Let’s take a survey: Are Americans (a) really bad at estimating, (b) really gullible, (c) both really gullible and really bad at estimating? After seeing the results of this Gallup survey, I think the answer is obvious:
U.S. adults, on average, estimate that 25% of Americans are gay or lesbian. More specifically, over half of Americans (52%) estimate that at least one in five Americans are gay or lesbian, including 35% who estimate that more than one in four are. Thirty percent put the figure at less than 15%.
As the Gallup articles points out, demographer Gary Gates recently released a review of population-based surveys on the topic which found 1.7% of Americans identify as lesbian or gay and another 1.8% (mostly women) identify as bisexual. Yet, as economist Karl Smith notes, “most Americans believe that there are significantly more gays and lesbians than blacks (12.6%) or Hispanics (16.3%) and 35% of Americans believe there are as many or more gays than Catholics (~25%).”
Why do Americans think there are so many gays in the U.S.? Maybe they are basing their estimations on what they see on television.
At the launch of the 2010-2011 television season, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) examined the five broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, The CW, Fox, and NBC) and found that 41 characters on 84 programs were homosexual. An additional 53 homosexual characters appeared on 30 scripted cable programs. That’s a total of 94 characters on the 114 shows that were counted.
GLAAD’s numbers don’t even include other types of programming on which openly homosexual characters appear, such as daytime dramas (As the World Turns, One Life to Live, The Young and the Restless, All My Children), daytime talk shows (Oprah, Ellen DeGeneres, The Talk), or reality programming (Dancing With the Stars, So You Think You Can Dance, America’s Next Top Model, Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, Flipping Out, Work of Art, The Rachel Zoe Project, Thintervention with Jackie Warner, Million Dollar Listing, Top Chef, The Real L Word, Project Runway, The Real World, Circus, The Fabulous Beekman Boys, Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys, TRANSform Me ).
Of these 138 shows, 86% include at least one gay character. How many do you think include evangelicals or Catholics? Even though 76% of Americans identify as Christians I doubt you could find 90 openly Christian characters on all of television, much less on these 138 shows.
What do you think? Should we give the Hollywood propaganda machine credit for effectiveness or can we pin the blame for this one on America’s math teachers?
May 31st, 2011 | 6:05 am
[...] So without further ado. First Things – Americans Believe There Are More Homosexuals in the U.S. Than There Are Catholi… [...]
May 31st, 2011 | 7:05 am
Perhaps America gets the impression that 25% of the population is gay based on the amount of attention to homosexuality on First Things.
But seriously, folks, if the “Hollywood propaganda machine” wanted to convince the American people that 25% of the American population is gay, presumably 25% of scripted characters be would be gay, rather than only 3.9%.
According to the GLAAD article
• The study shows that LGBT representations will account for 3.9% of all scripted series regular characters in the 2010-2011 broadcast television schedule, up from 3% in 2009, 2.6% in 2008, and 1.1% in 2007.
• Of the combined 587 series regulars characters counted on broadcast TV in the 2010-2011 season, 23% are people of color . . .
• This year only 41% of regular characters on scripted primetime shows are female.
(First Things readers who watch television must be surprised by the impression given that women make up a whopping 41% of the population.)
It would be interesting to ask in a survey what percentage of television characters viewers think of as Christian. I would guess that most Christian television viewers think of characters as Christians unless those characters are somehow explicitly identified as something else. I would also guess that one reason there are not more explicitly Christian characters on television is that there would be constant pressure from Christian watchdog groups complaining about the inaccurate portrayal of Christianity if Christian characters did anything they objected to. Only about a third of Catholics attend Mass weekly, but if a Catholic character on television skipped Mass once, there would no doubt be an outcry.
May 31st, 2011 | 7:43 am
[...] Americans Believe There Are More Homosexuals in the U.S. Than There Are Catholics [...]
