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Believers, dogmatists, and secularists 181

Brett: There’s like three good shows, and the rest are R-rated.
Vicky: Plus we don’t watch TV enough to justify cable. I mean, we watch
the news and a movie once in a while that might be on the TV, we do
the Sunday night thing, and other than that we don’t watch much TV.

Their concern about violent media even extends to local news programs,
which they view nearly every night to “stay updated,” Vicky says. But
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they watch the late news in part because it comes on after Brett’s bedtime.
Jan: Part of why I don’t want him to see the news at this point is that I
don’t like him to feel like the world is as violent as it’s portrayed. I
mean, sometimes you turn on the news and it’s like, well there was a
murder . . . where three kids were shot, and then two kids were in a
drunk driving accident . . .
Vicky: and there’s a rapist... who’s doing this.
Jan: Sometimes it’s like, God, it’s three murders and three acts of violence
(in a row), and certainly those things are out there, but we try to also
say – a lot – that most people are good. The news doesn’t look like
most people are good or doing positive things. It’s real skewed.

Their preferred reading of media violence then is based not on a fear of
Brett imitating violent behavior, which is the theme of much of the
research on the topic, but on a social learning about values in contempo-
rary human relations. They are concerned that he not learn to think of the
world as a violent place, or a place where violence is accepted as norma-
tive. Jan and Vicky are also concerned about an issue with television that
is not as common a concern, the sex-role stereotyping found in many
programs. Asked specifically about sexism in the content of the Disney
films they like to watch as a family, Jan observes,

Jan: I don’t watch them as much as Brett and Vicky do. Oh, like The
Beauty and the Beast, that was on recently. I hate that movie because
of that. I mean, it’s just... you know, the idea of this woman being
captured and then falling in love with those men that seems abusive.
We’ve talked a lot about that theme with Beauty and the Beast, and
how . . . just kind of how ridiculous that is, to me.

Jan clearly thinks of herself as being more strict and vigilant about Brett’s
media life. She actively pre-screens films and other videos they buy, and
describes herself as paying more attention than Vicky to the content of
films they might attend with Brett. While she is reluctant to say that she
and Vicky differ on fundamentals, she nonetheless sees Vicky and Brett as
much more the media consumers in the household. Reflecting on the
overall question, Jan echoes a sentiment we encountered in the born-again