A Comparative Study of Religious Imagination Surrounding Performers and Idols: A Focus on Contemporary Idols

In pre-modern Europe, actors, jesters, and those involved in the performing arts were often looked down upon and marginalized both legally and religiously. The concept of “infamia” (dishonor) in ancient Roman law was a legal category referring to people who were deprived of the right to testify in court or hold public office; this category included stage actors alongside prostitutes and gladiators. This system persisted in various forms through the medieval and early modern periods, making it difficult to overturn the notion that the “profession itself” was dishonorable, no matter how much fame an actor might attain. It can be said that, in this context, it was not “what was performed” but “the act of performing” itself that was considered to undermine a person’s credibility.

This view of the actor is strongly influenced by a fundamental Christian distrust of “falsehood.” Actors on stage wear masks and play the roles of others. The Church Fathers condemned such behavior as the practice of “becoming someone other than oneself” and “concealing the truth,” arguing that the very act of presenting a false image to the public leads to moral corruption. In sermons and ethical treatises, actors were often discussed as symbols of vices such as lying, lewdness, luxury, and idleness, and their physical expressions — exaggerated gestures and dance — were regarded as manifestations of a loss of self-control. Thus, the “performing body” can be understood as something that stands in opposition to the state of the soul, which ought to be honest before God.

This religious caution resonates deeply with the concept of “idols.” The Ten Commandments in the Old Testament command, “You shall not make for yourself any graven image,” strictly forbidding the visualization of God — that is, the worship of “idols.” The issue here is not simply the physical image itself. Rather, it condemns the human desire to control the invisible God through “visible things,” as well as the danger that images divert people’s hearts from their true object of worship and lead them to accept falsehood as truth. During the Reformation, Protestants thoroughly reinterpreted this prohibition, sparking the iconoclastic movement that destroyed sacred images and statues of saints in churches as idols.

This “distrust of images” and “fundamental skepticism toward the visible” is also linked to a distrust of theater. Actors on stage are beings who construct the personalities of others as “living images,” and audiences are captivated by this fiction. The Church viewed this as “practice in surrendering one’s heart to falsehood.” Both the wariness toward idolatry and the aversion to acting are rooted in a dichotomy that pits the “true God/true self” against the “false image/mask.” Under this worldview, it is a historical fact that actors and jesters, while providing “laughter” and “entertainment,” were regarded as dangerous beings who corrupted the soul and were often subjected to severe sanctions, such as being denied communion or prohibited from burial in church cemeteries.

In contrast, the status of performing artists in the Japanese archipelago reflects a completely different perspective, even though it revolves around the same act of “performing.” In pre-medieval Japanese society, “courtesans” were not merely women engaged in sexual services. Rather, their origins can be traced back to figures akin to shrine maidens who served in Shinto rituals — namely, “yūgyō-nyo” and “asobime.” Under the ancient Ritsuryō system, a group known as the Yūbu was responsible for song and dance in funeral and court rituals; they were a class of professionals tasked with mediating between the gods, the spirit world, and humans. The women belonging to this group were understood not only as masters of the arts of song, dance, and music but also as mediators endowed with spiritual sensitivity.

These origins are also reflected in medieval Noh plays. For example, the courtesan depicted in Eguchi is not merely a prostitute, but appears as an incarnation of the Bodhisattva Fugen. Here, the courtesan is portrayed as a form of expedient means adopted by Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to save people, and is described as a being who brings light to the world. Just as in the trance-like dance of Ame-no-Uzume in ancient mythology, the courtesan’s song and dance were a form of communication with the gods and Buddhas; they were not considered shameful, but rather an act that bridged the sacred and the secular.

It is upon this religious foundation that the worlds of Noh and Kyōgen were established. Noh, which has its origins in Sarugaku and Dengaku, developed throughout the medieval period as a form of fundraising performance for temples and shrines, while simultaneously retaining its character as a ritual performance dedicated to Shinto shrines. The old pine tree depicted at the front of the Noh stage symbolizes the pine tree as a vessel for the descent of the gods, and the performance space itself is conceived as a “sacred ritual site.” During the Muromachi period, the shogunate and powerful daimyo patronized Noh actors and, by taking the stage themselves, staged a “sacralization of samurai power.” The Edo shogunate further institutionalized this practice, designating Noh as “shikiraku” (ceremonial music), officially recognizing specific schools, and granting actors treatment on par with that of samurai.

Here, a dynamic operates in the opposite direction of that in Europe. While in Europe, acting was viewed as posing a danger of “desecrating the sacred,” in Japan, acting often took on the role of “embodying the sacred.” In other words, one could summarize this by saying that the former viewed “images as concealing the truth,” while the latter viewed “images as revealing the truth.” In Japan’s Shinto-Buddhist syncretic worldview, a fluid relationship in which humans and gods, this world and the next, and the sacred and the secular interpenetrate one another is taken as a given; consequently, visible forms (statues, dance, and song) are not immediately regarded as “falsehood.”

