefly way back in college -- nerdy glasses, red hair, white collared shirt with black jacket -- but it genuinely surprised me he was a dude. Second, while the TTT could be a KKK reference, the pink and lavender color scheme gave me some queer-ish coding vibes; maybe I'm being overly alarmist (and have yet to watch an episode, so I probably should reserve judgement), but it raised a bit of a red flag anyway.
Well its a kid show and their leader is a woman so "woman like pink evil gang woman control wear pink" this and possibly they dont want to draw the allegory too close to KKK.
I was thinking the same thing but didn't want to make a comment without seeing anything else from the series first! Always best to reserve judgement, I'd rather hope it turns out positive. (But then again the TTT leader seemed to be a man with hot pink high heeled boots and a purse so idk)
Huh, I assume the dove missing a leg is a reference to Cher Ami, who was probably the pigeon with the most military decoration in history. He was mortally wounded, and his leg was almost completely severed delivering a message that saved a bunch of soldiers lives.
Chris Cross is channeled 70s blaxsploitation straight out of the worlds of Blackula, Shaft and Dolemite. Just.. karate, from the street, *LOOK AT THE FRO*. I'm 100% here for him. What they need though is a Pam Grier analogue to enhance Chris Cross' worldbuilding.
I'm only 6 minutes in, but it has already struck me that the martial arts they use are mainly from Japan (Non-religious, Shinto, Buddhist). So a country with none of its major faiths/lack-of-faith represented.
@@Pr0fane26 Neither term really explains the situation here. I merely used the term 'non-religious' as it's what NHK use on their occassional surveys. (I think it was about 70% on the last one). As a term it really covers membership of a specific religious organisation. Hence a large majority of people still follow Shinto practices, but only around 3% are registered officially with Shinto organisations. If you include belief in 'kami' as theistic then non-religious is a better description than non-theist. But, as I say, neither term is really covers it.
I will say, as a person of Hindu faith myself, while Hinduism is on the surface polytheistic, all the separate gods are actually avatars/incarnations of the eternal soul (atman) ((eternal soul isn’t really the right word, but it’s basically the idea of divinity and everyone shares the same soul and the soul is also god and all that jazz)) On a separate note, I’m actually really excited to see Hindu representation! I always felt a little left out because whenever people talk about the major religions, they seem to really only mention the abrahamic ones
I grew up practicing Buddhism in Korea, and Taekwon Bulja(Buddhist) is definitely a thing. Nearly every kids go to TKD gyms because it evolved into a daycare for preschoolers in Korea more so than actual martial arts gym, and some of those gyms are ran by buddhist temples.
Not trying to justify it But That might be because Christianity is alot more 'divided' atleast on the surface. I know that in Islam there's Sunni and Shia etc..but Sunni Islam makes up ~90% of Islam. And with Judaism (correct me if I'm wrong) the split is more about how devout you are. Maybe, I'm far from an expert
I was raised Muslim but have been an atheist for the last 10 years or so. I'm encouraged that they're making an effort to reach across faiths, and i would hope that if the advisors are sufficiently liberal to put this work together, they will be liberal enough to include positive representations of other faiths and of non theists. It reminds me in spirit of Oh God! starring John Denver and George Burns. Of you haven't seen it, i highly recommend it and would love to see your reaction to it.
Oh God is an old favorite of mine, too. But they won't stretch the tolerance and respect one more inch. It is honestly a pretty thinly disguised attempt to make all religions into one - theirs - and to make science look bad.
I grew up in a non-fundamentalist Christian church in the American south. My grandfather was close to our pastor, who was close to a rabbi from a Jewish synagogue across town. They were frequently in touch with leaders from other religions in the area, too. It was very common for me to walk into my grandparents’ house and find them all in the living room in deep conversation about world events, human nature, etc. It never occurred to me that we couldn’t respect and even learn from each others’ faiths. I was grown before I learned of how unusual of an experience that was among Christians.
I’m a gay christian, and now I’m just litteraly praying for them to not make evil trans characters or somthing like that… legitimately scared of it but if they tick all the boxes of love and respect everyone I’d litteraly love this show and also love the anger it would cause to the most religious people using their god to condemn people and spread hate
Considering how the Southern Baptist church was founded (hint: like the Confederacy, they really REALLY wanted to keep their slaves), I doubt Chriscross is a Southern Baptist - Unless they mean he is literally a Baptist from the American South.
I think pretty much all the Protestant groups in America schismed over slavery. All of them have split between liberals and conservatives. The Liberal Southern Baptists split off and rejoined the mainline Baptists. The now ironically named United Methodists just recently split up over gay marriage. It's insane to me that people can simultaneously hold the belief that thier religion was given to them by the all powerful eternal ruler of the universe, but also if you disagree with it's politics you can just make up your own religion. The funniest one is a group that split off from the Catholic church because in the 1960's the Pope declared the mass should be given in a language people can understand instead of Latin.
@@java4653Back in the day men didn't want responsibility so this was made with men's wants at the time. Now that they realised that abortion gives a woman a choice, the tone shifted since at least the 90s.
Going off the idea of having a character without faith, I think it’d be amazing if there was a character who felt invisible and worthless, but met this gang who taught them that we’re all different and they love everyone, regardless of faith and lack there of. They could be a kind of honorary member - not a full member since that kind of defeats the point the show is going for (having an atheist or agnostic apart of the gang wouldn’t exactly make it “gods gang” anymore), but someone they can all confide in and can join the adventure from time to time when their help is needed! Maybe named something like Junethiest, for Jiu-Jitsu, the casual name of June, and for atheist? A storyline like that can make for some interesting episodes Overall, this show seems like a wonderful and really fun idea, especially when it comes to erasing the stigma that religious people are only good if they’re apart of your specific religion for younger generations. Though it should probably be revised a bit and can be handled better. But I like the direction religious children’s shows are going if this marks a new era!
Well, to that I say why not? God is supposed to love everyone. Even if they don't believe. So they should still be in the group because in the eyes of god they're still his creation. If he didn't, then that only reaffirms a massive reason atheists don't believe.
Only knowing what I learned about the show from watching this, I have a sneaking suspicion that this show might be an extension of something that has happened in america in response to the first time atheism started gaining any notable political foothold to advocate for the non-religious in america. In response to atheism gaining enough popularity to be a political force to advocate for the rights of atheists and for the separation of church and state, christians of different denominations which had previously held each other in low regard for being of different denominations, began to ally themselves with each other which seems like a step in the right direction except that the motivation was to combine their political influence because they were, separately, each to small a group to defeat secular advocacy but, by combining their political influence, they were able to effectively demonize atheism in the public eye and cause setbacks to advocacy for atheist rights. Of course the motivation wasn't so much to harm existing atheists (they did harm atheists but I think that wasn't the central motivation) but to preserve their own influence over their congregations... at least, as much as they could preserve it. Certainly there were those who intended to destroy atheism and critical thought because they saw these things as perpetual threats to their control over their congregations but I think the main goal was to pool their power collectively to preserve their individual power and I think the desire of many among the movement to destroy atheism and critical thinking altogether was just born out of their intention to preserve their own power. I'm not saying this is definitely what this show is intended to do across altogether different religions rather than just different denominations in response to religion in general declining but it's a possibility. That being said, I don't think it's entirely a bad thing if this is what the show is doing. Let me explain. Although there are, of course, still very fundamentalist factions of christianity, most christians today are more progressive than most christians at any time in the past and the further into the past you look, the less progressive most of christianity becomes. This isn't a coincidence and it isn't something I would expect to happen in a christian vacuum. As far as I can see, this is christianity trying to keep their flock by trying to keep up with secular morality. Think about it, the nature of dogma and religious tradition is to preserve it's self without change. Thoughts and ideas which contradict the existing religious narrative about morality (or about anything really) are a defiance of religion even if they come from a religious person. A secular though is a secular thought, even in the mind of a religious person. Secular thought, in the mind of an atheist or the mind of a religious person is what causes religion to advance by forcing the religion to make concessions. Even through all the possible harmful intention which may be the motivation behind this show, this show is an example of religion becoming less religious to maintain it's own existence. The plain and simple fact is that, as religion becomes less and less religious, it will inevitably cease to be religion. Also, a couple of notes about the villains: The possible negative implications behind the scientist villains is obvious (to demonize critical thought, implying that it harms one's relationship with their god and to imply that critical thought is based on ill and selfish motives), but I wonder how the corporate villains are actually used in the show. Is their relentless pursuit of money in it's self depicted as their major evil or is it just to demonize corporations for their latest attempt at financial success through pandering in the modern progressive environment? They always pander to trends and I haven't seen much pushback against this from religions (christianity in particular) in the past but I've seen a lot of pushback against it from christianity in particular since the trend corporations are pandering to has been the latest progressive trend. It's almost amusing how they, somewhat accurately, call it out as pandering but seem to fail to see that corporations have always done such pandering because they're so focused on hating the progressive people corporations are now pandering to. (edited for grammar)
I'm probably putting too much thought into this, but I noticed the peace sign that everybody forms at 13:28 has a gap in the bottom left. Maybe they'll add a new character later on to fill that spot and complete the shape, and maaayyyybe that character could be an atheist?
I find it interesting (but unsurprising) that all the characters use far eastern fighting styles but there are no far eastern characters or religions represented.
im not sure if you caught it, maybe you mention it after where i've paused but i love how one of the first lines in the trailer song was "one god one love" which i could maybe get if it was just the christian, muslim, and jewish person cuz it's technically all the same god but they have a hindu on the team! also knowing nothing of le dove beyond your intro of him, he is clearly the best character by MILES.
Don't Hindus believe in one God, just in a bunch of different 'avatars'? Like, Krishna is an avatar of Vishnu (I'm probably way off) who is in turn an avatar of Brahman. So therefore Hinduism is monotheistic, but just in a different way
From what I’ve seen, and as a Hindu… This seems pretty problematic to me. 3 abrahamic religions and a token not-Abrahamic. Yeah, they’re gonna make us out to be the butt of the joke, as is often the case. And that’s not even addressing the ludicrous variety within Hinduism (eg I am atheist despite being Hindu, and this is a legit branch), or the 6 arms thing, or the fact that India has its own martial arts… The list goes on.
