Page 232 - Religion in the Media Age Media, Religion & Culture

Representing outcomes 221

Interviewer: What kinds of things prompt you to turn the channel? When
it’s The Simpsons.
Ray: When they say bad things and stuff.
Jay: Well, they don’t really say. . . .
Lynn: I don’t know they [Jay and the children] watch it.
Ray: It’s another dysfunctional family.
Lynn: Yeah, really.
Interviewer: You say that and you all laugh.
Lynn: Because it’s true
Jay: We think we’re dysfunctional sometimes.
Lynn: Yeah.
Interviewer: Is that why The Simpsons is funny sometimes?
Lynn: Just some of the things they do. And that you can relate, you know,
with our own family.
Jay: It’s hard to say where the humor comes in. When you sit and try to
dissect it like that, it’s hard to pinpoint where the humor comes from.
Because it is a bizarre family . . . bizarre situations that frankly, most
people would never get into. . . . Why is it so popular? It’s hard to
pinpoint. I guess everyone can see a little bit of themselves in it.
Interviewer: You’re laughing, Lynn, I see you laughing.
Lynn: Just like Marriage and Family . . . I mean Married with Children.

This is a clear and self-conscious reflection that The Simpsons – a program
that they criticize at other points in the interview – conveys ideas and
senses of family and family life that the Millikens think of as describing
them and their experience of family. It is a guilty pleasure, of course, and
Lynn fills the “mother’s” role in this passage in distancing herself from
some of the program’s elements, but yet she herself admits it describes
their family to an extent. This is perhaps in part a testament to the nature
of television programs like The Simpsons. They have their finger on the
pulse of contemporary life, and find ways of expressing that pulse that are
particularly attractive and real for audiences. The Simpsons is a part of the
contemporary conversation about family life and family values, and even
families like the Millikens, who would like to separate themselves some-
what from the values represented by the media, nonetheless find
themselves represented there.
Each of the categories we have looked at so far is linked to the first level
of engagement, “experiences in the media.” Identifications with certain
media and a sense that media can describe individuals and families, as with
the Millikens, are characteristics of a direct engagement with media
content. Judy Cruz and Rachel Stein seem also to be connecting rather
directly with the media in the examples above. The second level of engage-
ment involves the use of media in broader settings. We interact about
media in our family, work, and social relationships, and these exchange