Krishna has been the star of several Indian productions.

Hare Krishna
The Hindu deity Krishna is recognized in some sects as another incarnation of Vishnu; other followers of the religion consider Krishna to be the sole Supreme Being. Krishna is the penultimate teacher of the Bhagavad Gita, the most sacred scripture of the Hindu faith. In the 2006 feature, Krishna, the first Hindi CGI-animated opus, the blue-skinned god is depicted as a playful young man whose prowess at fighting demons is matched only by his legendary proficiency with the flute. Aman Khan directed this animated musical. Cartoon Network fans no doubt remember the four-part animated series presenting the life of Krishna that ran in 2007: Krishna: The Birth, Krishna: Makhan Chor, Krishna: In Vrindavan and Krishna: Kansa Vadh earned high ratings for their entertaining stories and high-quality animation.

Did I mention that one can also purchase a 13-volume animated series that comprises The Animated Book of Mormon from a Utah-based company called Living Scriptures? There seems to be no dearth of God in animation, and whether this is due to the ubiquity of religious worship or the need to personalize an invisible deity is hard to determine; perhaps no art form created by humans can escape the shadow of a Being who is widely heralded as the greatest Creator of all. (There don't seem to be any atheist cartoons out there, but then again, what would they show?)

Why, however, are many animated efforts less than worshipful or reverent, especially in the West? One possible answer is that animation in the West has been largely viewed as playful entertainment. As the family Simpson proved, it is also easier to present pointed parody and satire in animated, rather than live-action form.

It is also noted that the power of the church and its proscriptions has declined steadily in the West since its heyday as king and policy-makers, and more modern forms of government (both palatable and dictatorial) have disempowered the Western religious empire. Religious moderation and tolerance is far more common in the West than fundamentalism. As atheist author Sam Harris puts it, "Moderates in every faith are to loosely interpret (or simply ignore) much of their canons in the interest of living in the modern world." As Harris also points out, fundamentalism can be economically inconvenient as well: "…societies tend to become less productive whenever large numbers of people stop making widgets and begin killing their customers and creditors for heresy."

Even the postmodern religious right in America has taken a step back, largely the result of its own political miscalculations. There are always those of a fundamentalist bent who will snarl, sulk and protest, but they can't stop Homer from bemoaning his inconvenient Sunday mornings in church to God's face, or kill his scriptwriters for daring to present Homer doing so. So, if God appears on the screen looking like the guitarist for the Grateful Dead, an accident in an animal DNA lab, or an ill-tempered grump who sends England's stupidest knights out after a non-existent holy grail, it simply reflects religious moderation in the minds of most Western audiences.

The reverence and worship seems to lie mostly in the Middle and Far East, but it should be recalled that there are significant differences that keep depictions of the holiest figures on a more respectful scale than in the West. Even if, as theorized in some circles, all religions and gods extant today grew out of a set of common ur-myths, interpretations and adaptations of those myths were filtered through unique regional and cultural lenses. Depicting Krishna or Buddha using the God of South Park would be, at the least, in very poor taste. Fundamentalist doctrines are far harsher: doing the same thing in Yemen would most likely lead to a death sentence.

In any case, it appears that animation will continue to bring forth conceptions of God, His Avatars, and His prophets, the difference being varying degrees of cultural latitude in doing so. Animation is, after all, a universal art form open to countless topics and interpretations of same. In the case of depicting God (or a god), we see that animation is filtered through a multicultural lens as well.

Martin "Dr. Toon" Goodman is a longtime student and fan of animation. He lives in Anderson, Indiana.