The third type of specifically religious programme on television is the religious documentary. For example, ‘Cathedral’ was broadcast on Sunday evenings for 8 weeks on ITV 1 and which was a documentary series about Canterbury cathedral and the Church of England. The programmes looked at how the building has been used over the centuries and how it is the centre for Christians in the Church of England.
Religious documentaries are very factual and informative programmes, which deal with religious and moral issues and subjects surrounding religion. They tend to present a range of different controversial issues. Sometimes, these programmes can offend believers; sometimes they can present religion in a very positive way. An example of a documentary programme which was controversial and may have offended some religious people was the programme ‘Dispatches: Undercover Mosque’ which looked at the way some religious leaders in Britain encourage young Muslims to become terrorists. Muslims may be offended if they thought the programme was saying that all mosques teach the same way.
a) ii) Analyse and explain the way in which a religious or moral issue had been dealt with in a television soap opera OR the national daily press.
Soap operas are very popular programmes on television, which focus on the lives of a fictional community over many years. The best example of a soap opera is Eastenders, which is shown on BBC 1, three nights a week at peak viewing time to get the largest audience figures.
The issue I have chosen to analyse and explain is the storyline of euthanasia, which featured the characters of Dot and Ethel in Eastenders. Dot and Ethel were very good friends, but Ethel was dying. Ethel felt too much pain and knew she was not going to get better so wanted to commit suicide. Unfortunately for her, she is too weak to do it herself, so asks her friend Dot, who is a strict Christian, to help her kill herself. This is called euthanasia, which means assisted suicide. It is against the law in this country.
Dot at first refused as she is a strict Christian and in the Decalogue it says ‘Thou shalt not kill’. Therefore it was wrong for her to help Ethel commit suicide. Ethel, who was not religious, did not understand why Dot would not help her as she did not think anything was wrong with her friend helping her escape the terrible pain she was going through. Dot felt sorry for Ethel but was shocked by her request. Finally, as they were such good friends, Dot decided to help Ethel die by giving her too many pills of her medication. Ethel died peacefully but in some ways that was the beginning of the problems for Dot.
Dot felt that she betrayed God, as she had broken one of the Ten Commandments (‘Thou shalt not kill’) and put her friend first as more important than her faith in Christianity and her love for God. This must have been a very hard decision for Dot, as she could she her friend dieing in pain. On the other hand, the Bible is very clear and says that you should not kill someone as it controls when they die and is like ‘playing God’. Christians believe that only God has the right to decide when we die.
The issue was dealt with over a few episodes by the scriptwriters, which gave different characters time to show different opinions about euthanasia. It is a controversial issue and some people believe that the law should be changed because we should have the right to end our life if we are in pain and have an incurable disease. Other people believe that euthanasia is wrong and Eastenders should not have shown Dot helping Ethel to die. Dot suffered after she had made the decision because she felt guilty about what she had done and she lost touch with God because she felt that he disapproved of what she had done. She tried to get arrested so that she could be punished. When she told Pauline Fowler, Pauline made her understand that she had done the best thing possible because she had done the most loving thing even though it seemed to go against Christian teaching. Jesus said ‘love one another’. Dot had loved Ethel so she wanted the best for her, not pain and suffering.
The issue was handled sensitively, not to offend Christians. For example if Dot, a strict Christian, helped Ethel commit suicide straight away without any discussion or thought then Christians may think the BBC are giving the message that all Christians, including strict ones, will break the rules all the time. The storyline on euthanasia showed that people struggle with difficult issues and have to come to terms with their religious teachings when they want to help others at the same time.
a) iii) Analyse and explain the way in which a religious theme has been dealt with in a film or television drama.
In the film ‘Bruce Almighty’ the theme of religion is put across as the main character, Bruce, acquires all of God’s powers. During the film Bruce is shown doing various things with God’s powers which are selfish and not the right thing to do. For example, at one point he is shown walking on water, controlling humans and at one point he has the power to make anything he wants appear.
At the beginning of the film Bruce complains that everything is going wrong in his life because God is to blame. He prays for a sign but ignores the signs he is given. Eventually he crashes his car (and blames God) and then gets a message to meet someone in a warehouse to get a new job. He meets God but he does not believe it is God and tries to trick him to prove that it is not God by holding up fingers behind his hand. God warns him that he should take God more seriously.
God shows Bruce everything he has done in his life. He shows him a filing cabinet drawer which extends across width of the warehouse which has a record of everything Bruce has ever done. When Bruce leaves the warehouse God gives him all his powers and tells him that he should try to do a better job than God.
At first, Bruce is too selfish to do any good for anyone. He only tries to make his own life better. God has to remind him that there are people who need their prayers answering. Bruce tries to take a shortcut because he can’t be bothered to listen to 5 million voices. It is driving him mad. He realises that God does not have an easy job after all.
There are two rules for Bruce to obey when God gives Bruce his powers. God says that he can’t tell anyone what has happened and he can’t mess with ‘freewill’. This means that Bruce can’t force anyone to do anything against their will. When his girlfriend walks out on him, he can’t force her to come back to him, even though he has the powers of God. He has to wait and prove his love to her. The message is You can’t force someone to love you.
The religious theme is handled delicately throughout most of the film, and is presented in a very humours way not to offend religious people. Bruce Almighty is a funny film which Christians would like because it has a lot of Christian teaching about God. God is shown as all powerful and all knowing. By the end of the film, Bruce realises that God is not to blame for all the problems in the world – humans are to blame because they have not treated the world with care and they have not treated God with respect. Bruce tries to be a better person and he tries to help other people so he has learnt a lot from his meeting with God. As a result he is a happier person.
b) ‘Television always presents religious people as out of touch with the modern world’
I do not agree with this statement as not all religious people on television are shown as out of touch with the modern world.
However in the T.V programme ‘The Simpsons’ the character Ned Flanders is shown very out of touch with the modern world in a social sense as he live strictly by the rules of the Bible and not how the majority of people live their lives today - for example by drinking alcohol. But also Ned Flanders is shown as out of touch with the modern world in a technical sense as he uses old fashioned things and seems to want to live in the times when the Bible was written. This is a stereotype of a certain type of Christian. Not all Christians would reject the modern world or think that alcohol is evil. They would remember the story that Jesus turned water into wine as proof that alcohol is not evil.
On the other hand, in the T.V comedy show ‘The Vicar of Dibley’ (BBC 1 since 1985) the vicar is shown as being very in touch with the modern world in a social sense and in a technical sense. She does of course live by the Bible’s rules but also lives by society’s rules as well. She is a woman vicar which was unacceptable in some Christian churches before the 1980’s. So she is a modern character. She is shown as having pictures of film stars and Jesus on her wall and she is very popular with the people in the village.
Specifically religious programmes are designed to show that religion is relevant to the modern world. ‘Songs of Praise’ has changed over the years to reflect the change in our society. The programme is not just a worship programme but it is an educational programme and it has interviews with ordinary people who talk about their faith and how they put it in to practice.
In the same way, ‘The Heaven and Earth Show’ is another specifically religious programme which has interviews with celebrities and ordinary people to show that they are in touch with the real world.
In conclusion some religious people on T.V are shown as in touch with the modern world but some are not. It depends on the type of programme.