One non-Abrahamic religion feels very token. Especially when combined with the associated character being the token woman. And multiple allusions to a singular god, starting with the title, reinforce that impression. Plenty of room for another character or two for more diversity. Voltron, Planeteers, Power Rangers, etc all did fine with five.
@@atlas_19 Buddhism is much more widespread than Judaism there are 15 millions jews in the world, including non religious jews (people that are of jewish ethnicity without practicing judaism) so people of actual jewish faith are below 15 millions compare that to the 500+ millions buddhists buddism is very widespread in india, china, japan, korea, vietnam, cambodia, laos, thailand, nepal, bhutan, etc which is a significant part of the world, to say the least chinese folk religion are also very widespread... except if they only exist in china simply because china is big and extremely populous.
There is a Hindu philosophy that basically teaches about the oneness of the universe. That seems to be how they figured they could fit a non-Abrahamic faith into here, though I am summarizing what a member of the GG team told me.
I'm honnestly very surprised that the whole gang include a character that does not follow a Abrahamic religion. I'm far from being an expert in Hinduism, but doesn't it have some core beliefs that are in total contradiction with Abrahamic religions? Like reincarnation is the thing and there's multiple gods?
Yeah, but the multiple Hindu gods are typically seen as manifestations of one God called Brahman. Some Jews believe in reincarnation, too. Judaism's views on the afterlife are extremely ill-defined and controversial.
I like where the show is coming from, and the concept is actually pretty fun and decently developed, but I do agree that it's gotta tread carefully in its portayal of certain groups and issues. Those little instances of uncomfortable messaging make me sad because I could see the potential in a show like this. If it ever gets a second season, i do hope the production team can take people's feedback
You know what? This is a HUGE improvement on the religious shows I had to watch as a kid. Just acknowledging other religions exist is leaps and bounds ahead of where these kind of shows were.
I had a gaming group which included a goofy guy who was quite vocal about his theological alignment as a "Messianic Jew". He also had a kind of gross fixation on all things Asian, so he played Asian-themed characters constantly, memorably a kitsune ninja. When he made that character, nobody ever called him anything but "Ninjew" from then on.
@ville__Jesus Christ, you're still lurking? My dude, please, go outside! Your body will thank you for letting it synthesize some vitamin D. Holy shit, imagine being so obsessed and completely unaware of it...
The team needs to be expanded: Bod-hehitsya: A buddhist boxer. He is blind but uses the power of inner peace to sense his surroundings and beat the crap out of people. Confusious: A Confucian native American woman who uses the power of hypnotism and inscrutable sayings to confuse enemies. Seculara: An handi-capable atheist technologist with a flying wheelchair whose contraptions border on magic. Wicca-wicca-wacked: A transgender wiccan computer hacker and security expert with a glass eye and a crystal ball. Buttered Noodles: A 7-year-old Pastafarian whose deep faith allows him to transform into an incarnation of his noodly deity. Mefisttopholies: A satanic teen girl, who dresses in girly-girl pink, loves cute things, and is on the cheerleading team. Her pet chihuahua can turn into Cerebrus and she has a firey punch when she gets angry. Her "father of lies" power allows her to use makeup to disguise people. Copy-Cat: The feline unitarian with a tiny unicorn-horn. Can temporarily copy the power of the last team member who grabbed her tail. Angie Gnostic: She has the power of indecision. Actually, she doesn't do much. But she can turn invisible. Sits in the back and doesn't say anything. Guru-ru-ru: An elderly new-age cult leader with a heart-of-gold. Has a utility belt containing an essential oil or crystal for every occasion. Immune to all diseases through the power of antivax. Irie: A nerdy white Rastafarian who can billow out clouds of purple smoke to make dem enemies bunks dey res, yah? Dey wakes up wanna-gut. When him gets rahtid, dreads get all rhygin and badness dem bald-heads.
Roth Hammerson: a Scandinavian farm boy, who is a devout follower of the ancient Nordic religion. He is an expert craftsman, who uses his enormous physical strenght to construct weapons in order to fight the forces of evil. He is always ready for action, likes to eat and drink a lot and overall enjoys the simple things in life. Oh, and he likes to groom himself more than he would actually admit to.
I'm Indian and Jewish, and I just have to say I'm on board. We were always raised very proud of our faith and such, but never at a disdain for any other belief system - probably because we had no sense of an afterlife (though we did adopt Indian beliefs of reincarnation and payoff in a sense being driven simply by how good a person you were in the overall interest of the world rather than in specific religious practices). We just did our thing because that's what we do and other people did differently because that's what they do. I absolutely love the concept of uniting people through different religions which are arguably one of the most divisive things in the world. I also absolutely love Taekwonhindu and Ninjew lol
You might be taking this a tiny bit too seriously...just a little bit. I am all for uniting people in respect, but hit me with stereotype mash ups like this and I can't stop giggling...
@@eric2500The paragraph in the middle was more in reference to Emma's comments wondering how the mashup would work if religious people generally think their way is the only correct way to live. I just wanted to share my personal experience in that regard
God dammit, Danger Mouse ambush! I did think it was a bit odd to put in a Hindu with the three Abrahamic faiths, in a cartoon with "One God, one love" in the theme song. I imagine there are probably Abrahamic believers who think Hinduism is just another interpretation of their god, but I doubt most Hindus would agree. The interfaith council is reassuring, at least, though I'm left wondering what "Hindu specialist" means.
My biggest fear with the TTT is that they are comparing trans people to the KKK because some religioous like to say things similar to "my religion doesn't believe in this gender bs"/"you can't force me to respect these people, it's against my religion" (Edit: added missing word)
Thank you I felt like maybe I was going crazy when I had that thought. The pink clothing and the super feminine tall one with a handbag seemed like an odd choice, but to be charitable, perhaps it's just aiming to distance itself from the actual literal KKK because that reminder of the real-world group might be a little dark for a kids show to tonally manage. But while we're over-analyzing tiny character design details, I did raise an eyebrow at the Corpo Creeps woman, who in demon form has what looks like a little bulge in her pants. I know this could just be because they're like sweatpants, it might mean nothing and I'm just jumping at shadows. Maybe I am just like an oversensitive raw nerve, having seen far too much anti-trans representation recently, especially from religious media. But it did raise my eyebrow.
yeah it's not a good look when your villains include "trans people", "scientists", and the other two look/feel dangerously close to caricatures of satanism/paganism and antisemitic memes in a show about tolerance
Yea as a trans dude, those characters made me break a nervous sweat 💀 Out off all the letters in the English language, I’m curious why they chose “T”? Kind of an interesting coincidence, no?
DUCK TALES LOVERS UNITE! Another Awesome Video as Always Emma. And I agree with you 💯 they definitely need Gender Neutral casts , I believe in your Conspiracy Awesomenes and us Atheist being the Villains is SHIT! ❤😂😂😂
She never said that atheists were definitively the villains. Although it is a possibility, we can't say for certain that they are representative of atheists, especially since they have made an official debut in the show yet.
@@fanster2763 Atheism is Stage IV cancer since they have no objective morals, are selfish and self-centered, and in today's day cowardly....something that these religious characters are not
10:20 I think it's so much more important that we look deeply into kids' shows and all of the lessons that may be within them than to give that scrutiny to media meant for adults. Kids don't have the critical thinking to fully decipher the deeper meaning in many of the things they watch, but their brains are using it to form the view of the world they will take with them throughout the rest of their lives. This makes kids' shows all the more important to pick apart for messages that may have been implanted into them whether the creators had meant for them to be there or not.
An issue I have with the Really Mad Scientists is the phrasing "Too smart for their own good." Faiths generally try to keep people from pursuing knowledge, because knowledge leads to free thought, which is quite bad for religion.
My only point of contention is that you're conflating "faith" and "religion". Religion is the organised bodies that don't like it when people ask too many questions. Faith is someone's personal beliefs and has no bearing on whether or not inquisitiveness and intelligence are important to them.
@@renatocorvaro6924 I've always equated faith with religion (as in religion is the framework for the faith), and seen churches as the issue, as (IMO) the religion itself is just the belief system, where as churches form the hierarchy that creates a division of power (i.e. "Get your answers from the priest/pastor/guy with the biggest hat, you can't do your own thinking"). Same idea I think, just expressed differently?
@@78dentedhead That terminology doesn't really work since not all religions have "churches" in the same way that Christianity does. A religion is a system of belief, faith is the presence of that belief itself, and a church is just an organisation/hierarchy. They are three different, specific terms and it's generally unhelpful to conflate faith and religion as meaning the same thing.
That worries me too; similar to phrasing sometimes used in the anti-science writings of people like Ray Comfort. I also think it is primarily basic and applied scientific knowledge that many religions are afraid of -- as opposed to knowledge of concepts that won't contradict the tenets of one's faith, such as musical theory or foreign languages or mathematics. Of course once you get outside of certain fields of study, there's no way for science NOT to sneak in. You have to know a good bit of science in order to maintain agriculture. You have to know a lot about science for engineering and medicine and architecture. And history can be a contentious area because some religions rely on rewriting history in order to teach the next generation something other than what really happened.
My immediate thought was where’s the buddhist? There’s five main religions (by influence) in the world and they omitted the only not-necessarily-theistic one.
Buddhism doesn't neccessarily deny the existence of God(s), it just decides not to concern itself with that issue and focus on the improvement of the self.
I think it’s good that Emma is trying to provide a decently nuanced view and is not just doing hate video but genuinely reacting. I also think the comments are pretty funny 😆
I want to see a witch or a pagan on there at the very least 😊 loved your surfshark ad. I was laughing so hard as the little fella shook with rage and frustration. I do the same with my bears and puppets 😂❤
As a Muslim I couldn't respect your respectful and diligent commentary more. Islam is never changing yet always interpreted differently and they way you describe things helps me understand Islam more even though you do not believe.
