“I'm normally not a praying man, but if you're up there, please save me Superman.”
This quote from Homer Simpson goes some way to indicating the media’s view of religion and its followers. Add in the stereotypes of the God-loving Ned Flanders and boring but generally good-meaning Reverend Lovejoy and we have a view of religion which isn’t only funny but bordering on the insane commentary that is the modern world we live in.
Maybe we shouldn’t be offended by Reverend Lovejoy telling his congregation that “as we pass the collection plate, please give as if the person next to you was watching” or Homer shouting out for Jebus to help him, because this is modern society’s view of religion. The fact that an Asian Hindu runs the local convenience store also shows the stereotypes that exist in the media.
Religion in the media can go one of two ways: either towards madness or towards ridicule. It is one of the subjects, after money and politics, that probably causes the most arguments and there’s nothing anyone likes more than to criticise religion. But why? People can have mixed views on the economy, crime and interest rates, but their view of religion is always fairly clear-cut – love it or loathe it.
A lot of people I know hate religion with a passion but don’t know why. They hate to discuss religion or read about it but have no answer about how the world began. Despite being faced with positive religious role-models, objections to the Big Bang theory or revelations from Holy Scriptures about the world which science has since proved, for them the idea of religion is rubbish.
Soaps show religious people as self-righteous, cultish or dull. They are people in the community who are fair game for sending to the loony bin, but few people can answer why. Newspapers blow stories out of proportion because sensationalist headlines sell. In the US, films criticising religion earned huge amounts of money, like The Da Vinci Code, which is currently the 21st highest grossing film of all time.
Stories about abusive priests, rich churches or fallen religious heroes are more likely to make headlines than miracles, religious people who have moved away from a life of crime or the fact that its religions who are often involved in charitable work, outreaches to poor communities and initiatives like soup kitchens.
It’s not that programmes like The Simpsons are particularly offensive and most people don’t have a problem with having a laugh, but it would be nice if there were also some fair representations of religion in the media because statistics show that we are watching more and more television (as well as using computers more) than previous generations so, like it or not, the media will help to shape the views of us and our children.
