Tim the Toolman Taylor ran into a common household argument with his son in an episode set during Christmas time. It’s Christmas Eve, and Tim and his wife Jill are trying to encourage their son to attend the yearly Midnight Mass. Their obstinate son is determined to utilize the exceptional wintry conditions and go snowboarding. Tim and Jill are not keen to give Brad a choice. His parents want their son to recognize the value of their religious belief, put aside his own desires for one night, and understand the true meaning of Christmas.
This portrayal of an American family’ religious dedication is not uncommon in many family TV shows. While many people seem to gravitate toward TV show that are a little more affiliated with their beliefs, most television programs do not seem want to depict a completely unreligious family. However, they also don’t want to make the family too religious, thus bringing in a fairly satisfied audience from both groups.
Tim’s family seems religious enough; they apply well-known and basic virtues in their interaction with each other such as kindness, patience, sacrifice, etc. They attend the Midnight Mass and try to encourage their children to do so as well. What more can be asked of a family? It’s hardly practical to spend every Sunday hustling your family to a church house, isn’t it? Whether or not it was intentional, this is the message that Home Improvement is sending me.
I’ve also found in my interaction with friends of assorted faiths that this behavior is relatively common. Church attendance every Sunday is not seen as particularly important to the American culture. It seems that a semiannual attendance of Midnight Mass and Easter Sunday is a sufficient sacrifice. If that fact is true, the television show Home Improvement portrays American religion in a very accurate and down-to-earth way, addressing the common issue of encouraging children to have a religious balance. However, if most Americans do not view religion as a simple semiannual attendance, what is the truth? Is a higher percentage attending more often, or is it even less than twice a year?
Television seems to depict a fairly uniform answer to that question, family-friendly films sticking to a safe mention of religion only once in a while. I think this program in particular is pretty accurate in describing an average American’s dedication to religion.
Does this reflect America’s views of religious dedication in general? Or are America’s views of acceptable religious interaction shaped by what is shown by family TV shows?
This portrayal of an American family’ religious dedication is not uncommon in many family TV shows. While many people seem to gravitate toward TV show that are a little more affiliated with their beliefs, most television programs do not seem want to depict a completely unreligious family. However, they also don’t want to make the family too religious, thus bringing in a fairly satisfied audience from both groups.
Tim’s family seems religious enough; they apply well-known and basic virtues in their interaction with each other such as kindness, patience, sacrifice, etc. They attend the Midnight Mass and try to encourage their children to do so as well. What more can be asked of a family? It’s hardly practical to spend every Sunday hustling your family to a church house, isn’t it? Whether or not it was intentional, this is the message that Home Improvement is sending me.
I’ve also found in my interaction with friends of assorted faiths that this behavior is relatively common. Church attendance every Sunday is not seen as particularly important to the American culture. It seems that a semiannual attendance of Midnight Mass and Easter Sunday is a sufficient sacrifice. If that fact is true, the television show Home Improvement portrays American religion in a very accurate and down-to-earth way, addressing the common issue of encouraging children to have a religious balance. However, if most Americans do not view religion as a simple semiannual attendance, what is the truth? Is a higher percentage attending more often, or is it even less than twice a year?
Television seems to depict a fairly uniform answer to that question, family-friendly films sticking to a safe mention of religion only once in a while. I think this program in particular is pretty accurate in describing an average American’s dedication to religion.
Does this reflect America’s views of religious dedication in general? Or are America’s views of acceptable religious interaction shaped by what is shown by family TV shows?
While reading your post, I thought to myself what kind of answers I would get if I conducted a mass survey of every mother and father in the United States concerning their dedication to religion. I think that the analysis would likely reveal something like the Taylor family.
ReplyDeleteI am sure every family is different to some degree. We all know there are hard core religious fanatics as well as those who have never walked through a chapel threshold. But I think Home Improvement makes a good reflection of the most prevalent religious American lifestyle. Like Ms. S. mentioned, the values the show applies are kindness, patience and sacrifice, which are all religious elements. And they go to church twice a year or so-also an apparent ideal I see in society.
Finally, in response to the last question, I think that very little is changed as viewers watch family television shows. The values are so neutral to religion, and Christianity is so common in the US, that I think viewers hardly notice.
I aggree with you point that they don't want to seem too religous, afterall, making viewers feel guilty for not being as active in church as the TV family would turn them off. I feel like the discussion of midnight mass is as much as they dare do, because it's uncontiversial- most families try to do something religous around christmas.
ReplyDeleteI feel like that could be the key insight with home improvement- they are willing to include good virtues, because those are consistant across religons, but they want to remain uncontroversial.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteproperty papers, liens on property and borrowing track record. In addition, engineers from Awaas SEWA provided a cost estimate for Geeta's desired construction. Confident of their repayment capacity, MHT granted Geeta's family a Rs 60,000 housing improvement loan in June 2012. Best Candle Lighter
ReplyDelete