Page 222 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

Representing outcomes 211

Interviewer: I see what you mean. So on PAX... Touched by an
Angel . . . do those kinds of shows connect then with the way you feel
now about religion?
Rayna: Well... I don’t think that the LDS Church would say, “Yeah,
that’s what we... believe.” But, for me . . . it works. You know . . .
[thinks] . . . It’s the most positive thing that comes in out of that TV
that we can sit and listen to and I enjoy it, so . . . it works for me. I
don’t think that a lot of people in the Church would, [dramatic voice]
“Oh yeah, we love Touched by an Angel!” I don’t think... but people
who have been in the Church forever, and they know a lot more than I
do could probably pick out, “Well this isn’t right, and that isn’t right,”
but, for me it works.

We’ve seen this distancing between formal religion and the media from a
different direction before. Rayna clearly feels that media inspiration is
important to her. She appreciates both inoffensive “secular” programs and
self-consciously religious ones like Touched by an Angel and It’s a Miracle.
At the same time, she infers that the Church authorities and even her
fellow parishioners might not appreciate these shows as much as she does.
She’s not sure that these media would really represent core beliefs of her
Church, but, for her, they “work.”
We met Judy Cruz in Chapter 5, and her ideas about the inspirational
capacities of media there are relevant to our discussions here. Readers may
recall that we called Judy a “traditionalist” there, someone who was very
self-conscious about her religious beliefs. While she thinks of herself as a
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Catholic, she is a “seeker” as well, exploring a range of religious and spiritual
ideas and traditions. For her, the “inspiration” of certain television programs
lies in a rather traditional religious function: that they give insight into tran-
scendent, even spiritual, aspects of life, of the here and now, and the beyond.

Interviewer: Why do you like that one [It’s a Miracle]?
Judy: Because it shows life experiences that have happened. I think it’s
interesting.

When the Interviewer asks her to describe the program, Judy goes into
detail about a plot that involves two angels. The Interviewer presses a bit
on her understandings about angels, and Judy makes a distinction between
shows that present angels as fantasy figures and angels that actually live in
the here and now.
Interviewer: Angels meaning. . . .
Judy: People, just regular people . . . came to their rescue.
Interviewer: Is that what an angel does?
Judy: Yeah. . . .