That said, the status of performing artists in Japan has not always been positive. The position of Kabuki actors during the Edo period is a typical example of this. Kabuki originated as a folk art form based on Izumo no Okuni’s “Kabuki dance,” and its erotic and transgressive nature led to strict regulation by the shogunate. “Courtesan Kabuki,” performed by women, was banned on the grounds that it undermined public morals, and “Youth Kabuki,” performed by young men, was subsequently banned for similar reasons. The art form transitioned to “Yaro Kabuki,” performed exclusively by adult men, and while it was spatially isolated within specific areas such as theater districts and entertainment districts, the status of actors was placed below that of the four social classes (samurai, farmers, artisans, and merchants), and they came to be viewed with the same stigma as the brothels.

Nevertheless, Kabuki actors were enthusiastically supported within urban merchant culture, and the stars known as “senryō actors” achieved enormous financial success. Here, there exists a significant disparity between their low institutional status and their high actual cultural and economic influence. In Europe during the early modern period, actors also received the patronage of royalty and achieved a certain degree of fame, yet their low professional and religious status was difficult to shake off. In comparison, it can be said that Japanese Kabuki actors, while legally relegated to the margins, were able to function as central icons of urban culture.

The same is true of courtesans. While courtesans in ancient and medieval times were understood as sacred beings with shamanic origins, under the early modern system of licensed prostitution, they were subjected to strict control and exploitation and confined to the space known as the “kaku.” Here, too, the sacred and the despised are intricately intertwined within a single body. As beings embodying this ambivalence, courtesans often became subjects in literature and the performing arts that evoked both “pity” and “reverence.”

Given this historical context, it becomes clear that the “idol” culture in modern Japan is by no means a phenomenon that emerged out of nowhere. The term “idol,” which entered the Japanese language in the 1960s, derives from the English word “idol” (meaning “image” or “statue”). However, when this term was adopted in Japan, it was accompanied by almost no fear of biblical “idolatry.” In Japan, where Christianity has not served as the foundational ethic of society as a whole, the negative theological connotations associated with the English “idol” were largely disregarded; instead, the term was understood in positive terms, such as “a figure loved by everyone” or “an object of admiration.”

This reinterpretation resonates deeply with the relationship between “images” and “sacredness” in Japanese religious culture. The divine objects enshrined in Shinto shrines, Buddhist statues, mandalas, or even the bodies of ancient shamanesses and courtesans — all of these have functioned as mediators that manifest the invisible through visible forms. In this context, the fact that something is an image or a performed body is not immediately equated with falsehood or depravity. On the contrary, there is a sensibility at work here that holds that some form of visible representation is indispensable for “that which is not of this world” to manifest itself in “this world.”

It can be said that modern idols are the highly secularized culmination of this long lineage. While they are no longer incarnations of gods or Buddhas, their bodies function as symbols of fans’ desires, dreams, youth, and a sense of community. Japanese-style idols, in particular, are often presented not as “perfect stars,” but as “ordinary girls who are still unfinished and in the process of growing up.” Fans watch over and support this growth process, deepening their attachment by projecting themselves onto the idols. This dynamic can be seen as an extremely secular reiteration of the way in which medieval entertainers and courtesans mediated between the “sacred” and the “profane.”

On the other hand, it is important to note that the term “idol” still carries complex connotations in the Western world. While “idol” is sometimes used in English-speaking countries in phrases like “rock idol” or “teen idol,” the shadow of biblical criticism — suggesting “blind worship” or “worshiping something that is not God as if it were” — still lingers behind it. For this reason, it can be said that the term “girl group” — which avoids such religious connotations — has been preferred when referring to female performance groups. In this context, the group is linguistically treated as a “professional music unit” rather than an “object of worship.”

This difference in language choice clearly reflects the differing ways in which the social image of entertainers is formed. In the West, when actors or pop stars are worshipped with fanatical fervor, the situation is often criticized as “idolatry.” Even within pop culture, outside of a religious context, “idolization” is viewed as problematic — as “worship that lacks agency” or “a misplaced projection of one’s personality.” In contrast, the popularity of idols in Japan is often described in terms such as “everyone’s enjoyment” or “a source of joy in daily life,” and is not necessarily accompanied by strong moral caution. Rather, even when otaku-style immersion is criticized, it is often framed as an issue of balancing life and work or work ethic, rather than as a religious taboo.

In short, the difference in how “performers” and those regarded as “idols” are evaluated goes beyond mere differences in professional ethics or artistic perspectives. Underlying this lies a divergence in religious imagination regarding how to connect — or sever — the “image” and “truth,” the “body” and the “spirit,” and the “sacred” and the “profane.” The distrust and aversion that medieval Europe projected onto actors and idols, and the ambivalent sanctity and intimacy that Japan has consistently projected onto courtesans, Noh actors, and idols — these can all be seen as long-term, culture-specific responses to the question of what meanings society ascribes to the body and image of a person when they “perform something for the sake of others.”