Page 191 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

180 Believers, dogmatists, and secularists

were feeling like he was so focused on being in front of the TV playing
SuperNintendo. . . . We don’t watch a lot of regular TV, but we just
decided we would turn it off for a month and see what else we would
do instead, if we didn’t have that for a month.

They do talk about their general media behaviors, however, noting that
they tend to favor what they call “family movies,” and they own a small
library of videotapes that they watch together on a regular basis. It turns
out that television viewing is an important family ritual for them, some-
thing they do (usually – but not always – a Disney movie) on Sunday
evenings. They think of it as a “nice family time,” Brett observes.

Vicky: Yeah, we eat dinner in the living room, which is unusual. We sort
of have dinner while we’re watching it. And then after we eat we sort
of all snuggle on the couch to watch it. And it’s usually something fun,
a fun movie. It just seems like a cozy family time.
Jan: It’s a time that you can generally also assume that it’s going to be
appropriate for a kid to watch. I mean, there’s so much violence and
stuff, you know, on TV, and we usually stay away from that. And
there’s only been one time that we turned it off.

The Stevens-Van Gelder family is hardly skeptical about television and
other media. They do have standards for what they watch, though, and
want to make it clear that it is violence more than sex that bothers them
about television and movies. This prohibition has even prevented them
from taking Brett to see some popular animated films. As with other fami-
lies who wish to distinguish themselves from those on the right bank of the
cultural mainstream, they are careful to hold to this view of media
violence, though they admit their exposure to sexually suggestive material
is limited because they do not have cable television. When asked about
these standards, Brett refers to nudity and bad language, but Jan and
Vicky quickly bring the discussion back to violence.

Brett: But like, if it was an X-rated movie and everyone was walking
around without wearing any clothes . . . or the ones that are rated R
because they have bad language in them.
Jan: He’s never seen it, but Chuck Norris’s Texas Ranger, I really object to
that one. I don’t know, there’s a number of just really violent, I think,
shows on.
Interviewer: So is violence then the main reason that you’ll avoid the
show? (Jan and Brett both say yes.)
Jan: I certainly don’t think that kids this age should be presented with sexual
material, but since we don’t have cable – and that’s one of the reasons we
don’t have cable is, I think there is a lot of R-rated movies on cable.