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Vicars are inherently funny.
British vicars are generally portrayed as docile and gentle elderly chaps, with white hair and little glasses and ever so prim and prissy ways. They drink take afternoon tea ("more tea, vicar?"), have a tendency to be a bit liberal with the altar wine and don't believe that anything remotely sexual happens ever, despite the fact that Church of England vicars are allowed to marry. So, to be caught in flagrante delicto—or even mistaken for being so—by the vicar is, of course, the second funniest thing ever. Catching the vicar in the act is the only thing funnier.
A more recent trope is the "trendy" vicar, who is younger, and probably plays the guitar, but is really just as clueless, especially when it comes to attracting young people to the church. Expect them to make air quotes while using thirty-year-old slang.
For those of you who are non-Brits: Vicar is a term used to refer to a parish priest of the Anglican Church. This is the official established religion of England, a faith that was designed — long, long story — to be Catholicism without the Papal allegiance. Eventually, other aspects of Protestantism immigrated over. Thus the clergy of the Church of England are often called "priests" and dress as such, but nevertheless are free to marry like Protestant ministers.
The word "vicar" technically just means "deputy"; one of the Pope's titles is "Vicar of Christ," for instance. In the Middle Ages, the word 'rector' meant the person that had the right to collect the income of the parish (known as the 'living'), but this could be a bishop, a canon, an abbey, or a pluralist rector with multiple livings. The 'rector' would hire a deputy, the vicar, who was a priest who did the actual work that we associate with ministers and priests. So folks got into the habit of using the term 'vicar' to refer to any 'working priest' * the officially 'done thing' is to call the rector 'vicar' in a parish that traditionally had one, which means the rich important ones that were formerly attractive to pluralist prelates. So, in one of the strange inversions of which British custom is so fond, the originally lower title of 'vicar' is now used by the rectors of the richer and more important parishes. , even though today most 'vicars' are really 'rectors'.
Since 1992, women have been able to become vicars. The first woman vicar in England was appointed ( despite some serious struggles) in 1994. However, female clergy have been ordained in the Anglican communion worldwide for some time, the first in 1944 in Hong Kong.
It is usually used in a religious context, but not always; a memorable exception is E.R. Eddison's Mistress of Mistresses, starring an Evil Chancellor known only as The Vicar.
See Nuns Are Mikos, Naughty Nuns, Sexy Priest, and Nun Too Holy for other " subversions" of traditional Catholic clergy.
In terms of rank, the authority tropes arguably equal are Badass Preacher, Corrupt Corporate Executive, Good Shepherd, Irish Priest, Landlord, Preacher Man, Pedophile Priest, Schoolteachers, Sexy Priest, and Sinister Minister. For the next step down, see Student Council President. For the next step up, see Dean Bitterman.
Examples
Comic Books
- Entertainingly subverted in Hellblazer, where Rick the Vic looks the part; quiet, neatly dressed and wearing half-moon glasses. However, he deals in blasphemous "foreskin bibles", collects "angel spunk" for unspecified reasons, does cocaine, laughs up his sleeve at the scriptures, fornicates in the vestry, is best friend of Violent Glaswegian Header, and on one occasion - and because of "a bet with the Pope" - asks his congregation to join in worship with a really bizarre group of Satanists, and STILL would've gone to heaven if he hadn't shot himself instead of facing satan himself...
- The "Nice Little Vicar" terrorised by Fungus in Fungus the Bogeyman by Raymond Briggs. A footnote explains that bogeys resent Vicars for conflating them with devils.
- Subverted in Father Spikes, a comic strip which circulated in various British "adult humour" publications during the 1990s. He appeared in a memorable send - up of The Exorcist, where he was more vile than the demon.
- Subverted also in Paul Whicker, the Tall Vicar in early issues of Viz. He had very little time for the usual Church activities.
- The Hard Gay, sociopathic Midnighter ends up as one in a issue of The Authority, while fighting a British reality altering villain.
- Cedric features a "vicaire" (of the young, trendy type, more or less.)
