Page 128 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

Reception of religion and media 117

Jill: It’s funny.
Uta: But it’s really dumb.
Wyonna: It’s a little risqué. It’s kind of dubbed out, but –
Uta: It’s so dumb, it’s funny.
Wyonna: But they really like it. I like it too... which [The Holy Grail], I
guess, might be considered sacrilegious by some people, Monty Python
and the Holy Grail.

Undoubtedly, a number of their fellow Church of Christ members would
find it sacrilegious. Here we have a family that reports no broadcast or
cable television viewing at all. As unusual as this is considered to be by
the girls’ friends, the family nonetheless watches a good deal of video
material, and maintains a large collection, watching them together as a
family, usually on Friday nights. Beyond that, they make a number of
explicit connections between religion and their video viewing, at the same
time that they don’t seem to reflect, in their video habits, the kinds of
material we would expect of born-again Christians. At an earlier point in
their lives, they used Jesus Christ Superstar in a kind of sacramental way,
and, even today, they regularly watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail,
and consider it to be one of their favorite films. This “guilty pleasure”
may well define, for them, the kind of autonomy that Wyonna feels is an
important dimension of her self-description. This is her strategy for nego-
tiating between a position that television is somehow bad or a waste of
time, and the natural attractions and pleasures that television and the
other media provide. The Fallons’ “experiences in media” and “interac-
tions about media,” through which they express a great deal of joy and
satisfaction, and experience family togetherness, are in some conflict with
Wyonna’s “account of media” that holds that television is “crap.” Their
strategy – watching television by not watching television – works for
them.
We might assume that it is a relatively simple matter for individuals and
families to decide not to be part of media culture. We have already
discussed a number of different perspectives on the media in daily life that
assume that a separation is possible, that “bright line” can be drawn
between the media and the more “authentic” or “natural” dimensions of
life, of which religion is an important one. Such distinctions are not as easy
in real life as they are in theory, as we can see here. Particularly for young
people (but really – as we will see – for everyone) the media are more and
more an accepted, tacit part of life and culture, so much so that, when they
are missing, we and others notice. 7
If separation were possible, or if the media could be treated as indepen-
dent objects in the sociocultural field of everyday experience, it would then
have to be based on a rather direct, straightforward, and intentional set of
understandings and practices. In fact, a great deal of what we say and