The show even went to the extent as to interview a young man who had been homeless but made the choice as an adult to be baptised. He told how being baptised had changed his life tremendously. For me, this is what changed my opinion on the show; to me the show now demonstrated more interesting and inviting issues for young people.
I was also surprised to find that the show wasn’t all based inside a church as I thought it would be, the camera work on the show was interesting and inventive in places and not all of the hymns sung were by a church choir or congregation. Instead to add diversity to the show a select few adults and children sung solos. Also, a couple of the hymns sung were in Latin, this added variety to the show, which prevented the show becoming boring.
The hymns that were sung by the church congregation were particularly joyous and uplifting, this part of the show was particularly welcoming for viewers as the hymn words are shown at the bottom of the screen. This invites the viewer to get involved and join together with the church group in praising God, I can see this as being particularly pleasing to religious people that have missed their own church service. This gave me a warm sense of belonging and togetherness, which I find particularly astounding as im not a particularly religious person.
I found the programme very interesting as it showed me that I had been wrong about religious shows on television.
I feel that the show managed to appeal to all ages as well as not being boring through out the entire show. The show was religious but was so in an inviting way to all kinds of people, the show was very careful not to force its ideas on religion on to others and yet still managed to be informative to people who may be considering to be baptised or even those considering a conversion. Overall I think that the show did very well at looking at different views and issues concerning baptism.
Analyse and explain the way in which a religious or moral issue of concern to Christians has been dealt with in a television soap opera
A2) To answer this question I have focused my attention on one particular moral issue which channel 4’s Hollyoaks has decided to deal with. The issue being dealt with is abortion. Abortion is when a foetus is removed from a ladies whom, and so is killed.
The particular episode that I had particular interest in was shown on the 8th December 2002.
Becca is a teenager, and is pregnant with her dead boyfriends (Jamie) baby. She is contemplating whether to keep the “cluster of cells” or whether to have an abortion. The episode shows both sides of the argument through different characters.
She is under enormous pressure from Jamie’s sister, Jodie and from OB, Jamie’s best friend, who both believe that she should keep the baby, they try to persuade her that she should keep the baby by arguing that by allowing the baby to live she would be allowing “a little bit of Jamie to live on”. They both believe that Becca being pregnant is “brilliant news."
A close friend Anna, who was in a similar position last year, tells Becca that she must make the right decision for her. Adam a friend of both Jodie and Becca represents the pro-choice view on abortion, and tells her “it’s your decision” and “no matter what you have options.”
Throughout the episode Becca is persuaded one way and the other.
The programme deals with this issue well; it clearly shows both sides of the argument as well as addresses other related issues, such as sex before marriage and contraception.
This issue is of concern to Christians as it raises the sanctity of life. Roman Catholics would agree with the views and opinions of OB and Jodie, they would argue that the baby should be kept, as all life is sacred and should be protected at all cost. They would also argue that Becca never should have become pregnant in the first place as although she “never thought (she) could be stupid enough to be caught out” she should never have been having sex out of wed-lock in the first place.
Some other Christians may agree with the views of Anna and Adam, as although they believe that life is precious they are also more lenient when it comes to issues such as sex before marriage and unlike Catholics, agree with the use of contraception. They may agree that it should be Becca alone who chooses whether she keeps the baby or not, although they would probably say that if she opts to not keep the baby, rather than having it aborted she should put it up for adoption (unless her own life is being put in danger by giving birth), this way she doesn’t have to raise the child and no children of God are killed.
On the whole, I think the programme dealt effectively with the issue of teenage pregnancy superbly, they outlined both the pro-choice argument and the anti-abortion argument successfully.
Analyse and explain the way in which a religious theme of concern to Christians has been dealt with in a film or television drama.
A3) In order to answer this question I chose to watch Four weddings and a Funeral, 1993. I chose this film as I realised just by looking at the title that it would of concern to Christians. The film not only looks at the obvious issues involved in Christianity, such as marriage and death but also looks at promiscuity (having sexual intercourse with a number of people), homosexuality (being sexually attracted to someone of the same sex), and adultery (having sex with someone other than your marriage partner).
In the film, Hugh Grant plays the main character, Charles. He and his friends attend weddings as a group but on the whole all remain single themselves, they even joke, “marriage is just a way of getting out of an embarrassing pause in conversation.” I think that this “joke” would be seen by many religious people as somewhat worrying as marriage is supposed to be a legal bond between two people that love each other and wish to serve each other for the rest of their lives.
Marriage is shown to be very special in the film, despite the joking of some of the characters, and the film does highlight that marriage “is for the rest of your life,” and “shouldn’t be taken lightly.”
In the film, Charles struggles to find himself a woman to which he feels he can get married. He even says in his speech as best man that by getting married, his friends are making a commitment he feels he’ll “never be able to make” and says how he “admires” them for being able to do it.
But as in all good films, Charles does fall in love, with an American lady that he meets at wedding number one. Her name is Carrie (played by Andie McDowell).
They are both shown as promiscuous as they have sex after only knowing each other for hours, at this point in the film the attraction between the two of them is purely physical. This too would cause issues with religious people, as it is believed that sex should only occur when two people are in love and married, sex before marriage is inexcusable to some Christians, especially to Roman Catholics who believe that the purpose of sex is to have children.
