Page 229 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

218 Representing outcomes

think. It is much more common for them to associate themselves with
certain symbols, values, and claims. Negotiations over such identification
can be seen in the following passage from an interview with the Stein
family. Jeff Stein might be classified as a “metaphysical believer and
11
seeker.” He is 41 and the single father of Rachel, age 10. Jeff is heavily
involved in a “new” or “alternative” religious practice, but is at the same
time skeptical of some of the supernaturalism of contemporary television
entertainment.

Interviewer: What about supernatural stuff, because you said you don’t
like Buffy [Buffy the Vampire Slayer]? You don’t like it because of the
sexual content or because it’s all about witchcraft and. . . .
Jeff: Well, it’s just kind of... it’s just I thought just always kind of intense
and scary but it’s not. . . .
Interviewer: Not because it’s about witchcraft and supernatural...
Jeff: No, I mean I think it’s silly mostly but [laughs].
Rachel: I believe in witchcraft and stuff.
Jeff: No basically there is witchcraft like they do have on Buffy which if
you were doing a science fiction show you could do it because it was
the future. You know it’s all magic, it’s just different premise for how
you do something that is currently impossible [laughs].
Interviewer: Yeah, ok. So it’s an excuse to....
Jeff: [laughs] It’s a fictional, it’s all a fictional construct.
Interviewer: Yeah, do you believe in witchcraft [to Rachel]?
Rachel: Well, I believe in like . . . I believe in magic and... uhm ... I
believe in magical creatures, like dragons and unicorns and
Pegasus . . . and different magical creatures like that and to....
Interviewer: So do you believe they existed or exist?
Rachel: I believe they still exist, maybe, and I believe in like in fairies and
stuff, I believe that there’s other worlds that can be reached by this one
that have, and that these creatures live in and but I also believe that
some still live in this world.

This reveals an interesting negotiation between Jeff and Rachel over the
nature of spirituality, the legitimacy of the representation of the supernat-
ural in popular media, and the nature of such representations. Jeff clearly
feels that a level of “truth” or veracity is an important quality in consid-
ering media portrayals. He is skeptical of these modes of spirituality, of
course, but wants to reserve an openness to them provided they are
authentic and real. For Rachel, who is more attracted to such ideas, the
media representations are meaningful, and something she wants to asso-
ciate herself with, in spite of the opprobrium expressed by her father. For
her, the mystery and seeming transcendence of media portrayals are salient
and significant. She does not use them as sources of insight or even for