May 31st, 2011 | 7:51 am
At the launch of the 2010-2011 television season, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) examined the five broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, The CW, Fox, and NBC) and found that 37 characters on 84 programs were homosexual. An additional 53 homosexual characters appeared on 30 scripted cable programs. That’s 90 characters on 114 shows.
I fully support Joe’s right to keep firearms, however I cannot support his right to yield percentages without adult supervision.
The original report used percentages too much as well, IMO. A percentage, let us recall, consists of a numerator and denominator (aka base). Too many bases and it gets difficult to keep track mentally.
Anyway, if you read the link you’ll notice that 587 characters on TV were tracked and of them 23 were gay. That’s 3.9% which is very slighly less than the combined percentages Joe cites as gay and/or bisexual. Tallying, as Joe does, the number of shows with gay characters versus total shows is misleading since it gives the impression that each show only has a single character.
May 31st, 2011 | 8:27 am
http://blog.beliefnet.com/idolchatter/2008/01/top-10-christian-tv-characters.html I found when trying to find some tally of Christian TV characters, unfortunately it mixes fictional characters with real life TV stars (such as Melinda Doolittle from American Idol). I think, though, there’s a reason you won’t find many explicitly Christian characters and it’s not so much bias as the intersection of marketing and the dynamics of fiction.
TV characters are often not drawn with a lot of depth, one reason is that there’s not a lot of time in a half hour or hour to develop a character. More importantly, though, keeping characters somewhat generic has an advantage in that different people will associate with them, perhaps imagining that the characters share their view of things unless the show explicitly states otherwise. Unless you’re dealing with a show explicitly about religion, there’s an upside to keeping your character a rather generic ‘American’ (in which case all differnt types of Christians will associate with him or her) and the downside to having him declare a religion or denomination is that you will loose some of his audience. It’s probably for the same reason that you rarely see TV characters who have favorite sports teams. Unless you’re dealing with, say, a detective on NYC Law and Order, what do you gain by having your character ‘out’ himself as a Yankees fan? The other downside, of course, is that the moment you declare your character’s religion you loose the ability to make him anything less than perfect unless you want to the Bill Donohue’s of the world who will leap to that victimization button. That’s great if you’re aiming for high drama but if you’re just doing a C-level sitcom why bother?
Don’t believe me? Go back to the 1950′s. How many characters or hosts of the shows here (http://www.entertainmentscene.com/top_tv_shows_50s.html) can you recall idenfiying their religion? What was Lucy’s religion? The Kramdens? The characters of Gunsmoke? I think I recall maybe one episode of The Honeymooners where Alice might have yelled at Ralph to get ready for church, but the church was never identified in any way. How about Ricky Ricardo? One would have presumed he was Catholic and the show would have stated that but did it ever do so? They were happy to ‘cross the line’ and state that Lucy was ‘with child’ but did they ever show Ricky going to a priest for confession and thereby alienate fans in non-Catholic America?
May 31st, 2011 | 8:39 am
There is such a great diversity among Catholics that saying somebody is a Catholic doesn’t tell you that much.
If you’re a Catholic and didn’t vote for Obama, you’re in the minority of Catholics. 54% of Catholics voted for Obama.
May 31st, 2011 | 9:15 am
Now that you mention it Jeremy, I can’t even think of a TV character in modern times who actually voted for a specific real life candidate. The only one I can remember was Archie Bunker stating that he voted for Richard Nixon in both of his runs for President. Can you?
May 31st, 2011 | 9:28 am
Like many things involving numbers, it depends on how you count. Looking at the total number of characters yields a much smaller percentage, while looking at the number of shows with at least one gay character yields a larger percentage. The key question: why is one method better than the other?
May 31st, 2011 | 9:31 am
David Nickol I would also guess that one reason there are not more explicitly Christian characters on television is that there would be constant pressure from Christian watchdog groups complaining about the inaccurate portrayal of Christianity if Christian characters did anything they objected to.
Um, yeah, I’m sure that’s the reason why.
Boonton Tallying, as Joe does, the number of shows with gay characters versus total shows is misleading since it gives the impression that each show only has a single character.
