Category Archives: television

I watch TV, but not for Jesus

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I spent my sophomore year of high school as a fundamentalist Christian. My teenage years were fraught with the typical awkwardness and I-don’t-fit-in-ness just like everyone else, but it all went away when I fell in with a group of Baptists. These new Baptist friends made me feel like I belonged, like I had a purpose, like Jesus loved me in spite of my bad skin and frizzy hair.

My Baptist leanings alarmed my parents. They were (are) Christians, and I’d grown up going to church, but our church was pretty casual compared to the Baptist way of doing things. At our church nobody cared if you listened to rock music or if you went trick-or-treating on Halloween. Nobody told you to keep your Bible visible on top of your other books at school so that your fellow students could identify you as a living symbol of Christ’s love.

I started going to the Baptist church on Sundays instead of the one my parents attended. I remember informing them of my decision to attend another church, and of my newfound belief that Halloween Is Evil. I expected them to congratulate me, to tell me that I was right, that Halloween was indeed Evil, but instead they just stared at me. “Oh,” my mother said. “Okay.”

I can imagine the conversation they must have had later. “She may be a Baptist, but at least we know she’s not doing drugs.” I wasn’t cool enough to do drugs in high school, Baptist or not, but I don’t think they knew that.

My new Baptist friends didn’t listen to secular music or read secular books or do anything secular at all. When we watched movies, we watched them for Jesus. When we hung out at someone’s house, we were hanging out for Jesus. When we went to the mall, we didn’t just go to the mall. We went to the mall for Jesus. I bought Petra CDs and Guardian CDs and went to a DC Talk autograph signing. And I started reading Christian novels.

At the time, Christian novels were all about demons and the Rapture, or at least those were the ones I read. I could never find any Christian novels that weren’t about demons and the Rapture. But that was okay, because demons and the Rapture were thrilling! In the books I read, plucky protagonists dealt with large-scale demonic possessions and epic Second-Comings with their beliefs and virginities intact. These books were like airport gift shop paperbacks with a Christian theme.

I can remember the names of most of the Christian musicians I listened to, and I still know the lyrics to some of the songs, but the only Christian author’s name I can think of now is Frank Peretti. I read three of Frank Peretti’s books, but I remember just one scene, from his third novel, Prophet. The main character, rebelling against something or other, goes to a secular rock concert. He looks around at the people enjoying the concert, and he looks at the performers on the stage, and he thinks to himself, “Where are we going? Where are you taking us?”

The implication of that scene (and if I recall correctly, this was the theme of the book itself) was that you should evaluate the things you’re a fan of and the things you spend your time on based on what these things are trying to get you to do. If the message being conveyed by these things isn’t leading you to Christ, then you shouldn’t be doing them. I took it to heart at the time, and evaluated nearly everything I did with a “Where are we going? Where are you taking us?” test.

If my sophomore year was the Year of the Baptist, then my junior year was the Year of the Heavy Hand With an Eyeliner Pencil. That was the year I realized that the Baptist kids had a hierarchy of popularity just like the secular kids did. That was the year I figured out that being a Baptist wasn’t the answer for me. And that was the year I discovered Led Zeppelin. I stopped going to the Baptist church and resumed my proper place at the church I’d once attended with my parents, a proper place which involved being the president of the youth group and director of the youth-group dinner theatre. That was more about leadership and theatre than it was about Jesus, but that was fine with me, because I could listen to “Houses of the Holy” on the way to rehearsals.

I’d forgotten all about Frank Peretti and Prophet until a few days ago. I was reading a blog post about Kathy Reichs, the woman who inspired the TV show Bones, one of the many shows I watch. The writer of the post compared the characters on the show to the characters in one of Kathy Reichs’ books, and found the book to be lacking. “Of course she didn’t like the book,” I thought. “Those crappy airport murder mysteries are never any good.”

As soon as I had that thought, I stopped eating my lunch (I was at my desk at work) and looked away from my computer. Why do I watch a show based on as a book I’d never read in a million years?