- Sterotypical vicars are often used as one-off characters in The Beano with them always ending up getting menaced or minxed by one of the comic's main characters.
Film
- Bridget Jones's Diary, understanding this, hangs a lampshade on it with a "Tarts and Vicars" costume party.
- Hot Fuzz has a British Vicar who fully fits this trope, at first. He turns out to be a vicious killer.
- The Vicar in Wallace & Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Basically a broad parody of this trope as applied specifically to early UK horror films. Albeit that doesn't exactly explain the "Nun Wrestling" magazine on his desk...
- Heavily subverted in Natasha, where the vicar is dark-haired and handsome and makes love to his wife so noisily that their daughter in the adjacent room hides her head under a pillow, and where a woman with adulterous ambitions tries (and failing) to lure him into sin. Considering the movie's other convoluted erotic activities it is probably a Take That on the cliches regarding Britons and sex.
- The Princess Bride contains a vewwy memowwable one played by Peter Cook.
- Lesbian Vampire Killers features a typical English vicar who attempts to be a Badass Preacher.
- Whistle Down the Wind
Literature
- The Reverend Leonard Clement in Agatha Christie's Miss Marple series, notably the narrator of Murder At The Vicarage (the first Miss Marple novel). A partial subversion/lampshading, since while he outwardly conforms to this trope he's actually quite a bit more on-the-ball than his village parishioners assume.
- Dr Chasuble, a minor character in Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest, is a standard-issue vicar.
- The protagonist of Margaret Craven's novel I Heard The Owl Call My Name is a relatively young vicar, assigned to minister to a remote First Nation village in British Columbia. He sort of fits the trope at first, but slowly goes native, and by the end of the novel is pretty much a total subversion.
- Jane Austen's vicars are never quite as saintly or as pure as the stereotype. Mr. Collins is an unctuous Smug Snake; Mr. Elton is a two-faced Gold Digger who desires Emma mainly for her money.
- Dr. Primrose from The Vicar of Wakefield (1766) by Oliver Goldsmith. Cloud Cuckoolander, Wide-Eyed Idealist, Bumbling Dad and oodles more at the same time.
- The Nightside has a rogue vicarage, to do good among the evildoers. Originally Pew was the rogue vicar; Just Another Judgement Day introduces his replacement. She lives in a wholesome cottage whose windows show fields of wildflowers instead of the dark, grimy buildings of the Nightside, and she serves tea and biscuits while making polite conversation. She's also the daughter of a famous prostitute/assassin and has a demon for a live-in lesbian lover.
- Tony Blair is portrayed satirically as a "trendy" yet sanctimonious vicar in Private Eye's parody of his Government, "St. Albion's Parish News".
- The Parson (another generic word for "Vicar" in common English parlance) in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales is one of several religious figures on the pilgrimage - and the only one who isn't either a pious bully or a worldly lush:
But Christ's own lore, and His apostles' twelve. He taught, but first he followed it himself.
Live-Action TV
Magazines
- The Reverend Tony Blair, in the old "St Albion's Parish News" column in Private Eye; the then PM's speeches reminding the magazine of a sermon by a "trendy" vicar. Made into a TV series, A Message From St Albions starring Harry Enfield as Rev Tony.
Music
- English punk band Toy Dolls makes fun of a vicar in their songs "Bless You, My Son" and "My Girlfriend's Dad Is A Vicar".
- "And the bloody Church of England, in chains of history, requests your earthly presence at the vicarage for tea."
- One of the plots of Mansun's first album Attack of the Grey Lantern involves the protagonist's girlfriend's father being a vicar who moonlights as a transvestite stripper and finally commits suicide.
Theatre
- An early Gilbert and Sullivan operetta, The Sorcerer, includes a village vicar, Dr. Daly, who practically embodies this trope. Despite the rather gentle treatment he gets, Gilbert was nonetheless criticized for mocking the Church. More criticism might have followed had Gilbert followed through on his plan of making the principal male character of Patience a vicar instead of a poet.
- Good old Dr. Chasuble.
Video Games
Webcomics
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