Probably not all of you grew up listening to, "Bubba shot the jukebox last night," which is the obvious (only to me) reference of my title. To understand the full depth of the song, you need only also see the second song of the chorus. "Said is played a sad song, made him cry." Should you choose to listen to it, you will know one of the sounds of my childhood.
I would shoot the television, however, for a very different reason. God knows TV shows that provided acting, much less writing, moving enough to induce tears would be phenomenal. And that does happen from time to time, which is well worth celebrating. It does seem to be a new kind of golden age for television. No, I would shoot the television for this reason: the way clergy appear.
Probably this doesn't bother most of you. Likely you barely notice when yet another 'pastor' or 'father' or 'reverend' wanders across the screen--the controlling Roman Catholic, or ineffectual Anglican, or the woman liberal pastor. But for me, every word that comes from their lips makes me die a little inside.
Clergy on television are one of the following: insipid; emotional wrecks; pedophiles; secretly disbelieving; blinded fundamentalist jerks; extremists; or pontificating at an irrelevant worship service. Some shows manage to cram more than one of these categories into a single episode, or more unfortunately, into a single character.
I have known very few clergy who fell into these categories. Sure, some of them are jerks. There are clergy I don't like. Hell, I may fall into some of those traps. But really, the clergy I know are by and large reasonable, faithful, practical, and interesting people. They are, in fact, many of the deepest people I've ever met, some of the most introspective, and certainly the most socially aware. The greatest advocates for societal change that I have ever met are clergy or, what is for television an even rarer bird, faithful lay people. Strange that shows occasionally delve into religious themes in deep ways--but their ability to show faith in the life of a person is almost always abysmal.
I could speculate about why clergy have such a shallow reputation on television. Would people who watch television put up with clergy, from any religion, who weren't one dimensional? Is it writing or producing that's the problem?
But maybe more to the point for me: I'm sad to live in a culture so out of touch with religion that its standard currency reflects very few religious people worth pondering.