I’m pretty picky about my books. I don’t read crime novels or cheesy romances or books from the poorly-named chick-lit genre. I don’t read anything put out by the Tom Clancy Industrial Complex. Outside of the free pass I gave myself on the Harry Potter series, I like my fiction to come with believable character development, an insightful point to make, or at the very least an inventive way to tell a story. Essentially, it’s “Where are we going? Where are you taking us?” applied to the relative worth of books. I don’t want to read a book if its author has nothing to say to me.

So why aren’t I so discerning with television? Why don’t I apply my guidelines for books to what I watch on TV? It’s a different medium*, but the storytelling mechanisms are, or can be, similar.

I’m going to start evaluating what I watch on TV the same way I evaluate my books, the same way I looked at everything during my sophomore year of high school. “Where are we going? Where are you taking us?” Why do I like this show? What is it trying to say to me?

I think this will be good for my television-watching habits:

I watch Psych because I feel smart when I get the eighties references. Nope! Gone.

I watch How I Met Your Mother because I like Neil Patrick Harris and his character is funny. Not good enough. Gone.

I watch House because Hugh Laurie’s American accent is just that impressive. Sorry. Gone.

I’m only going to watch Heroes until they try to sell me another Nissan, and then it’s gone. But God help me, I’m still on the fence about Bones. It’s really just CSI for people who liked Buffy and The X-Files, and on its best days it’s only as good as the mediocre episodes of the latter two. But I think the show has good characters, and the dialogue is well-written. Come to think of it, I might be on the fence about House, too.

Okay, it’s clear that this new system isn’t going to be exact. But for someone like me, whose self-loathing muscles are never so flexed as when she’s spending her sixth straight hour watching a show she isn’t even sure she likes, at least it’s a start.

*I think that at this point, television exists almost exclusively to support advertising. That doesn’t mean that good work can’t be done on TV, or that good stories can’t be told. They’re just not told that often.

i done good

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i was watching the astros game and surfing the web on saturday afternoon when someone knocked on the door.  when i looked through the peephole, i saw a guy holding a clipboard.  ooh, maybe i got a package! i thought.  i opened the door.

“hi, i’m phil from time warner cable,” the guy said.  damn.  “we’re checking all our lines today and making sure everything’s working, and we also want to offer you a deal on an upgrade to your service.”

“okay…” i said.

“currently you’re paying $30.00 for cable modem service, is that correct?”

“yes.”

“we’d like to offer you an upgrade to cable modem plus digital cable for just thirteen dollars more per month, for one year with no contract and no installation fee for a total of $43.00 per month.”

“hmm,” i said.  he waited for me to say something else.  “hmm,” i said again.

“you should know that this is a really good deal, and it probably won’t come along again,” he said.

“hmm.”  if i got digital cable i could watch almost every. single. astros game.  i could watch the daily show.  south park.  thousands and thousands of scrubs reruns.

i could watch craig biggio get his 3000th career hit.

“hmm.”  but if i got digital cable, i’d never do anything else, would i?  i already don’t do anything else, but with cable i’d sit down in front of the tv when i got home from work, and i’d never get up again, even if there was nothing good on.  if there was a baseball game on, i’d have to watch it.  if there was a years-old rerun of a gilmore girls episode i’ve seen a hundred times, i’d have to watch it.

if i got digital cable, i could continue my cycle of self-loathing and television watching forever.

“it’s a hard offer to refuse, isn’t it?” he said.

“yeah, but you know what?  i’m gonna.”

“really?”

“yeah.  i watch too much tv already.”

“with just your antenna?” he said, looking as shocked as i’ve ever seen a cable salesman look.

“my antenna and dvds, yeah.”

“like, you have something else you gotta do instead?”

“yeah.  i do.”

“well, okay,” he said, looking at me like i’d just grown a third arm out of my neck.

“thanks anyway.”

after i closed the door, i thought about it for one more second. i could look at the contract to see if i could cancel it after the 3000th hit.  it’s not too late, he can’t have gotten very far.  but i didn’t open the door again.

after that thought passed, i began to be proud of my refusal.  i felt good about it, like a caffeine addict saying no to a second cup of coffee.  when i crawled into bed with a book that night (which i might not have done had there been bad reruns to watch on digital cable), i thought about the day i’d spent watching the astros and my simpsons dvds, and i said to myself, “you’re better than that.”

if i can say no to digital cable for thirteen dollars a month, it really must be true.