When I saw the TTT in the villains group shot (especially the leader in pink with a purse), I was afraid it was sneaky weaponized homophobia/transphobia. But upon seeing the close up and reading the text blurb, it just seems confusing for a kids cartoon. Also: Hell yeah Ducktales and Danger Mouse (power house!)
Hate group analogue at best It would be sneaky if she was a man I'd doubt they would include a trans character even if they were bigoted and have them be literally trans More likely at best the creepy fem man..not saying it's much diffent or better but that would be it at best. Transphobia is real but that's like a Prager u thing
I think 4 people to represent mutli-religious superheroes are not enough. As you mentioned: gender gap, missing religions, missing non-religious people... For the TTT: They should have gone straight for the KKK, as the KKK are a) religious and b) supervillains . A religious supervillain would also have been honest. (Besides that the "devils" are also somewhat religious of course).
It would also be great to show how religion can be used for hate while claiming they are the best and the ones to follow. Which cam also play into the leader having false prophet and idol worship amd teach against it.
I actually disagree on the KKK. I think it's problematic to portray the real KKK in a children's entertainment cartoon. Very difficult to portray the horrors of the KKK while keeping it light and something likely to be considered suitable for child viewing. Easy to come across as if you're downplaying how terrible the KKK really is and was. Better to have something inspired by the KKK but designed as a cartoon villain. I do think it might have been better for them to follow the true nature of the KKK more closely.
@@tetyoonlee4373I think the best route is to probably take an approach similar to superman, where they call them something that isn't obvious allusion to the KKK and is sufficiently scary sounding, but isn't so scary that a child couldn't listen to it. Superman went with "the clan of the fiery cross", but anything similar would probably work.
@@pennyforyourthots That makes sense. It's like how you don't really see actual Nazi villians in most kids' cartoons. You get 'German-sounding bad guy in military uniform' to get the point across.
Along with the atheist, they could have a follower of Dionysos (Bacchus), and an Amish McGyver who comes up with genius pre-industrial improvisations, and maybe a Buddhist.
My religious superhero is The Paganfist. The main superpower includes triple counter. Whatever damage someone does to me they suffer 3x the damage but also whatever damage I do to others I suffer 3x the damage. However the paganfist is a pacifist so unlikely to strike others. Also, is a masochist so gets more powerful the damage they take. More likely to strike an enemy when the enemy strike one of their allies.
LeDove has seen the life drain from the eyes of his enemies on the battlefield. He's here because he said "There are no athiests in foxholes" and now he's gotta make good on that
- Hey boss, how do you think we should name this French character? - I don't know... He's a dove? Then call him "Dove". - Yeah, but he's French, should I look up how "dove" translate in French? - Nah, it's too much work. Just call him "Le Dove", everyone knows that when there's "le" before a word, it makes it French. By the way, do you think you could give him a beret, a striped shirt and a cig? - Well, we don't want to promote smoking, but... I'll see what I can do, boss... -_-
@@jonc4712 Yes and no. "Dove" is a pretty generic word that can be used to talk about various birds, that in French would be called either "Toureterelle" or "Colombe" and, apprently, even sometimes "Pigeon". And I'm not sure which one LeDove is supposed to be.
@@bobiboulon Colombes are white, pigeons are grey and tourterelles are bright brown, beige or even white. That's about it. The bird featured here is a pigeon.
It might be cool to have a group of villains who believe in a god but do bad things in that god's name. For example, the aliens could pray to Dalida and have a sacred text with innocuous commandments like "if you come across a foreign people, shed the light of my love upon them" and they think "Oh, Dalida wants us to direct the sun's rays to scorch Earth!" The group has to stop them and teach the lesson that it's fine to believe in god, but not to harm or control other people.
Another example of the "All Faiths Are True" world in fiction is the world of the Dresden Files books. Also, the Theme Song Performer wasn't the first "one of these things is not like the others" situations here, given that this is a group of heroes from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, who all have the same god, and one Hindu, who very much does not.
I do also hope the villains aren't the only faithless characters. It's pretty cool to see the combination that is already in the show, they could definitely add more allies into this show.
There is an interfaith business group at my company. I appreciate that it is an important part of inclusivity but the small anti-theist part of me wanted to ask their representative if we could also start and anti faith business group. 😅
6:04 btw it would be "la dove" because we say "une colombe" not "un colombe", yes I'm calling out the misgendering of this cartoon animal and you can't stop me
@@spacenoodle8207 I get that this is a joke but I feel the need to be a nerd. When we gender things in french, it's the gender of the whole concept, not the individuals. Like frogs are she and toads are he. But individual frogs can be male or female, they'll still be "la grenouille", if I'm talking about a male frog I'll say "he(masculine) is a (feminine) frog" "il (masc) est une (fem) grenouille"
It would have been fun for them to include a group of Pagan characters that each time they show up they're not sure which side they are on. Maybe each one of the Pagans could be representing a different pantheon.
Good news! Gods gang was doing a Q&A type thingy and I asked if it would show other religions and atheism and stuff and they said they would in future episodes!
the thing I always think of when I see this kind of "all faiths can coexist" is piscine from life of pi. like on a surface level it's a nice idea but when you actually get in to these things they don't fit together. like they go entirely off vibes and don't care about what the actual beliefs are.
One thing I noticed that I think has to be addressed in some way is the weird amount of underlying antisemtic ques in the villains, specifically talking about the shorter mad scientist using the stock "evil" Jewish features (red hair, big nose, arguably their weight aswell), and most of all the reptile alien's whole concept being based around an antisemitic conspiracy theory
I don't know about the scientists not just being "cartoony", but the fact that they went with reptilian aliens did make me think "they know about what the reptilian conspiracy theories all connect to, right?"
As a Hindu relgious person this cartoon seems cool. Of course corny. I am really impressed with how gracefully and friendly your commentary was. Gods gang is a gaint project to take on. Whomever took it own has huge guts. As an FYI . The Gita even praises Kapil Muni who is an Atheist.
Honestly, the point about having a male lead is true in Hinduism as well. Hindus don't use scripture to justify their patriarchal world view but it is very much ingrained in the modern Hindu society. The other thing that I noticed and quite bugged me is the wardrobe of the heroes. The Jewish and Muslim heroes have been given very stereotypical dresses. I do not know what a "typical" Christian is supposed to look like so I can't comment. For the Hindu hero, however, the dress is way off. She is wearing a taekwondo dress but she probably should have been wearing a saree draped in the Marathi style, if we are going for consistency that is. Rani Laxmi Bai vibes, that would have been exceptional. The colour palette is very wintery which comes off as a bold choice for an action cartoon. It kinda makes me feel that their religious views are going to be watered down to avoid the conflict of opinions as Emma was saying. They could have done well if they had chosen the typical colours again.
While there are a few lacking elements, I think this show is ultimately a really good step for religious cohesiveness. There's more that can be done, but I congratulate the creators for making this and it's definitively a net positive, even if they don't add anything significant to the cast or plot.
It kind of makes sense given that the four faiths represented in the show are among the largest in the US (including southern Baptist being the largest Christian denomination in the country). The only notable exception is Buddhism, which is just slightly larger than Hinduism in the US.
As a Jewish person who has trained in martial arts almost my whole life, Ninjew makes me feel seen, yet quite confused.
It does feel a liiiiitle like theyre implying jews are sneaky lmao
That's because only you, as a true ninjew(Phoenix, forgive me)can understand.
Jew-jitsu
@@aisback1990 Kung-Jew
I'm sorry, but seeing the character "Ninjew" made me wretch. I'm a Unitarian Universalist Neo-Pagan Atheist, but I've been married to a Jewish woman for almost forty years. It just struck me as a horrific stereotyping of a young Jew as a Japanese assassin/intelligence gatherer.
As a matter of fact, having all of the "good" characters -- except Chriscross -- depicted as practicing a Chinese/Japanese martial art when those wouldn't be the norm in their part of the world just bothers me to no end! Hindu and Israeli people have their own martial arts. Why not use those instead?
Just from what I've seen so far, I'd never let my kids watch this show -- even if we'd ever had them. Heck, I wouldn't even let my DOG watch this -- the Humane Society would be on my tail for cruelty to animals!
Le dove is the only character at first glance who looks like he's actually killed some people and have seen a lot of death.
Le Dove has definitely seen some things
I mean, he is supposed to be a veteran.
Le Dove is French... Does it make this character the atheist as we have laws protecting laïcity...?
Cher Ami was a real life pigeon in World War I who, going through German fire, lost a leg and went blind in one eye.
However, he was able to tell the American army to stop firing on the Lost Battalion and focus fire on the German line.
He was awarded the Croix de Guerre, one of France’s highest military honors.
When he returned home, he sadly passed away, but his body was preserved and is now the Smithsonian museum.
Edit: Like the pigeon in the cartoon, Cher Ami also lost a leg! It was the leg that held the message, but it barely clung to his body enough for the U.S. army to receive the message.
@@o0bookwyrmknight0o Thanks for that context! I never knew about Cher Ami. Le Dove makes a lot more sense now.
An athiest news reporter who always misses the magic would be kinda hilarious.
Also If they always find some very possible explication for what just happened, or ask for proof of magic and any photo or video keep not catching anything
Brilliant! That's inspired!
Omg yes! Like the mom in Phineas and Ferb! The only problem with that is then they play into the "atheists are just missing the capital T Truth" and if only they could see they would believe thing. Which is, not really the representation I would want.
Or they literally can't see the magic, like the priest in Erik the Viking couldn't see anything in Valhalla.
Yeah, time's moved on.
An old trope re-imagined as anti science.