Check again what I wrote: “Of these 138 shows, 83% include at least one gay character.” [emphasis added]
Anyway, if you read the link you’ll notice that 587 characters on TV were tracked and of them 23 were gay.
Yes, and as they note, 18 more were recurring characters (23 + 18 = 41). I actually undercounted the number.
May 31st, 2011 | 9:57 am
First, most Americans, including most of the MSM, know little to nothing about statistics, and have a hard time translating numbers to the real world, unless it’s in an area they have direct experience in.
Second, most Americans are loathe to answer “I don’t know” on a survey question. Especially those Americans who don’t just hang up on survey caller. People tend to make up an answer to a question they don’t know at the moment they are asked. It doesn’t mean they actually believe this answer, or have ever even thought about the question.
Third, I really don’t see why this sort of “Stop me when I get to the right answer” multiple choice test should be treated as conveying any actual information about people’s opinions.
Finally, I’m pretty confident that if anyone who said that there were anywhere near 25% homosexuals were asked “Um, that’s one in four of the population. That’s twice as high as the number of blacks in the country, and as many as the number of Catholics. Do you honestly believe that?” that they’d immediately correct their number sharply downward. Even the classic 10% absurdity fails the common sense test.
May 31st, 2011 | 9:58 am
If Christians want more Christianity or explicitly Christian characters on television, why don’t they demand it? About 80 percent of Americans are Christians. Start a Christian equivalent of GLAAD and start monitoring network and cable shows. The question in my mind is: Do Christians actually want to see explicitly Christian characters on television? What have been the great television hits with explicitly Christian characters?
Religion & Ethics Newsweekly on PBS is actually a very fine news program about religion which I watch occasionally. I wonder how many viewers it would get if it were put on in prime time and heavily promoted?
May 31st, 2011 | 10:02 am
I can’t back this up with statistics, but I’ll bet the two families most often depicted on TV as attending church are The Simpsons and the Hills (of King of the Hill). In both cases there’s a gentle ribbing of Christians who don’t always measure up to the ideals of the faith.
May 31st, 2011 | 10:04 am
David Nickol About 80 percent of Americans are Christians. Start a Christian equivalent of GLAAD and start monitoring network and cable shows.
The point is that we shouldn’t have to do that. American television should look like America. There shouldn’t be a need to have to point out to people in TVLand that 76% of Americans are Christian, 50% are women, 13% are African American, etc. They should simply represent the American demographics in their programming.
What have been the great television hits with explicitly Christian characters?
I don’t know about television hits, but the greatest show on TV that currently has Christian character is Friday Night Lights. They actually showed people in church two weeks ago and last week a preacher prayed before a meal. That’s more realistic that most of what gets portrayed on the other network shows.
May 31st, 2011 | 10:12 am
Looking at the total number of characters yields a much smaller percentage, while looking at the number of shows with at least one gay character yields a larger percentage. The key question: why is one method better than the other?
I think its pretty obvious the latter is a better metric. If nothing else you end up counting a show with 100 gay characters equal to a show with one gay character and 99 straight ones. Since there’s only limited consistency in the number of characters and their intensity (are they a main character we see every week or just a minor character who shows up in a few episodes here and there?) by show I think comparing characters is a more useful metric.
Joe
Um, yeah, I’m sure that’s the reason why.
Well interestingly mainstream shows that are pretty clearly aimed at Christianish audiences are also remarkably ‘fuzzy’ about their characters religion. For example, Touched by an Angel and Highway to Heaven were both explicitly about angels yet even TV angels are remarkably interdenominational. I’m not even sure you couldn’t say the angels in those shows weren’t Jewish! 7th Heaven was also a favorite for more religious minded viewers, yet even with its lead character a pastor of a Church was there even a single episode that staked the family out as really belonging to a particular denomination?
Yes, and as they note, 18 more were recurring characters (23 + 18 = 41). I actually undercounted the number.