(listen, i don’t want to become one of those people who thinks that all television is bad.  absolutes like that and others are at best annoying and at worst fairly dangerous.  besides, when the office premieres in the fall, i’m going to be on the edge of my seat.  but i want to get to a point where i can watch the office and then turn the tv off, and i can’t do that with sixty-one channels.)

my albatross has an aspect ratio of 4:3

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my sister megan and i watched a lot of television when we were kids.  when we got home from school in the afternoons, we turned it on immediately to make sure we didn’t miss the growing pains reruns.  then we left it on to watch whatever came on after that, and whatever came on after that.  during the summer, when we didn’t have anything else to do, we watched talk shows and old partridge family reruns and movies we’d taped on vhs.  we were very upset if doogie howser was on when my dad called us to the table for dinner.

our parents would get fed up.  my dad would come home from work and, seeing me slumped in the recliner in front of yet another sitcom, would put his hand on the top of my head.  “feel that?” he would say.  “that’s your brain turning into jell-o.”

“hmm,” i’d say, annoyed because i’d missed a line of dialogue while he was talking.

mom and dad imposed limits on our tv-watching sometimes.  we could only watch an hour of tv a day, they said.  so we’d watch our hour a day, whether anything good was on or not.  then, after everyone went to bed, i’d plug my headphones into the television upstairs, sit as far away as the short cord would allow, and watch reruns or talk shows or saturday night live.  the headphone cord was only two feet long, so the image of danny devito in his joey buttafuoco pants is still burned into my brain.

megan stopped watching so much television when she hit high school and her honors classes and hobbies didn’t allow her much free time.  me, i kept going without her.  i kept watching television through high school and my first years of college.  i kept watching when i dropped out of college and worked as a web designer.  i stopped when i went back to college to finish my degree, but once that was done it was right back to the tv for me.

on any given weeknight during the television season, i’d estimate there are two or three shows i make sure to watch.  when those aren’t on i watch reruns.  on the weekends, i put on dvds of my favorite shows while i clean or sew or make jewelry.  and i hate myself for it.

i hate myself every time i neglect my hobbies and interests in favor of a simpsons rerun.  i hate myself when i choose my buffy dvds over writing.  i hate myself every time i sit down on the couch to watch things other people created instead of creating something of my own.  after all, the people who write and produce and act in television didn’t get there by watching it all the time, at least not as much as i do.

(this is why i can’t watch the blooper reels on my dvds.  blooper reels are of successful people who like their jobs, and that’s really depressing.)

and i know why i do it.  i watch tv because it’s easy.  it’s easier to watch someone else’s (fictional) life than it is to deal with mine.  it’s easier to let the lights and sound alleviate my loneliness than it is to go out and meet new people.  it’s easier to watch someone else’s creation than it is to make my own.

on my roadtrip, i hardly watched any television at all.  i didn’t have time.  there were too many things to do and see and places to go and people to talk to.  i didn’t even miss it.  when staying at my friends’ houses, i noticed a definite correlation between how successful and happy they were and how little tv they watched.  many of my friends didn’t have televisions at all, and the ones who did didn’t have it on all day like i do.

since i’ve been back from my trip, people have told me how proud they are of me.  they’re proud that i went through with it, they’re proud that i finished it and did it safely.  and i guess i’m proud of myself, too, but you know what?  it was easy.  on my roadtrip i didn’t watch the office or lost or gilmore girls or veronica mars or house or bones or 30 rock or scrubs or anything, really, and it was easy.

what’s not easy is waking up in my apartment every morning and trying to fight the nagging thought in the back of my head that i should turn on the television. it’s too quiet in here.  i can’t stop thinking.  i’m only halfway through my season six buffy dvds.  it’s okay if i watch them right now and do other things later.  but it’s not okay.  it’s really not.

when she knows she has a lot of work to do, my sister megan rips the cable out of the back of her tv and stores it in her locker at school so she won’t be distracted.  maybe i should put my antenna there, too.