That'd be right.
can't wait to see an episode where Chriscross enjoys his pork ribs and a beef burger, while 3 other characters just silently watch him doing this
Don't forget the bacon. Can't forget the Bacon.
nah man if you really want to make that point, have him eat a bacon cheeseburger
@@richardbecker1409, hey, beef bacon would be OK with everyone -- except the Hindu character . . . .
They can all eat chickem
You can say a lot about Christianity, but it has the least amount of nonsensical prohibitions
My husband said they missed the opportunity to use the actual Israeli fighting style of Krav Maga for the Jewish character. He was raised Jewish (is now atheist) and is not necessarily offended by the name but thinks they could have done better lol but also thinks it's the best out of the four.
Jess have a big community in Russia (that was threatened a few weeks ago) so yeah tall about an America centric cartoon.
It feels like they all deliberately have styles that aren't really connected to their identities, and Israeli and Jewish aren't the same thing anyway, so it's probably an attempt to sidestep political issues with associating X religion with Y combat thing (still got those prayer beads though!)
@@cactustactics I highly approve. A know a lot of Jews who would cringe at Krav Maga supposedly representing their religion when Zionism is not at all Judaism and should not be the default representation.
Krav maga is a very violent fighting style, it's used by the IDF to cause the most harm towards people without weapons
That first clip got me in the gut. 😂😂
This needs someone called "Nun Chuck" from the Catholic faith!
Male or female? Female would be absolutely hilarious, if you know the meaning of "Chuck" (as applied to a woman).
Feels a bit weird in general that of all the Christian denominations, they chose to go with Southern Baptist in particular (dunno whether that's the most common in the US?), while e.g. Sumuslim doesn't even mention whether he's a Sunnite or Shiite.
I was raised catholic (I'm not anymore but) I was thinking a catholic character would be fun. Maybe like the christian guy's relative; like an aunt? But I do think they should focus on representation for other religions first. And the name you came up with is pure genius, that would fit in sooo well
I think that character was in Rise of Gru, so there could be some trouble with that specific name. Hilarious idea, of course, but potential problems down the line.
I think there needs to be a Buddhist character that’s trying to lose weight by only eating mints.
It would be hilarious if they introduced like "Atheist Adam" and his fighting style was guns. Just a machine gun.
Ironic considering the ones fighting most against gun regulations are those in the Alt Right who tend to lean towards Christianity hah
And for some reason never sees Ms. Dogma.
The skeleton with the guns in the hands! I’ve got a bone to pick with you!
I'd love to see an Agnos-Tinker, an agnostic character who's good with technology.😂
It’s his special move. The Facts and Lo-GLOCK
A Ninjew sounds like a Family Guy cutaway. "This is worse then the time I was robbed by a gang of Ninjews!"
Hey Lois, remember the time those Ninjews robbed me at that Mexican Restaurant.
This concept was already done in an episode of South Park, season 19 episode 7 "Naughty Ninjas."
Everyone made the Jewjutsu jokes in the 2000s. I saw Ninjew, I'm 10 again.
Thank you Emma! We love your review and will discuss your feedback internally. As you suggest, God's Gang is cool with everyone as long as they have good intentions and act with love, including atheists. If you want to interview the creator regarding your questions, please let us know 🙏 we can make that happen❤
Wow the creators themselves, you show is really good congrats.
Well, I am pleasantly surprised!
Also - Ninjew, is a would be NBA Basketball fan...?
Sounds a bit like Kyle Broflovski...
Also, despite the dog character... very much, an anti-Dogma, show... so far.
@@heitorpedrodegodoi5646 thank you ❤️🙏
Good to know the show isn't directly against atheists. I think most people here truly appreciate what you guys are doing and hope that you guys can support, include and unite all groups of people, even if not directly based off the 4 primary religions you guys use.
@@fanster2763 Thank you!
What would be neat is if all the villains represent the worse parts of each religion, like the TTT being composed of Christians just like it's equivalent or the mess that is Islamic science .
The Muslim would have extremists to face then and the cartoon would be cancelled.
@@falconeshield sorry but what do you think the kkk are. there's already extremists being presented
I really like this.
I find it funny when atheists try to associate and use the phrase "the worst parts of religion" when every intelligent, literate person knows that atheism always leads to Nihilism (except when the atheist preciously clings to the Judeo-Christian principles their society was founded on).
Let's have an atheist boast howctge Nordic countries pride themselves of having a society with no Down Symdrome people or offering "non-desirables" to clinically off themselves
No!!! Not Islamic Science! They'd have to enter, the Baghdad House of Wisdom. *Don don don!* (Jk)
honestly it is refreshing to see a modern religiously affiliated cartoon that appears nice and well-made. if a religious family is gonna show their kid a religious cartoon, this is probably one of the better options.
Best one since the old VeggieTales
@@pebsiburbgeri somehow grew up watching veggie tales and didn't really understand that it was religious until my 20s haha
@@maevethefox5912I read the Narnia books as a kid and I thought it was a little odd they had Christmas in a fantasy book but I never noticed the other christiany stuff since I never went to church or knew much about it
@@bookshelfhoney I still like the Narnia books, even though I don't believe in their message to compare Aslan with Jesus - there was a guy who wrote a thesis that the 7 Narnia books correspond to the seven planets of astrology (so that includes the Sun and the Moon as "planets" along with Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Venus and Saturn) which I find fascinating and convincing - and for him that means that Father Christmas fits in the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, because he's basically an example of the jovial (to do with Jove = Jupiter) influence of cheerfulness.
@@paulhammond6978 definitely an interesting take on the books. Although worth noting Aslan is fully intended to be the literal Jesus (the character all but says so at the end of Voyage of the Dawn Treader), which I say not to be pedantic but because I also only learned that pretty recently and find it kind of hilarious (definitely didn't remember that from reading it and I did go to church)
as a muslim sumuslim made me happy shed a tear even but the second he threw a bomb in one of the episodes i died inside
He also “tells stories” as a superpower which are some kind of weird hypnotism/illusion thing.
There’s not actually any real cultural connection on these characters. Their actions, superpowers, and dialogue are all based on extremely superficial stereotypes.
I have no idea how the ethno-religious consultants were convinced to sign off on any of these concepts.
Oof. Well try to laugh along with Emma. This is not where anyone would turn for accuracy, not even the Baptists.
@@irenafarm I would assume the consultants were the like of Cool hip Pastor types who try their damnedest to appeal to todays youth. Not exactly the most accurate of the faith but...probably a bit more easy to swallow than fundamentalists.
@@irenafarmthe irony that even the stereotypes aren't attributed to the right groups, they can't even be accidentally bigoted correctly.
I find a bit ironic humor that you found yourself here on a atheist channel, but hey welcome good vibes man
I love everything about this, they're unironically bringing Blacksploitation characters back in 2023 and that's kind-of glorious, lol! My one big complaint so far is that everything outside of the main team seems pretty Euro-centric, right? Like we're dealing with Christian Angels, Christian devils with horns and stuff, the KKK... where's the villains that feel specific to the other religions?
Shouldn't we be busting out big bads from all faiths? Where's the Yokai? Where's the Chinese style vampires and the Golems? Like if your entire show is themed around global religion then you might as well use it to teach people about mythology and lore for other cultures, you know? Let's fight a pun-based Wendigo or something and have some fun with it. I want to see Ninjew fight a fucking mummy and they have to use their skills to translate The Book of the Dead or something, but it'll be like an ancient Egyptian princess and make mom jokes because she's "The Mummy". Give me more dumb stuff like that, lol!
I like the Mummy idea 🤣
I think the show has just started.
they might have more down the line for their first season.
as far as the other faith type stuff out side the Abrahamic Christiain stuff, I don't know. Probably haven't thought of it. they might be starting out basic Satruday Morning Cartoon style for now. And will work their way to the other stuff.
I don't know what they're funding model is and how they'll be able to produce each season. But i do hope they get to some of the other stuff like the Chinese Vampires, Golems, Dybbuks, yokkai, etc.
also i think it depends if they're able to pay their interfaith council and advisors to have on as support.
i think that'll be another factor as far as getting the other stuff.
Even in the main group there's only really one major character who isn't Abrahamic
Mommy? Mummy?
And ChrisCross suddenly gets an urge to eat beef jerky
(10 points to who gets it)
definitely, it seems very Christian-centric. golems are kind of misunderstood though, they aren't bad exactly. in the most famous tale about a golem, the golem was a protector of the Jews of Prague against antisemitic attacks. they're not inherently good or bad since they just follow the orders of their creators without thinking, as far as I understand it
like a theology vased Wild Kratts, that would be awesome. And every new episode they are helped by some other superhero from other religions
They could have an opposite hero team called "The Ethics Board" that are a group of scientists that make up different subjects. Physics, Chemistry, Theory, Meteorology, Earth Science. Could be like the Avengers and they fight the really mad scientists cause they act without ethics
Good idea. Imagine if they worked together.
LOL that's how I kind of imagined the mad scientists, They are Koch Funded scientists with no ethics
Fun fact; Basketball (now seen as a highly African American dominated sport) was once heavily played by Jewish people, mainly Jewish immigrant children.
What GG needs is an atheist antihero, a green ranger equivalent. They clash with the gang at first, but set aside their differences for the greater good. And we learn that they do have faith... in their friends.
Yes!
Must be nice. But it seems to be only include people of faith.
That's a great idea actually!
@@nibblesnarferbro why is everyone in this comment section INSANE about their nialisim
Like what?? What's is Le doves religion?
@@ravenstone1292 French. That or French Gnosticism, which I just made up independently, but it's apparently a real thing, as verified by a quick Google search.
In all seriousness, I think Le Dove is supposed to be the dove that brought Noah the olive branch in the old testament. He's even holding it in the end credits.
-Surprised you didn't comment on the theme song including "our enemies without faith", priming kids to see anyone without faith as "the enemy".-
I'll retract this. I went to the web site and played the trailer directly. When listed to more clearly than a video of a video, it does sound more like "enemies without *fail*" in the lyrics. I apologize for potentially spreading bad information. Thank you @sumroy for the correction.