In the morning Carrie leaves to go back to America and they don’t even make plans to see each other again, although, Carrie does make a joke that she thinks that he’s going to marry her now, but the idea of marriage is laughed off by them both and they don’t meet again until wedding number two.
Here Charles finds out that Carrie is engaged; however this does not stop them having sex again that evening. This is a very big concern to religious people as Carrie is now being adulterous, as she has cheated on the man she is engaged to marry. Again they part in the morning and don’t plan to meet.
The third wedding that Charles is invited to is Carries. Before the wedding takes place, Carrie and Charles meet by accident and ironically go to choose her wedding dress together. They go for a coffee and begin to talk about how many sexual partners they have had. Here Carrie is shown to be more promiscuous than believed before, as she openly brags about having slept with 33 people. Most religious people would defiantly frown this upon. In the film, it seems to be an achievement to have slept with a lot of people. The film shows how nowadays it’s not uncommon or looked upon as being wrong to have slept with more than one partner. This would be of great concern to religious people, as this idea of having more than one special partner goes against the ideas taught by God and in the Bible.
At Carrie’s wedding, one of Charles’ good friends dies, Gareth. This is where the film touches the issue of homosexuality. Although it is not made obvious throughout the film, it becomes apparent at Gareth’s funeral, that him and Matthew (another close friend of Charles’) were in fact gay lovers. Matthew gives a very touching speech in the church. Afterwards Charles comments that that “two of (them) had found love, only we didn’t realise it.” Some Christians, again particularly Roman Catholics, would reject this idea of homosexuality as it is seen as unnatural.
On the whole, I think that the film covered many issues with a religious theme, and I think that they did so fairly well. Although they didn’t show the views from two different sides in most cases, I still feel they did well in addressing the issues raised.
“Television always presents religious people as out of touch”
B) Many people would agree with the statement above, this is due to the way in which certain programmes show religious people and families. BBC2’s, The Simpson’s is the perfect example; the Simpson’s portrays religious characters, such as Ned Flanders and Reverend Love-joy as distant from the 21st century. Both characters constantly quote from the bible and always refer to the past, rather than looking forward. The way in which the entire Flanders family are shown to always look back on the way things used to be, backs up the statement as it gives the impression of them being “out of touch”, and old fashioned. The way in which the family seems to be locked in the past is supported by the way they come across as being overly happy, and mostly annoying to be around. Ned’s classic quote being “okely dokely.” They almost seem oblivious to the changing world around them, for example in a recent episode the family were shown as highly shocked that some children living in Springfield hadn’t been baptised, whereas the “normal” families in the area, such as the Simpson’s didn’t think anything of the “outrageous and shocking” information. Their children shown as unpopular and are often victimised, but due to their religious good nature never stick up for themselves.
This is also the case with Dot Cotton from BBC1’s Eastenders. When Dot was recently faced with the not so controversial issue of sex before marriage, she was shown to be particularly “out of touch” as she refused to accept it in her home. This again shows religious people as behind with the times.
Others however would disagree with the statement and would refer to programmes such as The Vicar of Dibley. This is a comedy shown on BBC1, the main character being a young, female Vicar. The very fact that the vicar is female shows her as being modern. She’s funny and probably the most “normal” character in the show. She talks about modern issues such as sex openly.
Another example that can be used to disagree with the statement is channels 4’s Sunday show, T4. The programme often features pop groups that are particularly religious. For example last Sunday the show interviewed teen idols, Destinys Child. The group, which are immensely successful, thanked God for their fortunes and told the world how God was the key to their achievements. Surely a group that has had a great deal of success in selling their music to today’s youth, and are seen as such role models to children and young adults, must be “in touch” with today’s world. The channel 4 show had no problem in showing this.
Personally I think that with all programmes taken in to consideration that I disagree with the statement. This is mainly due to the fact the key word in the statement is “always”. Although I can see how some programmes, such as Eastenders and The Simpson’s, show religious characters as old fashioned, I can also see many programmes where the religious characters in a show come across as the “coolest”, and most “in touch” with today’s world.
I think that programmes such The Simpson's, show religious characters as annoying and as the strange people, as they are a minority. This makes them an easy group of people to target and stereotype. This also used to be the case with other minority groups, such as old people, women, the disabled and black people, but in today’s society it has become unacceptable to make jokes at these peoples expense, so religious people have become one of very few groups left which can easily have jokes made about them without having the show or television channel prosecuted.
But, I think that it is important to remember that although religious people are stereotyped and made fun of it some television shows, it is purely for comedy reasons and purely to entertain an audience. I think that it is also important to remember that even though some programmes poke funs at religious people, not all do this, as is the case with The Vicar Of Dibley and Father Ted.
So, taken as a whole I have come to the conclusion that the statement to which I was made to write a response, is wrong. This is simply because the statement states “television always presents religious people as out of touch” and I believe that I have proved that in fact, although it does occasionally in certain programmes, television does not always present religious people as out of touch.
RS Coursework- Christianity
Religion in the Media
Miss Jakes
By Vikki Kirkpatrick 11BH
