‘Glee’ and ‘Modern Family’ Talk About God

Posted on October 6, 2010 at 10:45 pm

Religion and faith have been off limits on most scripted television shows, even those with characters who were members of the clergy. Christmas episodes are generally about Santa Claus and family, not about worship. So it was a very welcome surprise to see episodes of “Glee” and “Modern Family” that engaged in an entertaining but very real way with issues of belief. In “Glee,” the burn on a grilled cheese sandwich looked to Finn like Jesus. And when Kurt’s father was in a coma, other characters had a chance to explain what they believed as they tried to support him and he explained why he does not believe in God. On “Modern Family,” Jay and his new wife Gloria argue because she wants him to come with her to church and he wants to play golf. In the middle is her son, who gets very rattled by uncertainty over who and what to believe. Both episodes are available on Hulu.
I hope families use these programs to begin a discussion of what they believe, why they believe it, and how that compares to family and friends. Maybe then the next survey on our religious knowledge will produce some higher scores.

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Chick Flicks On Demand to Support Breast Cancer Research

Posted on October 2, 2010 at 3:55 pm

Warner Brothers Digital Distribution will support Susan G. Komen for the Cure in the fight against breast cancer every time one of 16 special movies is watched On Demand during a special initiative this month. So get a bowl of popcorn (and a hanky — there are some real weepies here) and settle back with “The Notebook,” “City of Angels,” “In the Land of Women,” “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” and more, and enjoy the movie while you feel good about helping to end this terrible disease. (If you feel more like laughing than crying, try some of the other choices like “Miss Congeniality 2,” “Fool’s Gold,” or “Music & Lyrics.”)

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After the kids go to bed Television

Yabba-Dabba-Doo! Happy 50th to the Flintstones

Posted on September 30, 2010 at 3:56 pm

Happy anniversary to the Flintstones, who were the first prime-time animated series fifty years ago (and who remembers the anniversary song from the show?) Inspired by “The Honeymooners,” it was a stone-age story of two couples, bombastic Fred and his wife Wilma and his dim-but-sweet best friend Barney Rubble and his wife, Betty. The fun of the show was seeing the crazy re-creations of modern life with the “technology” usually involving some prehistoric creature acting as garbage disposal or record player needle (record players with needles now seem kind of stone age, but that’s another story). Guest stars like Ann-Margret (as Ann Marg-rock) and Ed Sullivan (Ed Sully-stone) and the later appearances of babies Pebbles and Bam-Bam filled out the cast. Two live-action movies never captured the rough charm of the original, which still holds up well as silly fun.

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Animation Television

‘Sister Wives’ on TLC

Posted on September 30, 2010 at 8:00 am

America’s fascination with extreme family living has led to reality shows about very little people and very big families. The latest is TLC’s “Sister Wives,” about a real-life fundamentalist Mormon polygamous family living in Utah. We meed Kody and his three wives, legal wife Meri and Janelle and Christine, who consider themselves equally fully married. The house, designed by a “plig” (polygamous) architect is helpfully shown to the audience via diagrams. It has separate apartments for the three women, and each has her own kitchen. Apparently, it is easier to share a man than an oven. Two of the women work and the third, who is pregnant with the family’s 13th child, is the house-wife. And things get even more complicated very quickly as it turns out that for the first time in more than 16 years, Daddy is dating again. He is thinking of marrying wife number four, who comes with her own three children.

It is a remarkably likable family, far easier to imagine as your next-door neighbors than the more glamorous and dysfunctional fictional counterparts on HBO’s “Big Love.” They all laugh easily and often and the children all seem happy, healthy, confident, and well cared for. The house is immaculate. The biggest problem the family may face is the one that comes as a consequence of the increased visibility of the show itself; they are now being investigated for breaking the laws against bigamy. Stay tuned.

Sister Wives

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‘God in America’ Comes to PBS

Posted on September 29, 2010 at 3:58 pm

The US Religious Knowledge Survey, released Tuesday from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, found that Americans are more willing to say that they are religious than they are willing to learn about the history and beliefs of their religion. The highest scorers were the non-believers and the Jews. The survey asked for a fairly wide range of knowledge of different religious practices and beliefs and included two questions about what teachers can and cannot do under the terms of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights.
A new series on PBS can help American understand religion and its role in our culture For the first time on television, God in America, a presentation of “American Experience” and “Frontline,” will explore the historical role of religion in the public life of the United States. The six-hour series, which interweaves documentary footage, historical dramatization and interviews with religious historians, will air over three consecutive nights on PBS beginning Oct. 11, 2010.
To extend the reach of the series beyond the television screen, God in America has formed strategic partnerships with The Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center, the Fetzer Institute, Sacred Space International and other organizations. An integrated multimedia campaign set to launch six months prior to broadcast will include community engagement activities, media events and a comprehensive God in America Web site. The campaign will deepen public understanding of religion and spiritual experience in the life of the nation by encouraging the public to explore the history of their own religious communities and their individual spiritual journeys.

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