I was thinking the same
Huh... I didn't catch that in the theme song. I found the lyrics very hard to make out to be honest.
yeah, idk, i heard that too, just had to pause and sit there for a second;
I think you have misheard the lyrics … here they are (and no mention of "our enemies without faith"). We love everyone, however they choose to believe or not 🙏
Friendship and laughter and flying kicks
Only together the world we can fix…
GOD’S GANG!
CHORUS
Four different faiths,
One god, one love.
Saving the day
With some help from above
We may not agree
On when to pray
But when we join hands,
Help is on the way!
Chris Cross is kind But never weak
He’ll blow you away With his other-turned cheek.
NinJew has the power to analyze
18 ways to stop the bad guys.
TaeKwonHindu can hear the words
Of animals, insects, plants, and birds.
Sumuslim can spin a tale
To capture our enemies without fail.
CHORUS
Four different faiths,
One god, one love.
Saving the day
With some help from above
We may not agree
On which path to take
But when we join hands,
Help is on the way!
Yeah, you can just delete the comment.
It should be noted that Hinduism isn't strictly polytheism or monotheism. The term that fits Hinduism best is henotheism, where there are many gods, but they are all ultimately a part of one universal power/force/godhood. It would be super interesting to see that be brought up in the show.
I think that is the major reason I find it hard to explain being Hindu to people at my school. There is a lot to unpack about Hinduism even if you are giving a brief overview of it.
Good point, but it's still like... so distinctly different from how Christians, Muslims, and Jews think of their God, so it does kind of feel like Hinduism is the odd one out.
Well, that explains Taekwondhindu. It feels less like the odd one out
I hope Le Dove is an atheist and is like “after the war I’d rather believe in no god than believe an all knowing creator would allow such atrocities”
If you look back at that council, the interfaith council matches the respective characters of each faith. The singular woman is the Hindu specialist. Even the Baptist pastor is a black man. It’s like they just made the characters cartoon versions of the interfaith council. Just something I noticed when you brought up the gender imbalance towards the end.
It was my immediate thought to, shame she missed it but I'm sure it's more fun for the council to have their herosonas
After seeing so many heartless religious shows (looking at you Caleb and Sophia), this actually looks like a product of love and positivity. I hope it stays that way!
It looks really well, produced and the concepts are pretty well developed. I'd love it if ran on a level of preachiness 1/4th the level of Caleb and Sophia.
Caleb and Sophia isnt comparable to something like this imo. Regardless of your opinions on the content of either, (GG has definitely got some concept reworking to do, intent aside there’s some harmful stereotypes people have pointed out that shouldn’t go unaddressed) Caleb and Sophia isn’t something id call a show to begin with. It’s just thinly veiled cult propaganda masquerading as one.
Not to mention Christian content made by Pureflix or someone similar
I got a chuckle at the puns for the superheroe names, but when they were said out loud in the trailer, something felt... off. I know now : If you accept these superheroes have no secret identity, ChrisCross is the only one who has a name, like an *actual* name. The others just have "Religion + Fighting style = Pun" as their name.
A cross is a type of punch in boxing (and some other martial arts) so there is that at least.
Also I wonder if "Chriscross" is a deliberate callback for Kris Kross ; a hip hop artist in the early 90s.
I don't think it's as deep as it seems, tbh. I think they just couldn't come up with a pun of "Christian + Karate."
I agree with Emma that the message of this show is refreshingly positive, but the show does feel too on the nose, even for a kids show. Maybe I wrong but I feel like after six episodes they are going to run out of child friendly relgious puns and the show will peter out. I'm far from an expert on children, but I feel like they would reach more kids if they made a more straightforward superhero cartoon but prominately included the characters religious practices. Like give the Muslim character an actual name, but have one episode where he's observing Ramadon, so the rest of the team gets up early to have breakfast before sunrise with him and then they go fight a robot or something. The kids watch for the superhero vs robot fight, but they are introduced to Ramadon and the idea that different religous practices can coexist.
I didn't know cross fight was a thing@Forgorgo-chan
I love how three of the religons were based on the same god, and the other was Hinduism. They left out a lot of other religions.
I think they went with the most common religions. Bar Judaism which is just well known/ relevant to the message
I wonder if those are the religions of the people who started making the show? Maybe they're starting from what they know best, and other religions could be represented by side characters.
@@georgogiannakis6123 Buddhism is very common
535 millions Buddhists worldwide
compare that to the 15 millions jews, which also include the non religious jews (so the ones actually practicing judaism are even less)
but heh, buddhists don't believe in god, so including them would be like including the nonbelievers : complicated with the title
(also they said "same god", despite the fact that this would only apply to the tree abrahamic faiths, the hindus don't believe in "a god" but multiple gods, they are polytheists)
@@wikipiiimp9420 yes, that’s why I said barring Judaism. Christianity and Islam are the two most common religions, to my understanding. Followed by Hinduism, and then followed by Buddhism.
That’s why I suspect, they chose Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism. I imagine one of the original creators is of an abrahamic religion and that’s why Judaism was chosen, as it’s the only one that breaks the trend I described.
You’re probably right in your interpretation of why Buddhism was not chosen though.
That was my thought. Calling them god's gang and then featuring non-abrahamic religion representation is a weird choice. They could have been called something else that sounds more hero-like yet still theology themed that would allow for other religions to be represented in way that doesn't sound centered around a monotheistic world view
Two things: First, while watching Ninjew go through those moves in the intro, I honestly thought the character was female. Maybe it's because he's a dead wringer for a female rabbinical student I knew briefly way back in college -- nerdy glasses, red hair, white collared shirt with black jacket -- but it genuinely surprised me he was a dude. Second, while the TTT could be a KKK reference, the pink and lavender color scheme gave me some queer-ish coding vibes; maybe I'm being overly alarmist (and have yet to watch an episode, so I probably should reserve judgement), but it raised a bit of a red flag anyway.
Well its a kid show and their leader is a woman so "woman like pink evil gang woman control wear pink" this and possibly they dont want to draw the allegory too close to KKK.
There...are weird tankie trans people that need a wake up call. I just hope it's not the TTT
I was thinking the same thing but didn't want to make a comment without seeing anything else from the series first! Always best to reserve judgement, I'd rather hope it turns out positive. (But then again the TTT leader seemed to be a man with hot pink high heeled boots and a purse so idk)
I'm just hoping the T isn't for trans... I know Delida is another pun (as in the leader), but it follows certain conventions...
It kinda just looks like the leader is a very feminine woman and that’s probably why it’s all pink
Huh, I assume the dove missing a leg is a reference to Cher Ami, who was probably the pigeon with the most military decoration in history. He was mortally wounded, and his leg was almost completely severed delivering a message that saved a bunch of soldiers lives.
Chris Cross is channeled 70s blaxsploitation straight out of the worlds of Blackula, Shaft and Dolemite. Just.. karate, from the street, *LOOK AT THE FRO*. I'm 100% here for him. What they need though is a Pam Grier analogue to enhance Chris Cross' worldbuilding.
Yeah okay just make him a Gospel dude. No need to include southern stuff. FOR OBVIOUS REASONS
How can anyone claim that God isn't real when Emma clearly died during the SurfShark ad, and yet came back to life to finish the video.
So Emma is Jesus? I'm sold.
@@jasonshort9001I think “Emma is a demigod” goes harder personally
Extra depth bookcases for double stacking implies demigod status in its own right for me
A miracle!
That's funny...
I'm only 6 minutes in, but it has already struck me that the martial arts they use are mainly from Japan (Non-religious, Shinto, Buddhist). So a country with none of its major faiths/lack-of-faith represented.
I think what you mean is non-theistic.
@@Pr0fane26 Neither term really explains the situation here. I merely used the term 'non-religious' as it's what NHK use on their occassional surveys. (I think it was about 70% on the last one). As a term it really covers membership of a specific religious organisation. Hence a large majority of people still follow Shinto practices, but only around 3% are registered officially with Shinto organisations. If you include belief in 'kami' as theistic then non-religious is a better description than non-theist. But, as I say, neither term is really covers it.
They can add HEMApostolic. He runs around shouting "Deus Vult!" and is always getting into fights with Sumuslum.
no krav-maga, this is bs
@@JebeckyGranjola That got a legit LOL out of me, kudos.
I will say, as a person of Hindu faith myself, while Hinduism is on the surface polytheistic, all the separate gods are actually avatars/incarnations of the eternal soul (atman) ((eternal soul isn’t really the right word, but it’s basically the idea of divinity and everyone shares the same soul and the soul is also god and all that jazz))
On a separate note, I’m actually really excited to see Hindu representation! I always felt a little left out because whenever people talk about the major religions, they seem to really only mention the abrahamic ones
I grew up practicing Buddhism in Korea, and Taekwon Bulja(Buddhist) is definitely a thing. Nearly every kids go to TKD gyms because it evolved into a daycare for preschoolers in Korea more so than actual martial arts gym, and some of those gyms are ran by buddhist temples.
One thing that really stands out to me is they are very specific about the christian's denomination but not so with the other faiths.
Murica centric.
Yeah that is kinda weird, it's like we've got all the religions,Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Baptist!
Not trying to justify it
But
That might be because Christianity is alot more 'divided' atleast on the surface. I know that in Islam there's Sunni and Shia etc..but Sunni Islam makes up ~90% of Islam. And with Judaism (correct me if I'm wrong) the split is more about how devout you are. Maybe, I'm far from an expert
"one god one love" The Hindu religion is Pantheistic 😅
Right?!
Worse than that:
Krishna = God of love
Kamadeva. = God of love
eros and agape both translate a "love" in english.
Yeah. I was thinking the same thing.
polytheistic* (I think, correct me if I'm wrong)
@@Mary-T35T4 I think you are correct. Pantheistic, I think means basically one god that is in everything.
