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154 Born-agains and mainstream believers

Laura: It’s like this thing where there’s like five people having a race. And
after. . . .
Interviewer: Is it on at night?
Laura: It’s in that Hawaiian place on TV Ray. What is it?
Ray: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Laura: Remember when they eat like bugs and stuff those things? Or how
they win like a thousand dollars and stuff?
Ray: Survivor?
Laura: Yeah. Survivor.
Interviewer: Survivor . . . you two watch that? Did you guys watch that
when it was on?
Lynn: We watched it together a couple of times up here.
Jay: I didn’t really watch the whole series.
Lynn: He’s always, what do you call it?
Interviewer: Flippin’?
Lynn: Flippin’ the channels. Right Jay?
Jay: Yep.
Interviewer: Are you going to watch the new Survivor that starts this week
as a matter of fact?
Jay: I don’t really like those reality TV shows.
Lynn: So we watch a little bit of it and then he’ll turn it.
Jay: I mean probably an episode of every one of them and made a deter-
mination that this is, you know. . . .
Interviewer: Have you not seen one yet that you’d like to watch? Are you
open to the possibility, like, hey this looks interesting... or is it just
that the reality shows are not for you?
Jay: They’re not for me.
Lynn: You watch one. The reality one where they were on that island.
Jay: Yeah, I’ve seen episodes.

This is an approach to television we saw and discussed earlier. The “account
of media” that reality television is inappropriate is common in discourse
about contemporary media, and this seems evident here. At the same time,
we see in this family a style of television viewing that does not readily lend
itself to intervention that might specifically address limiting this kind of
programming. Not only have the children apparently viewed Survivor, Lynn
agrees that they have all seen it a few times. This excerpt also reveals a bit
about the style of viewing in the Milliken household, particularly when Jay
has control of the remote control device. But, significantly, Jay reveals that,
in spite of saying they’re “not for him,” he admits to watching reality shows.
We get the clear impression that a good deal of the television viewing in
the Milliken household is driven by things other than selectivity and
choice, whether based on values or other criteria. When asked about
programs that the family does not watch, Lynn identifies Married with