TV Churches Inaugral Post

Why write another blog about TV?
For years (around 5, I believe) I’ve been writing a blog entitled Movie Churches which focuses on how clergy and churches have been portrayed in cinema through the decades. Ever since the beginning, people have mentioned TV shows that portray a church and/or clergy, and we’ve had to explain that television was outside the purview of that blog. With today's official launch of TV Churches, we no longer have any excuse for not writing about television shows. But on this first day, we must be clear about the two basic principles that will guide this blog:

1. READING IS ALWAYS BETTER THAN TELEVISION

And yet

2. TELEVISION OCCASIONALLY PRODUCES GEMS SUCH AS THE FATHER DOWLING MYSTERIES

I don’t think we need to provide much to back up principle #1, do we? Obviously, smart people read. Dumb people watch television. On one side, there’s Shakespeare, War and Peace, and Jane Austen. On the other, My Mother the Car, The Bachelor, and that HBO show with naked Lena Dunham.

The government supports this view: Newton Minow, Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, in 1961 said about television, “What you will observe is a vast wasteland.” If the government says so, you know it’s true.

So why, you may ask yourself, is someone like myself, who has a prominently posted “Kill Your Television” bumper sticker on his minivan, starting a blog about television?

The simple answer may surprise you. Every once in a long while, there is something of merit on television, something wholesome that the family can watch together. Something that will absorb them, make them laugh, and maybe, perhaps, learn a little something. Such a treat was produced by NBC in the early 1990’s: The Father Dowling Mysteries.

This is a blog about the presentation of the church and clergy on television, and a priest was never enacted with more brilliance than by Tom Bosley as the good Father who also solved mysteries. People who only remember Bosley as the bumbling boss on Charley's Angels, that smutty program from the 1970’s, will be surprised by something all new. And people who think of nuns as rigid penguins will appreciate Tracy Nelson’s portrayal of a nun who is not only cute but also spunky.

And there are lessons are to be learned from the show, such as the importance of being nice and the perils of being mean. And that murder is really bad.

In the months to come, we’ll look at the good, the bad, and so much ugly of television’s portrayal of congregations and clergy. But don’t worry, we will also celebrate something of value -- books. Every month, we’ll examine a book about television (because obviously, as stated earlier, reading is better than watching TV).

So if this new blog accomplishes nothing else, at least while you read these words you're not watching TV. Mission accomplished.

Guest Post: Daredevil

Originally posted at Moviechurches.com in November of 2017 for legal month.

Bret Anderson pitches in to review a Netflix series.

Daredevil (TV series 2015 - )

Daredevil’s first trailer (and the second scene of the series proper) starts with a shot that was once one of the grand cliches: a man in a confessional booth, admitting to the priest that it’s been too long since his last confession, then going into exposition about his past. Matt Murdock, our protagonist, talks about his family’s history of violence and Catholicism, the two counterweights in his life, leading into the grim, almost noir setup dialog that promises the viewer that things are not going to be restricted exclusively to people talking in dimly lit rooms.

“I’m not seeking penance for what I’ve done. I’m seeking forgiveness for what I’m about to do.”

It’s a big, flashy moment, showing us our protagonist is plotting something not exactly upright. In a lesser show, the scene would end there, but the first season of Daredevil isn’t stupid.

What matters just as much is the next line, from the priest:

“That’s not how this works.”

The show, with surprising religious literacy, remembers that the confessional is for past sins, and, that while saying what you’re going to do may sound cool, it’s not what the booth is for.

Daredevil season 1 cares about the act of confession beyond its role for exposition. Matt Murdock is a Catholic, however lapsed, and that means something about him as a person.

In Matt’s case, it means that he feels really guilty about how much he likes smashing people’s skulls into the pavement. He simultaneously feels that Hell’s Kitchen needs someone to act outside the law to protect its people, and that taking that such action is wrong. He believes that his actions should remain in the law (he’s a lawyer) and that the law isn’t enough (he’s also a vigilante).

The struggle could have been kept internal easily enough, but Daredevil goes a step further by not only having Matt go to a priest, but making the priest an actual, ongoing character. As the show progresses, the priest provides a confidant to Matt -- not just a generic “religious” figure, but a specific person, with his own opinions and history. The show nods at the more modern convention of open air confessions, where the parishioner can see the priest across the table rather than dealing with a distant voice of authority, and gives the main priest a past, complete with doubting doctrine, and later doubting his doubts.

The Church in Daredevil, while not able to solve all problems, is a place where people trying to be better seek to glorify God, and where people on the edge of falling can catch their last handhold.

It’s not perfect, but overall, it’s a much more positive depiction of Christianity than most drama shows, with care and consideration for the details.

Well worth the watching. Four steeples for the church and its priest.