I was raised Muslim but have been an atheist for the last 10 years or so. I'm encouraged that they're making an effort to reach across faiths, and i would hope that if the advisors are sufficiently liberal to put this work together, they will be liberal enough to include positive representations of other faiths and of non theists. It reminds me in spirit of Oh God! starring John Denver and George Burns. Of you haven't seen it, i highly recommend it and would love to see your reaction to it.
Oh God is an old favorite of mine, too. But they won't stretch the tolerance and respect one more inch. It is honestly a pretty thinly disguised attempt to make all religions into one - theirs - and to make science look bad.
Well done you for your atheism! 🙂
I grew up in a non-fundamentalist Christian church in the American south. My grandfather was close to our pastor, who was close to a rabbi from a Jewish synagogue across town. They were frequently in touch with leaders from other religions in the area, too. It was very common for me to walk into my grandparents’ house and find them all in the living room in deep conversation about world events, human nature, etc. It never occurred to me that we couldn’t respect and even learn from each others’ faiths. I was grown before I learned of how unusual of an experience that was among Christians.
I’m a gay christian, and now I’m just litteraly praying for them to not make evil trans characters or somthing like that… legitimately scared of it but if they tick all the boxes of love and respect everyone I’d litteraly love this show and also love the anger it would cause to the most religious people using their god to condemn people and spread hate
Samee❤
Considering how the Southern Baptist church was founded (hint: like the Confederacy, they really REALLY wanted to keep their slaves), I doubt Chriscross is a Southern Baptist - Unless they mean he is literally a Baptist from the American South.
And in 1968 they actual voted for support of abortion !
@@java4653 That’s only because their wedge issue at the time was opposing desegregation.
Seriously underrated history lesson. Also applies to the Southern Methodist Church.
I think pretty much all the Protestant groups in America schismed over slavery. All of them have split between liberals and conservatives. The Liberal Southern Baptists split off and rejoined the mainline Baptists. The now ironically named United Methodists just recently split up over gay marriage. It's insane to me that people can simultaneously hold the belief that thier religion was given to them by the all powerful eternal ruler of the universe, but also if you disagree with it's politics you can just make up your own religion. The funniest one is a group that split off from the Catholic church because in the 1960's the Pope declared the mass should be given in a language people can understand instead of Latin.
@@java4653Back in the day men didn't want responsibility so this was made with men's wants at the time. Now that they realised that abortion gives a woman a choice, the tone shifted since at least the 90s.
They gave the hindu, who even in teh show casually has 6 arm slike several hindu deities. but they gave her a martial art that KICKS
Going off the idea of having a character without faith, I think it’d be amazing if there was a character who felt invisible and worthless, but met this gang who taught them that we’re all different and they love everyone, regardless of faith and lack there of. They could be a kind of honorary member - not a full member since that kind of defeats the point the show is going for (having an atheist or agnostic apart of the gang wouldn’t exactly make it “gods gang” anymore), but someone they can all confide in and can join the adventure from time to time when their help is needed! Maybe named something like Junethiest, for Jiu-Jitsu, the casual name of June, and for atheist? A storyline like that can make for some interesting episodes
Overall, this show seems like a wonderful and really fun idea, especially when it comes to erasing the stigma that religious people are only good if they’re apart of your specific religion for younger generations. Though it should probably be revised a bit and can be handled better. But I like the direction religious children’s shows are going if this marks a new era!
Well, to that I say why not? God is supposed to love everyone. Even if they don't believe. So they should still be in the group because in the eyes of god they're still his creation. If he didn't, then that only reaffirms a massive reason atheists don't believe.
Every team needs a tech specialist. May as well make it an atheist. “Use this when you really need it.”
@@justarandomguy117 That’s a good point! That’d be really fun
Only knowing what I learned about the show from watching this, I have a sneaking suspicion that this show might be an extension of something that has happened in america in response to the first time atheism started gaining any notable political foothold to advocate for the non-religious in america. In response to atheism gaining enough popularity to be a political force to advocate for the rights of atheists and for the separation of church and state, christians of different denominations which had previously held each other in low regard for being of different denominations, began to ally themselves with each other which seems like a step in the right direction except that the motivation was to combine their political influence because they were, separately, each to small a group to defeat secular advocacy but, by combining their political influence, they were able to effectively demonize atheism in the public eye and cause setbacks to advocacy for atheist rights. Of course the motivation wasn't so much to harm existing atheists (they did harm atheists but I think that wasn't the central motivation) but to preserve their own influence over their congregations... at least, as much as they could preserve it. Certainly there were those who intended to destroy atheism and critical thought because they saw these things as perpetual threats to their control over their congregations but I think the main goal was to pool their power collectively to preserve their individual power and I think the desire of many among the movement to destroy atheism and critical thinking altogether was just born out of their intention to preserve their own power. I'm not saying this is definitely what this show is intended to do across altogether different religions rather than just different denominations in response to religion in general declining but it's a possibility.
That being said, I don't think it's entirely a bad thing if this is what the show is doing. Let me explain. Although there are, of course, still very fundamentalist factions of christianity, most christians today are more progressive than most christians at any time in the past and the further into the past you look, the less progressive most of christianity becomes. This isn't a coincidence and it isn't something I would expect to happen in a christian vacuum. As far as I can see, this is christianity trying to keep their flock by trying to keep up with secular morality.
Think about it, the nature of dogma and religious tradition is to preserve it's self without change. Thoughts and ideas which contradict the existing religious narrative about morality (or about anything really) are a defiance of religion even if they come from a religious person. A secular though is a secular thought, even in the mind of a religious person. Secular thought, in the mind of an atheist or the mind of a religious person is what causes religion to advance by forcing the religion to make concessions. Even through all the possible harmful intention which may be the motivation behind this show, this show is an example of religion becoming less religious to maintain it's own existence. The plain and simple fact is that, as religion becomes less and less religious, it will inevitably cease to be religion.
Also, a couple of notes about the villains: The possible negative implications behind the scientist villains is obvious (to demonize critical thought, implying that it harms one's relationship with their god and to imply that critical thought is based on ill and selfish motives), but I wonder how the corporate villains are actually used in the show. Is their relentless pursuit of money in it's self depicted as their major evil or is it just to demonize corporations for their latest attempt at financial success through pandering in the modern progressive environment? They always pander to trends and I haven't seen much pushback against this from religions (christianity in particular) in the past but I've seen a lot of pushback against it from christianity in particular since the trend corporations are pandering to has been the latest progressive trend. It's almost amusing how they, somewhat accurately, call it out as pandering but seem to fail to see that corporations have always done such pandering because they're so focused on hating the progressive people corporations are now pandering to.
(edited for grammar)
I'm probably putting too much thought into this, but I noticed the peace sign that everybody forms at 13:28 has a gap in the bottom left. Maybe they'll add a new character later on to fill that spot and complete the shape, and maaayyyybe that character could be an atheist?
I find it interesting (but unsurprising) that all the characters use far eastern fighting styles but there are no far eastern characters or religions represented.
"Ninjew" Sounds STRAIGHT out of South Park
im not sure if you caught it, maybe you mention it after where i've paused but i love how one of the first lines in the trailer song was "one god one love" which i could maybe get if it was just the christian, muslim, and jewish person cuz it's technically all the same god but they have a hindu on the team! also knowing nothing of le dove beyond your intro of him, he is clearly the best character by MILES.
Don't Hindus believe in one God, just in a bunch of different 'avatars'? Like, Krishna is an avatar of Vishnu (I'm probably way off) who is in turn an avatar of Brahman. So therefore Hinduism is monotheistic, but just in a different way
As a member of the militant birb faith, I feel represented😊
From what I’ve seen, and as a Hindu… This seems pretty problematic to me.
3 abrahamic religions and a token not-Abrahamic. Yeah, they’re gonna make us out to be the butt of the joke, as is often the case. And that’s not even addressing the ludicrous variety within Hinduism (eg I am atheist despite being Hindu, and this is a legit branch), or the 6 arms thing, or the fact that India has its own martial arts… The list goes on.
I think they definitely need to add Buddhists, Taoists, or Shintoists etc. they’re pretty big religions too.
That was interesting.
As an atheist
If it pushes love and
Tolerance or understanding
Its better than hate.
Great job Emma
They should introduce a Parsi character called Zorokickasstrian.
One non-Abrahamic religion feels very token. Especially when combined with the associated character being the token woman. And multiple allusions to a singular god, starting with the title, reinforce that impression.
Plenty of room for another character or two for more diversity. Voltron, Planeteers, Power Rangers, etc all did fine with five.
Because those are the four biggest religions? I think that's pretty normal.
@@atlas_19
Buddhism is much more widespread than Judaism
there are 15 millions jews in the world, including non religious jews (people that are of jewish ethnicity without practicing judaism) so people of actual jewish faith are below 15 millions
compare that to the 500+ millions buddhists
buddism is very widespread in india, china, japan, korea, vietnam, cambodia, laos, thailand, nepal, bhutan, etc
which is a significant part of the world, to say the least
chinese folk religion are also very widespread... except if they only exist in china simply because china is big and extremely populous.
There is a Hindu philosophy that basically teaches about the oneness of the universe. That seems to be how they figured they could fit a non-Abrahamic faith into here, though I am summarizing what a member of the GG team told me.
@@DevlerbatAdvaita Vedanta
I'm honnestly very surprised that the whole gang include a character that does not follow a Abrahamic religion. I'm far from being an expert in Hinduism, but doesn't it have some core beliefs that are in total contradiction with Abrahamic religions? Like reincarnation is the thing and there's multiple gods?
Yeah, but the multiple Hindu gods are typically seen as manifestations of one God called Brahman.
Some Jews believe in reincarnation, too. Judaism's views on the afterlife are extremely ill-defined and controversial.
So... is this just a party of multiclassed D&D clerics?
It's Pathfinder 2nd Edition, and everyone picked Cleric Multiclass for their Free Archetype.
