How could this thread get to 19 posts without someone having mentioned the Waltons?
My favorite scene fron NYPD Blue is when Sipowitz called out God after learning of his young son’s sickness, saying, “You prick!”, as if daring Him to take him instead.
Counting Apu and Caine, it seems just about all the religions have been covered except one…Islam. But why bother with a positive portrayal, everybody knows all Muslims are evil terrorists anyway. :rolleyes:
Jomo Mojo, I don’t know what point your post was trying to make. But, with all due respect, I don’t think that negative sounding stereotypes such as you mentioned are appropriate to this thread. I was looking for POSITIVE portrayals, as usually portrayals of religion of any sort are minimal at best. And I did invite depictions of ANY faith. If you have examples from Islam I’d be pleased to know about them, as I have noticed myself they are lacking. Thank you.
Yeah, makes you wonder why the dominant religion in America is also the most dominantly portrayed on TV. :rolleyes:
Don’t be so quick to snipe religion that you ignore common sense. While you may not agree with it, use your damn brain before you go spouting off.
–Tim
Baker, my point was that there are no examples of positive images of Muslims on TV. Because the viewers have been preprogrammed to accept only the negative stereotype.
I suspect that if we mathematically doled out the division of religious portrayals prior to my post, and compared that to the ratio of faiths in America, that there would be a disproportionately huge skew towards Christianity.
And I wasn’t slamming it in the least – believe me, when I slam, it’s obvious. I just felt odd thinking about all the followers of non-Christian faiths whose beliefs were being outnumbered by fictional religions…
(Geez, see if I ever defend you in a thread again… :D)
As to an implication of the OP, I suspect that if we compared the ratio of faiths in America to portrayals of religion on TV, that there would be a disproportionately huge skew towards atheism/areligion/anti-religion.
And I suspect that if we compared the ratio of decent or sincere (or however you want to define it) religious individuals in America to the ratio of those shown on TV, there would be a disproportionately huge skew towards child-molesting priests, hypocritical Bible-thumpers, and, yes, terroristic Muslims.
(All of which is why Nothing Sacred was so fantastic–it showed the struggles of religious belief and doubt, the nuances of faith, problems of theology. Those bastards at ABC…)
Nothing Sacred?
Never heard of it. Sounds interesting. An alternative to the usual shallowness abounding.
Can you give any synopses?
While there are many Simpsons episodes that deal with Christianity is some way (church is a part of the family’s life, after all), I can think of two episodes that specifically deal with good treatments of non-Christian beliefs. While I can’t remember the episode names or numbers, I can describe them:
The first is the episode where Lisa and Bart try to reconcile Krusty with his father, Rabbi Krustofsky. Seems Krusty upset his dad when he was younger, by becoming a clown instead of a rabbi. Now, Krusty misses having his father in his life, and it’s up to Lisa and Bart to try to get them back together–Lisa even studies Jewish law and scriptures to find reasons why Rabbi Krustofsky should forgive his son. Happily, she succeeds.
The other episode features Apu’s wedding. Rev. Lovejoy has to study Hinduism for this one, and apparently Homer has too–he tries to disrupt the ceremony by masquerading as the god Ganesh. Not quite as sensitive a portrayal as the OP wants, perhaps, but it is obviously Homer in disguise, and Apu’s friends and relatives are not fooled–nor are they amused. After subduing Homer, the Hindu wedding ceremony occurs without any further interruptions, and Apu and his bride are happily wed.
Babylon 5 had Jewish characters, including one of the main characters.
…at least until Christmas, when suddenly everyone has a Christmas special! 
I hate to keep dipping back into the Babylon 5 well, but I’ve really never seen a better treatment of religion on TV. An episode that particularly stands out is “Parliament of
Dreams”, in which various races demonstrated important elements of their religions, and Sinclair struggled through the whole show to come up with a representative example of human religion. Finally, in the coda, we see him introducing several religious leaders–Christian, Native American Spiritualist, and so forth (I don’t recall off-hand if he specifically introduced an Islamic representative; he may have). Then the camera pans around, and we see a line of people stretching off out of sight–clearly, he’s gathered representatives of every religion he could, and is treating them all with the same respect.
And let’s not forget this scene from “Hour of the Wolf”:
G’kar, looking at Garibaldi’s Daffy Duck print: “I was studying this image. Is it one of his household gods?”
Zack: (laughs): “That’s Daffy-- Yeah, well, in a way I suppose it is. It’s sort of the Egyptian god of frustration.”
One episode of the brilliant show My So Called Life ended with a 5-or-so minute sequence of people meeting in a church, with no words being spoken, which, despite my lack of religion of any sort, I’ve always found to be one of the most beautiful and powerful things I’ve ever seen on TV.
Balance, I have to admit when I wrote the OP it was B-5 I thought about first, then the others. In “The Parliament of Dreams” do you remember the first to be introduced was an atheist? Sinclair may have been going A-Z. Later on, in “The Rock Cried Out” one of the religious leaders from Earth that came out to the station was Muslim I believe, but I didn’t include him in the examples because we saw so little of him. Maybe I should have anyway. And Susan was Jewish but wasn’t big on practising. But she did sit shiva(sp?) for her father, after his death.
Max, are you referring the the Christmas episode of MY SO-CALLED LIFE in which Julianne Hatfield appeared as an angel? Yeah, that is one of the most moving moments in TV history.
About Nothing Sacred…
The plot summary from IMDB sums it up well–“Kevin Anderson plays Father Ray, a passionate priest/teacher who questions his calling, his existence, and his faith as he deals with the problems of the poor and the troubled.”
In the first episode, Father Ray hears a teenage girl’s confession in which she contemplates getting an abortion. He doesn’t come right out and condemn the choice. Little does he know the girl tapes the conversation and sends it to the bishop…
In my view, the show presented a very sensitive and favorable picture of religion and religious individuals, none of whom were all good or all bad, in their faith or otherwise (sort of like in real life). Again, one of the best shows ever on network television, cancelled by ABC after about eight weeks because of low ratings (changed times three times, I believe) and complaints from a few conservative Catholics. See it if you can find it…
Oh yeah? Well… well… ::shuffles feet:: ahem cough cough Sorry.
–Tim
The episode of Survivor 2 in which Michael was burned in the fire (or possibly the episode following) featured one of the few genuine prayers I’ve seen on Television, as opposed to those of self-serving televangelists and sports stars. It was remarkable.
-Myron
Touched by an Anvil? Is that the name of the new Wile E. Coyote / Roadrunner show where the Coyote has religious visions every time an anvil falls on his head?