God on the Tube

My First Things essay on religion and contemporary television is now online. I think my analysis of The Sopranos holds up pretty well in the wake of the finale; I'm less certain about my analysis of Lost. (Though maybe that goes without saying.)

Comments

I enjoyed this essay when I read it originally. I missed some of the religious undertones in those works. Although I caught the ones in the Sopranos and Battle Star (when I watched)

My favorite hidden religious (sci-fi) gem would be Blade Runner.

The entire theme of meeting your maker & why we must die along with the ending scene imagery of the nail in the hand, it raining and him releasing a dove.

Posted by Fitz | July 11, 2007 8:40 PM

I think you're reading rather more complexity into the religion of BSG than is really there. Whatever later subtleties of belief may have been attributed to certain individual cylons, they are clearly portrayed as a race of genocidal religious fanatics. For apparently religious reasons, they tried to exterminate the entire human species. The religious beliefs of most of the humans, in contrast, seem to be about as devout and life-affecting as those of a typical contemporary liberal American Christian (which is to say, not at all). Yes, we've been shown that there are a variety of strains of the colonists' religion, including "fundamentalism," but its only purpose seems to be to advance the plot or provide a cliffhanger, as when Laura's religious visions in the first season led them a step closer to finding Earth.

Posted by Mixner | July 11, 2007 10:07 PM

Ross, that was an interesting essay (I have to whatch more contemporary American TV...just that most of it doesnt interest me, to be honest), even from a perspective I completly oppose (religious - conservative). But there is something puzzling (aside from calling members of The Next generation "asexual")on your essay, when you write:

"By a host of cultural indicators, American society was better off in the 1950s than it is today, and the constraint and self-censorship of that age’s mass media had a great deal to do with this achievement."

What the heck? How a nation that still allowed racial segregation and that in the middle of anti comunist histeria, purged or censurated many of its greater artists, was better "culturaly" than it is today? Conservatives always accuse us liberals of pretending that we are in love with "the new", "the innovation". And that may be right, liberals sometimes fall into the trap thinking "new=good"; but conservatives share some ridicoulous nostalgia for the past...sincerely

Posted by Sergio Méndez | July 12, 2007 10:46 PM