I like where the show is coming from, and the concept is actually pretty fun and decently developed, but I do agree that it's gotta tread carefully in its portayal of certain groups and issues.
Those little instances of uncomfortable messaging make me sad because I could see the potential in a show like this.
If it ever gets a second season, i do hope the production team can take people's feedback
You know what? This is a HUGE improvement on the religious shows I had to watch as a kid. Just acknowledging other religions exist is leaps and bounds ahead of where these kind of shows were.
I had a gaming group which included a goofy guy who was quite vocal about his theological alignment as a "Messianic Jew". He also had a kind of gross fixation on all things Asian, so he played Asian-themed characters constantly, memorably a kitsune ninja. When he made that character, nobody ever called him anything but "Ninjew" from then on.
Art imitates life 😂
@ville__Jesus Christ, you're still lurking? My dude, please, go outside! Your body will thank you for letting it synthesize some vitamin D. Holy shit, imagine being so obsessed and completely unaware of it...
@ville__ Do you need a hug?
So he's real!!!!
I bet if he would have been a Nekomimi, instead of a Kitsune, he would have been called Nin-nya ... xD
The team needs to be expanded:
Bod-hehitsya: A buddhist boxer. He is blind but uses the power of inner peace to sense his surroundings and beat the crap out of people.
Confusious: A Confucian native American woman who uses the power of hypnotism and inscrutable sayings to confuse enemies.
Seculara: An handi-capable atheist technologist with a flying wheelchair whose contraptions border on magic.
Wicca-wicca-wacked: A transgender wiccan computer hacker and security expert with a glass eye and a crystal ball.
Buttered Noodles: A 7-year-old Pastafarian whose deep faith allows him to transform into an incarnation of his noodly deity.
Mefisttopholies: A satanic teen girl, who dresses in girly-girl pink, loves cute things, and is on the cheerleading team. Her pet chihuahua can turn into Cerebrus and she has a firey punch when she gets angry. Her "father of lies" power allows her to use makeup to disguise people.
Copy-Cat: The feline unitarian with a tiny unicorn-horn. Can temporarily copy the power of the last team member who grabbed her tail.
Angie Gnostic: She has the power of indecision. Actually, she doesn't do much. But she can turn invisible. Sits in the back and doesn't say anything.
Guru-ru-ru: An elderly new-age cult leader with a heart-of-gold. Has a utility belt containing an essential oil or crystal for every occasion. Immune to all diseases through the power of antivax.
Irie: A nerdy white Rastafarian who can billow out clouds of purple smoke to make dem enemies bunks dey res, yah? Dey wakes up wanna-gut. When him gets rahtid, dreads get all rhygin and badness dem bald-heads.
Roth Hammerson: a Scandinavian farm boy, who is a devout follower of the ancient Nordic religion. He is an expert craftsman, who uses his enormous physical strenght to construct weapons in order to fight the forces of evil. He is always ready for action, likes to eat and drink a lot and overall enjoys the simple things in life. Oh, and he likes to groom himself more than he would actually admit to.
This would be _amazing_
I would watch this religiously (heh)
shut up and take my money. I love this.
Wicca-wicca-whacked. I cry 🤣❤️
What about the old Greek with Zeus ⚡️🌩
I'm Indian and Jewish, and I just have to say I'm on board.
We were always raised very proud of our faith and such, but never at a disdain for any other belief system - probably because we had no sense of an afterlife (though we did adopt Indian beliefs of reincarnation and payoff in a sense being driven simply by how good a person you were in the overall interest of the world rather than in specific religious practices). We just did our thing because that's what we do and other people did differently because that's what they do.
I absolutely love the concept of uniting people through different religions which are arguably one of the most divisive things in the world. I also absolutely love Taekwonhindu and Ninjew lol
You might be taking this a tiny bit too seriously...just a little bit.
I am all for uniting people in respect, but hit me with stereotype mash ups like this and I can't stop giggling...
@@eric2500The paragraph in the middle was more in reference to Emma's comments wondering how the mashup would work if religious people generally think their way is the only correct way to live. I just wanted to share my personal experience in that regard
Where in India do u live?? Kolkata??
Vote of no confidence from me.
@@SubhamPalcyd I'm in the US
I think the fighting style reference in Chriscross's name is the cross part, because a cross is also a kind of punch.
Le Dove is clearly the atheist representation, Emma. He's French!
God dammit, Danger Mouse ambush!
I did think it was a bit odd to put in a Hindu with the three Abrahamic faiths, in a cartoon with "One God, one love" in the theme song. I imagine there are probably Abrahamic believers who think Hinduism is just another interpretation of their god, but I doubt most Hindus would agree.
The interfaith council is reassuring, at least, though I'm left wondering what "Hindu specialist" means.
Also wondering what that means. Possibly just someone very knowledgeable of Hinduism, but I don't know how Hinduism functions
My biggest fear with the TTT is that they are comparing trans people to the KKK because some religioous like to say things similar to "my religion doesn't believe in this gender bs"/"you can't force me to respect these people, it's against my religion"
(Edit: added missing word)
I'd like them to point out where in their Bible does it say that trans people are evil. 😅
Thank you I felt like maybe I was going crazy when I had that thought. The pink clothing and the super feminine tall one with a handbag seemed like an odd choice, but to be charitable, perhaps it's just aiming to distance itself from the actual literal KKK because that reminder of the real-world group might be a little dark for a kids show to tonally manage.
But while we're over-analyzing tiny character design details, I did raise an eyebrow at the Corpo Creeps woman, who in demon form has what looks like a little bulge in her pants. I know this could just be because they're like sweatpants, it might mean nothing and I'm just jumping at shadows. Maybe I am just like an oversensitive raw nerve, having seen far too much anti-trans representation recently, especially from religious media. But it did raise my eyebrow.
I'd like them to explain why they share their transphobic beliefs with the KKK. Also racism, antisemitism, etc...
yeah it's not a good look when your villains include "trans people", "scientists", and the other two look/feel dangerously close to caricatures of satanism/paganism and antisemitic memes in a show about tolerance
Yea as a trans dude, those characters made me break a nervous sweat 💀 Out off all the letters in the English language, I’m curious why they chose “T”? Kind of an interesting coincidence, no?
Saw this with the lads in a group I'm in, it's great and feels unhinged.
Dogma is amazing, and she looks like she's done with people's shenanigans.
DUCK TALES LOVERS UNITE! Another Awesome Video as Always Emma. And I agree with you 💯 they definitely need Gender Neutral casts , I believe in your Conspiracy Awesomenes and us Atheist being the Villains is SHIT! ❤😂😂😂
She never said that atheists were definitively the villains. Although it is a possibility, we can't say for certain that they are representative of atheists, especially since they have made an official debut in the show yet.
@@fanster2763
Atheism is Stage IV cancer since they have no objective morals, are selfish and self-centered, and in today's day cowardly....something that these religious characters are not
10:20 I think it's so much more important that we look deeply into kids' shows and all of the lessons that may be within them than to give that scrutiny to media meant for adults. Kids don't have the critical thinking to fully decipher the deeper meaning in many of the things they watch, but their brains are using it to form the view of the world they will take with them throughout the rest of their lives. This makes kids' shows all the more important to pick apart for messages that may have been implanted into them whether the creators had meant for them to be there or not.
An issue I have with the Really Mad Scientists is the phrasing "Too smart for their own good." Faiths generally try to keep people from pursuing knowledge, because knowledge leads to free thought, which is quite bad for religion.
It's not the knowledge specifically that they don't like. It's the fact that every answer brings more questions. They don't like questions.
My only point of contention is that you're conflating "faith" and "religion".
Religion is the organised bodies that don't like it when people ask too many questions.
Faith is someone's personal beliefs and has no bearing on whether or not inquisitiveness and intelligence are important to them.
@@renatocorvaro6924 I've always equated faith with religion (as in religion is the framework for the faith), and seen churches as the issue, as (IMO) the religion itself is just the belief system, where as churches form the hierarchy that creates a division of power (i.e. "Get your answers from the priest/pastor/guy with the biggest hat, you can't do your own thinking"). Same idea I think, just expressed differently?
@@78dentedhead That terminology doesn't really work since not all religions have "churches" in the same way that Christianity does. A religion is a system of belief, faith is the presence of that belief itself, and a church is just an organisation/hierarchy. They are three different, specific terms and it's generally unhelpful to conflate faith and religion as meaning the same thing.
That worries me too; similar to phrasing sometimes used in the anti-science writings of people like Ray Comfort. I also think it is primarily basic and applied scientific knowledge that many religions are afraid of -- as opposed to knowledge of concepts that won't contradict the tenets of one's faith, such as musical theory or foreign languages or mathematics.
Of course once you get outside of certain fields of study, there's no way for science NOT to sneak in. You have to know a good bit of science in order to maintain agriculture. You have to know a lot about science for engineering and medicine and architecture.
And history can be a contentious area because some religions rely on rewriting history in order to teach the next generation something other than what really happened.
My immediate thought was where’s the buddhist? There’s five main religions (by influence) in the world and they omitted the only not-necessarily-theistic one.
Could be teakwanhindus cousin?
i mean. the name of the series is "god’s gang" tbf. but perhaps some buddhists believe in gods idk
Buddhism doesn't neccessarily deny the existence of God(s), it just decides not to concern itself with that issue and focus on the improvement of the self.
I bet though that they'll answer your question at 10:00 with "iT's JuSt A kIdS sHoW"
Well it is! 💐♥️🧀😎🐈⬛😼🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🇪🇺🇺🇦🇮🇱🇵🇸💐
I think it’s good that Emma is trying to provide a decently nuanced view and is not just doing hate video but genuinely reacting.
