Page 199 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

188 Believers, dogmatists, and secularists

then, “you have all kinds of beliefs around that. That’s religion to me.
Spirituality is your relationship with God, and to me that means my rela-
tionship with the world.” Lisette agrees. “Spirituality is, you know,
believing in yourself, and your belief’s not necessarily in religion,” she
says.
Media uses and behaviors are an important part of family identity for
the Price-Benoits. Media play an important role in their family life and in
their narratives of who they are as a family. It is important for them, at the
same time, to describe themselves as a family that is less restrictive than
other families. In an analysis of this family’s media behaviors, my
colleague Lee Hood noted that, while they described themselves as rela-
tively infrequent viewers of television and other media, it seemed that
media were nonetheless an important way for them to see themselves
within the mainstream of American family culture. Within that main-
6
stream, though, they wanted to be seen on its “left bank,” distinct from
moralistic or restrictive families. “We have very few rules,” Mark told
Hood, “Lisette has more rules for herself than we have for her.” Lisette
continued,

In the movies that are bloody or news shows that are bloody and gory,
I can watch it, but if it’s getting too bad then I’ll just stop myself. My
parents don’t really care what I watch as long as I’m willing to talk to
them about it if I have questions. And I can get up and leave. I don’t
feel like I have to stay there. So I kind of have the discipline, so they
trust me with it.

The idea that she can be trusted to make her own wise choices regarding
media content is an important element of the family’s self-description.
“My whole thing, though, is she knows it’s there, she knows we don’t do
it, and you can’t shelter ’em from everything,” Gabriel observes. Almost
more important than the question of what specific choices Lisette makes is
the sense of social distinction they wish to confirm through their use of
media. This seems to be more of a class-based distinction than one that is
related to their being a same-gender couple. “Other people might do some-
thing, we don’t,” Gabriel says. “It might be appropriate for one person...
that doesn’t mean it is for us.”
Their religious self-understandings give the Price-Benoits a particular kind
of understanding of how and when religion enters into media and media
consumption. When asked whether they ever think about religion or spiritu-
ality when they are watching television, Gabriel suggests that only those
programs that are self-consciously “religious” would invoke such ideas.

[I]t would have to spark something with religion or that type of thing
for me to bring God into it. If it was a movie about some lunatic