“The Young Pope”: Deconstruction of Postmodern Faith and Authority in Visual Culture

Abstract

Postmodernism is one of the key cultural paradigms of the second half of the twentieth century, which questions universal truths, stable identities and traditional forms of authority. These processes are particularly evident in contemporary audiovisual culture, where religious symbolism and institutional power are subject to reinterpretation. The aim of this study is to analyze Paolo Sorrentino’s series The Young Pope (2016) through the lens of postmodern narrative and religious symbolism.

The research is based on a qualitative methodology and employs hermeneutic, interpretative and semiotic approaches. In the series, the figure of the Pope is represented as a multilayered and contradictory model of religious authority that transcends traditional ecclesiastical representation.

The findings indicate that the series deconstructs the univocal symbolic system of the Catholic Church and constructs a hybrid model in which power, faith and identity function in an interrelated manner. Visual compositions, Vatican architecture, lighting contrasts and ritualized aestheticization construct a hybrid visual-symbolic space of the sacred and the secular. Lenny Belardo is constructed as a postmodern subject whose identity is in a constant state of destabilization.

In conclusion, the series may be regarded as a contemporary audiovisual text that reconceptualizes forms of religious authority and faith within a postmodern cultural context, highlighting the postmodern transformation of religious symbolism.