The Paradox of Parody: Hunky Jesus and the Search for Authentic Freedom

This Sunday, Dolores Park is hosting one of San Francisco's most iconic and provocative events: the Hunky Jesus contest. It's outrageous, irreverent, and unmistakably sexual. Contestants—often shirtless, sometimes in heels, sometimes on crosses—parade before a cheering crowd, reimagining Christ as buff, fabulous, and queer. What began as a niche event by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence has evolved into a cultural ritual: part protest, part performance, part party. It's a celebration of freedom, a defiance of religious orthodoxy, and a raw expression of queer identity.

Credit: Jere (CC BY 2.0)

But behind the laughter and spectacle lies a deeper question: what does it mean when liberation expresses itself by parodying the sacred? Are we mocking the past—or still living under its shadow?

Ressentiment and Rebellion

Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of ressentiment helps make sense of this. When people can't express pain or power directly, they often define themselves in contrast to those who caused their suffering. It's not just resentment—it's a creative, reactive force that inverts the values of the oppressor. Strength becomes tyranny. Shame becomes pride. The sacred becomes satire.

Hunky Jesus exemplifies this dynamic. For many queer people raised in religious traditions that condemned their existence, parody becomes a form of healing. It flips the script. One participant put it this way: "We're not trying to be disrespectful—we're reclaiming something that was used to make us feel ashamed. This is our way of saying: you don't own Jesus anymore."

But therein lies the tension: no one can "own" Jesus. The very notion contradicts the radical, boundary-breaking love he embodied. To claim Jesus for one's cause—whether in sequins or in camo—risks reducing a universal figure to a partisan symbol. For every queer reinterpretation seeking to redeem Christ from exclusion, there's an equal movement among Christian nationalists who rebrand him as masculine, vengeful, and tribal. In both cases, Jesus is being conscripted—not encountered.

Credit: Staffan Vilcans (CC BY-SA 2.0)

When we bend Christ to fit our image, we mirror the same logic of control he came to upend. His call was never to affirm our values, but to transform them. The more we stylize Jesus to reflect our politics or pain, the more we risk missing the moral revolution he inaugurated—a revolution not of sides, but of spirit.

The Other Never Really Leaves

As psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan noted, we never fully escape the gaze of the "big Other"—the symbolic authority that shapes our self-image. Even when we rebel, we're often still performing for that Other, still seeking recognition, still in conversation with it. Rebellion can disguise itself as autonomy, but if the act depends on being seen by the authority it rejects, the liberation it promises may be more theatrical than transformative.

This is why resistance often feels exhausting, even when righteous. We long to escape old narratives but find ourselves rehearsing them with new roles. The ex-religious who endlessly critique their past faith; the activists who define themselves primarily by what they oppose; the cultural movements that feel more like oppositional postures than new visions—each reveals a lingering tether. The Other remains present, not as a master to obey, but as a mirror we can't stop checking.

Yet this realization isn't cause for cynicism. It simply clarifies the task: to move from opposition to creation, from conversation with the Other to the articulation of a self. A freedom no longer haunted by its past.

From Parody to Possibility: What Comes Next?

Parody, for all its defiance, holds transformative potential. It's not mere mockery—it's a ritual of unmaking, a form of psychic housecleaning. As Lacan reminds us, we remain bound to the symbolic order even in our rebellions, but parody allows us to confront that order playfully, subversively. It offers a temporary stage on which we can try on new selves, invert inherited roles, and process inherited pain.

But the challenge isn't whether parody is valid—it is. The real question is: what comes next? Parody is not an end—it is a threshold, part therapy, part transition. It gives voice to pain and reclaims power. Yet if it never moves beyond reaction, it risks calcifying into a performance of opposition, forever circumscribed by the very forces it seeks to reject.

What do we build in place of what we've mocked? What traditions do we offer—not just tear down? What does a free, joyful, embodied spirituality look like when it's not defined in opposition?

Freedom must eventually become more than defiance—it must become creation. Think of jazz: born from oppression, but transcendent in its originality. Or queer culture, which has blossomed into worlds of art, fashion, literature, and love that don't need to justify themselves through opposition.

Maybe events like Hunky Jesus are already part of the answer. For all their parody, they pulse with creativity, hinting at new possibilities of gender, faith, and community. And in their boldest moments, they aren't just mocking an old world—they're midwifing a new one.

That's the paradox of parody: it starts by looking back, but its power lies in what it points toward. When rebellion gives way to joy—not just reaction—it begins to feel like real freedom.