Sad, Traumatized Atheists in Pop Culture: Rhonda Lyon in Empire

Rhonda and Andre Lyon in Empire

Content note: violence, miscarriage caused by violence, anti-atheist bigotry. Also spoilers for Empire, Season 2 Episode 11, “Death Will Have His Day,” and to some degree for the show as a whole.

There are a lot of shitty pop-culture tropes about atheists in pop culture. Atheist characters are often amoral, cynical, bitter, unhappy, or any combination of the above — and they’re often atheists because a traumatic event made them lose their faith.* Gregory House, Mal Reynolds. Possibly Lucious Lyon himself, although it’s hard to know whether he’s really a nonbeliever or just said that to mess with his Christian son. Now add to the list: Rhonda Lyon in Empire.

Quick plot summary: In the most recent episode of Empire (Season 2 Episode 11, “Death Will Have His Day”), Rhonda Lyon, who’s pregnant, has been pushed down a flight of stairs. Bleeding on the floor, she reaches for her cel phone to call for help, sees that it’s smashed, and prays: “Oh God. Please. Save the baby. I don’t care what happens to me. I can die a thousand times, just please, save my baby.” When she’s recovering in the hospital with serious injuries and having suffered a miscarriage, she tells this story to her husband, Andre, and says that when moonlight came through the window, she thought God answered her prayer. But when Andre replies, “God saved you,” she says, sobbing: “No. No. Andre, no. God doesn’t exist. If he did, then the baby would still be here. He didn’t do anything to anyone. There really is no God, Andre.”

Sigh.

Why, oh why, did it have to be this? Again? “I had this terrible trauma, so now I’m an atheist. I prayed that the baby would live, I even offered my own life for that prayer to be answered, but it wasn’t, therefore God doesn’t exist.” Really? Do we really have to play out this tired stereotype of atheism as a post-traumatic symptom, part of a sad and cynical worldview, or sulking because we didn’t get our way and God didn’t give us what we asked for?

Yes, trauma can be part of what makes people leave religion. I’ve read and heard a lot of deconversion stories; I know this. Leaving religion is commonly a long, complicated process with lots of factors going into it, and trauma is sometimes one of those factors. The question of how an all-perfect, all-knowing, all-good god could allow terrible suffering is an important one, and it has led many people out of religion. Trauma can make a believer begin to question their faith; it can be one question among many that religion can’t answer; and it can be the final nail in the coffin of a belief that was already being doubted. But I’ve never seen a deconversion story as simple as “A terrible thing happened, so I stopped believing.” I’ve never seen it as simple as, “I prayed for a terrible thing to not happen, it happened anyway, so I stopped believing.” And I’m sick of seeing it play out this way in pop culture. It makes atheists seem shallow and petulant. It’s also an ironic counterpoint to the notion that there are no atheists in foxholes: apparently atheism is shallow because atheists will always turn to religion in a crisis, but if believers turn to atheism in a crisis, it’s a sign of sad, cynical embitterment and an inability to cope with the difficulties of life.

Here’s the frustrating thing: I would actually love to see a storyline on Empire about Rhonda being an atheist and Andre being a Christian. The two of them have a complicated but largely strong and supportive marriage (within the context of this violent, melodramatic, Machiavellian world, anyway), and it would be interesting to see how the difference in religion plays out. Both have strong affections and something resembling genuine ethics: okay, fine, they’ve both participated in underhanded power plays, and yes, Rhonda beat someone to death and the two of them buried the body in the woods; but the killing was in defense of Andre’s life, and again, violent, melodramatic, Machiavellian world. I would love to see a TV marriage between a Christian and an atheist, where both partners are caring, supportive, ethical (well, ethical-ish), and it’s clear that the difference over religion doesn’t make one of them better than the other. (Of course, I’m already wanting to throw a copy of In Faith and In Doubt: How Religious Believers and Nonbelievers Can Create Strong Marriages and Loving Families through the screen at them…) In this instance, it plays somewhat into stereotypes about black people being religious and atheism being a white thing; but it also plays against stereotypes about women being religious and atheism being a male thing. And of course, atheist visibility in pop culture is often good.

But not like this. Can we please, please, have some atheist characters who are happy and functional (or as happy and functional as everyone else in the story)? At the very least, can we have some atheist characters who aren’t sad, embittered cynics who became atheists because life is sometimes terrible and God didn’t handle it the way they wanted?

*Atheist pop-culture tropes also include: elitist, intellectually smart but emotionally incompetent and out of touch, poor social skills, hyper-rational Straw Vulcans.

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Sad, Traumatized Atheists in Pop Culture: Rhonda Lyon in Empire
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4 thoughts on “Sad, Traumatized Atheists in Pop Culture: Rhonda Lyon in Empire

  1. 1

    Great article. I think the opposite is also true in a way. I know people because of a traumatic life situation, their whole existence now is all about their faith. Everything they say and do is about God. I know people who hit bottom because of substance abuse. They turned to religion for relief and are now addicted to their faith, which of course is at least better than drugs.

  2. 2

    which of course is at least better than drugs.

    Until it isn’t, then.. its often worse, because this particular drug doesn’t have some nice, clear, delineated pattern of destruction. Its more like.. finding that you are allergic to green tea and the thing that was supposed to “help you lose weight”, just destroyed you internal organs. When religion goes bad on someone, it can bleed them to death, or kill them very, very, fast. Obsession with faith was, after all, the heart of Jonestown, Heaven’s Gate, and any number of other religious disasters. At least the drug has a label – will probably kill you, or at least make you really sick. What label do you give religion? Maybe one like a medical drug, “Will help, with a sort of placebo effect with these 4 things, but has these 54 side effects, any, or all of, which you might suffer from, including rare cases of possible death.” Yeah… Not seeing the redeeming quality there.

  3. 3

    Grey’s Anatomy. Last season and the current one. Avery is an atheist and April is a hardcore Christian. They get married, and go through a lot of shit. It’s a really good representation of a mixed marriage that doesn’t feel preachy.

  4. 4

    I remember my cognitive dissonance when I saw the Simpsons and realised basically everyone went to church. I come from the UK, and most people I know are non-religious or religious but not very loud about it. And I didn’t realise how fortunate that was for me, until I realised that a high proportion of characters I’d seen on TV and assumed were non-practising or non-religious were at least nominally Christian.

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