I also think the comments are pretty funny 😆
I want to see a witch or a pagan on there at the very least 😊 loved your surfshark ad. I was laughing so hard as the little fella shook with rage and frustration. I do the same with my bears and puppets 😂❤
THANK YOU FOR BEING THE FIRST ONE TO POINT OUT THE TURNING THE OTHER CHEEK IS OPPOSITE OF THE MEANING
Unless turn the other cheek meant to turn your backside and show off those cheeks....you never know
As a Muslim I couldn't respect your respectful and diligent commentary more. Islam is never changing yet always interpreted differently and they way you describe things helps me understand Islam more even though you do not believe.
Fight those that don't believe in islam
@@yeetus_reetus_deeleetusget a hobby bro
It is not "never changing," but you have the right to believe that if you wish.
As a catholic I agree
"and just a little butt kicking... For god's sake" literally just dumbed down history of Christianity
Urban II has entered the chat
They forgot, buddhism, Shintoism, and the Esoteric
When I saw the TTT in the villains group shot (especially the leader in pink with a purse), I was afraid it was sneaky weaponized homophobia/transphobia. But upon seeing the close up and reading the text blurb, it just seems confusing for a kids cartoon.
Also: Hell yeah Ducktales and Danger Mouse (power house!)
Hate group analogue at best It would be sneaky if she was a man
I'd doubt they would include a trans character even if they were bigoted and have them be literally trans
More likely at best the creepy fem man..not saying it's much diffent or better but that would be it at best.
Transphobia is real but that's like a Prager u thing
I think 4 people to represent mutli-religious superheroes are not enough. As you mentioned: gender gap, missing religions, missing non-religious people...
For the TTT: They should have gone straight for the KKK, as the KKK are a) religious and b) supervillains . A religious supervillain would also have been honest. (Besides that the "devils" are also somewhat religious of course).
It would also be great to show how religion can be used for hate while claiming they are the best and the ones to follow. Which cam also play into the leader having false prophet and idol worship amd teach against it.
I actually disagree on the KKK. I think it's problematic to portray the real KKK in a children's entertainment cartoon. Very difficult to portray the horrors of the KKK while keeping it light and something likely to be considered suitable for child viewing. Easy to come across as if you're downplaying how terrible the KKK really is and was. Better to have something inspired by the KKK but designed as a cartoon villain. I do think it might have been better for them to follow the true nature of the KKK more closely.
@@tetyoonlee4373I think the best route is to probably take an approach similar to superman, where they call them something that isn't obvious allusion to the KKK and is sufficiently scary sounding, but isn't so scary that a child couldn't listen to it.
Superman went with "the clan of the fiery cross", but anything similar would probably work.
@@pennyforyourthots That makes sense. It's like how you don't really see actual Nazi villians in most kids' cartoons. You get 'German-sounding bad guy in military uniform' to get the point across.
@@georgeandrews1394No? I've seen actual Nazi being made fun of and I'm okay? Blues Brothers? The Rocketeer? Sound of Music?
I cracked up at the hesitation of "...dog...woman..." That was great
Between you and Suris doing videos about this cartoon, I feel like it's getting way more exposure than it should.😂
Along with the atheist, they could have a follower of Dionysos (Bacchus), and an Amish McGyver who comes up with genius pre-industrial improvisations, and maybe a Buddhist.
They should add a character called Athefist
bonus points if they look like you Emma 😆
also ‘ Sikh and destroy’ Just throwing that out there 🤣
In first 5 minutes i was 100% sure that main antagonists would be Darwin and Dawkins.
Petition for Emna to join God's Gang as the token atheist.
Spelled Tolkien.
@ville__touch grass spammer
@ville__ better at what?
M-Atheist, she pilots the megazord because logic and rational thinking should always be in the driving seat.
@ville__ you commented this on another comment. What's your point 😅
I'm seriously interested to see how complex they get with the TTT. Could warrant a whole overarching narrative if they're ambitious.
My religious superhero is The Paganfist. The main superpower includes triple counter. Whatever damage someone does to me they suffer 3x the damage but also whatever damage I do to others I suffer 3x the damage. However the paganfist is a pacifist so unlikely to strike others. Also, is a masochist so gets more powerful the damage they take. More likely to strike an enemy when the enemy strike one of their allies.
LeDove has seen the life drain from the eyes of his enemies on the battlefield. He's here because he said "There are no athiests in foxholes" and now he's gotta make good on that
- Hey boss, how do you think we should name this French character?
- I don't know... He's a dove? Then call him "Dove".
- Yeah, but he's French, should I look up how "dove" translate in French?
- Nah, it's too much work. Just call him "Le Dove", everyone knows that when there's "le" before a word, it makes it French. By the way, do you think you could give him a beret, a striped shirt and a cig?
- Well, we don't want to promote smoking, but... I'll see what I can do, boss... -_-
I wonder why they didn't go with Pigeon (the French word) instead of Dove.
@@jonc4712 Yes and no. "Dove" is a pretty generic word that can be used to talk about various birds, that in French would be called either "Toureterelle" or "Colombe" and, apprently, even sometimes "Pigeon". And I'm not sure which one LeDove is supposed to be.
@@bobiboulon Colombes are white, pigeons are grey and tourterelles are bright brown, beige or even white. That's about it.
The bird featured here is a pigeon.
@@jonc4712 Now that you speak about colours, yeah, I realise you're right: the stripes on the wings really tell it's a pigeon.
It might be cool to have a group of villains who believe in a god but do bad things in that god's name. For example, the aliens could pray to Dalida and have a sacred text with innocuous commandments like "if you come across a foreign people, shed the light of my love upon them" and they think "Oh, Dalida wants us to direct the sun's rays to scorch Earth!" The group has to stop them and teach the lesson that it's fine to believe in god, but not to harm or control other people.
Ah yes the big 5 religions, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity, and The French
Another example of the "All Faiths Are True" world in fiction is the world of the Dresden Files books.
Also, the Theme Song Performer wasn't the first "one of these things is not like the others" situations here, given that this is a group of heroes from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, who all have the same god, and one Hindu, who very much does not.
I do also hope the villains aren't the only faithless characters. It's pretty cool to see the combination that is already in the show, they could definitely add more allies into this show.
There is an interfaith business group at my company. I appreciate that it is an important part of inclusivity but the small anti-theist part of me wanted to ask their representative if we could also start and anti faith business group. 😅
6:04 btw it would be "la dove" because we say "une colombe" not "un colombe", yes I'm calling out the misgendering of this cartoon animal and you can't stop me
Maybe it's a trans dove
@@spacenoodle8207 I get that this is a joke but I feel the need to be a nerd. When we gender things in french, it's the gender of the whole concept, not the individuals. Like frogs are she and toads are he. But individual frogs can be male or female, they'll still be "la grenouille", if I'm talking about a male frog I'll say "he(masculine) is a (feminine) frog" "il (masc) est une (fem) grenouille"
It would have been fun for them to include a group of Pagan characters that each time they show up they're not sure which side they are on.
Maybe each one of the Pagans could be representing a different pantheon.
Anybody else remember that Adult Swim show Minoritieam? This is like a kid-friendly unironic version of that show.
Good news! Gods gang was doing a Q&A type thingy and I asked if it would show other religions and atheism and stuff and they said they would in future episodes!
3 Japanese fighting styles, 0 Japanese religions.
Maybe they'll have a Shinto priestess or something show up as a reoccuring character. The gang can help her deal with out-of-control yokai.
More creators need to have ads that are entertaining to watch. Keep up the Wonderful work and have a Lovely Day.
the thing I always think of when I see this kind of "all faiths can coexist" is piscine from life of pi. like on a surface level it's a nice idea but when you actually get in to these things they don't fit together. like they go entirely off vibes and don't care about what the actual beliefs are.
When are we gonna get a richard parker versus hobbs death battle?
One thing I noticed that I think has to be addressed in some way is the weird amount of underlying antisemtic ques in the villains, specifically talking about the shorter mad scientist using the stock "evil" Jewish features (red hair, big nose, arguably their weight aswell), and most of all the reptile alien's whole concept being based around an antisemitic conspiracy theory
I don't know about the scientists not just being "cartoony", but the fact that they went with reptilian aliens did make me think "they know about what the reptilian conspiracy theories all connect to, right?"
As a Hindu relgious person this cartoon seems cool. Of course corny. I am really impressed with how gracefully and friendly your commentary was. Gods gang is a gaint project to take on. Whomever took it own has huge guts.
As an FYI . The Gita even praises Kapil Muni who is an Atheist.
Honestly, the point about having a male lead is true in Hinduism as well. Hindus don't use scripture to justify their patriarchal world view but it is very much ingrained in the modern Hindu society. The other thing that I noticed and quite bugged me is the wardrobe of the heroes. The Jewish and Muslim heroes have been given very stereotypical dresses. I do not know what a "typical" Christian is supposed to look like so I can't comment. For the Hindu hero, however, the dress is way off. She is wearing a taekwondo dress but she probably should have been wearing a saree draped in the Marathi style, if we are going for consistency that is. Rani Laxmi Bai vibes, that would have been exceptional. The colour palette is very wintery which comes off as a bold choice for an action cartoon. It kinda makes me feel that their religious views are going to be watered down to avoid the conflict of opinions as Emma was saying. They could have done well if they had chosen the typical colours again.
While there are a few lacking elements, I think this show is ultimately a really good step for religious cohesiveness. There's more that can be done, but I congratulate the creators for making this and it's definitively a net positive, even if they don't add anything significant to the cast or plot.
gee, and each thinks the others are damned for not agreeing with them.
Exactly!!!!!
Basically, yeah. Mainly the Christian and Muslim dude. The jew is probably getting bullied by them and the Hindu just minds her own business
@@DemiRurgeNah. Hindus and Muslim disagree (to put it mildly) a lot. So, I doubt that she minds her own business.
It kind of makes sense given that the four faiths represented in the show are among the largest in the US (including southern Baptist being the largest Christian denomination in the country). The only notable exception is Buddhism, which is just slightly larger than Hinduism in the US.
Genuinely the hardest I've laughed at a 'Sponsored by' segment