
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 22, 1994                   TAG: 9404230004
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

ALIENATION

AMONG many social conservatives, including those at The Media Research Center in Alexandria, television's portrayal of religion is a source of longstanding complaint. Religious faith has been portrayed negatively if at all; avowedly religious characters have been portrayed as buffoons if not worse.

From that perspective, reports a recent issue of "TV, etc.," a newsletter of the research center, prime-time entertainment television is getting better. Though a plurality (42 percent) of depictions of religion in 1993 were negative by the center's reckoning, others were mixed or neutral (30 percent) and positive (28 percent).

Television entertainment's infantilism and lack of imagination are exceeded at times only by its smart-aleckyness. It isn't surprising that TV's adolescent conception of sophistication is one likely to sneer at faith.

But the bigger complaint now seems to be the absence of depictions of religion, pro or con - only 116 in thousands of hours of programming. The research center's judgment: "... Hollywood ignores faith far more than it demeans it."

Even assuming the accuracy of the count and the validity of the evaluation placed on each depiction, what are we to make of the marginalization of religion in this context?

There is much to deplore in what comes over the tube, including its fascination with violence and the culture of materialism it helps foster among the young. But should Hollywood's general avoidance of religion be part of the indictment?

After all, the center's study is solely of prime-time entertainment programming, which is just one segment of a many-sided industry that includes plenty of overtly religious programming. And if the absence of religious themes in the stories and characters' lives of prime-time television is another example of how TV life fails to reflect real life, well, that is hardly news.

Whatever the subject, only rarely does prime-time TV entertainment programming rise above superficiality. Indeed, shallow treatment seems a hallmark of the genre. Television alienates as well as communicates. Religion may be better off for being ignored.

by CNB