Read the numbers more carefully. The 587 characters with 23 gays ones were on broadcast TV. They cite 35 gay characters on cable but don’t cite the total number of characters, you can’t compare counts of gay characters unless you can compare the base number of characters. Cable might be problematic because on the low end you might be double counting characters from broadcast TV that are being rerun on cable and on the high end I’m not sure premium channels like HBO and Showtime should be compared to more ‘regular TV’ fare.
David
If Christians want more Christianity or explicitly Christian characters on television, why don’t they demand it? About 80 percent of Americans are Christians.
Why demand when you can pretend? I would put forth most TV characters are designed to be so generically interdenominational you can plausibly imagine their religious beliefs are either yours are pretty close to yours. Making the characters more explicitly Christian then will ironically turn off Christians. This is in contrast to, say, the way blacks might have viewed black characters in the 60′s and 70′s when as a minority any appearence was notable.
May 31st, 2011 | 10:25 am
Boonton,
I am slightly embarrassed to admit I used to watch Touched by an Angel, and although I think the cross was often displayed, and Christmas was celebrated, there was little if any mention of Jesus.
May 31st, 2011 | 10:39 am
I can’t help but feel that Americans (including Christian Americans) get pretty much what they want on television. Despite what Joe says, I think broadcasters who tried to deal realistically with religious issues would be walking into a minefield. Perhaps more characters could say grace before meals, of occasionally be depicted as going to church on Sundays. But what America seems to want on television is reality shows, forensics, doctors, lawyers, and police.
How much religion do people who have made Two and a Half Men one of the biggest hits of all time really want?
May 31st, 2011 | 11:24 am
I think we can put a line between light entertainment and serious entertainment. Religious issues were pretty explicitly addressed on shows like Battlestar Galactica and Sopranos. Although I lost track of it, Big Love was also a pretty serious exploration of a religious minority inside a religious minority.
Among light entertainment religion, like politics, IMO is designed with an eye towards trying to turn no one off. Hence the best you’re going to get is something like ‘someone saying grace’ or going to a generic ‘church’ on Sunday. But then see my comment about 1950′s TV, it’s not anything new.
Speaking of TV Catholics, does anyone remember “Hell Town” which featured Robert Blake as a Catholic priest who ended up in perfectly moral fist fights every week?
May 31st, 2011 | 11:26 am
I have to disagree with the original query:Why do Americans think there are so many gays in the U.S.? Maybe they are basing their estimations on the number of Gay character in television shows.
I don’t think most Americans (certainly not the ones I know) pay much attention as to whether their TV program choices reflect “real” America. I think the fact that they watch a particular show indicates that they are comfortable with it and therefore “give” it attributes they are comfortable with.
I believe the political world and its’ constant effort to influence voters is more a factor. If indeed the gay population is only 3.9% but the political rhetoric heard about that group is a major talking point in politics the perception of the average American is that group must be much larger otherwise why is this such a big issue. If I as a Christian make up 80% of the population am I really worrying about the influence of 4%? No.
With all the challenges facing America the average American assumes the elected leaders and those running wouldn’t be talking and campaigning about something unless it is big. Therefore when the Gay issues make up such a vocal talking point it must mean the Gay population is significant. Has to be at least 25%.
Is that my thought process no, but I do believe the intensity and supposed intelligence of political debate holds more sway than the character programming of TV. People “get” that shows are shows. People believe that political discussion is factual. Oh my.
May 31st, 2011 | 11:29 am
How much religion do people who have made Two and a Half Men one of the biggest hits of all time really want?
Why is it impossible to be both religious and amused by raunchy humor?
May 31st, 2011 | 11:38 am
Speaking of percentages wiping out Joe’s thesis….it’s interesting to read the Gallop link too. First of all back in 2002 they asked the same question and got more or less the same results even though back then there were fewer gay characters on TV (it was back in 1997 that people were actually making a big deal of Ellen Degenerous coming out on her sit-com). Secondly, Americans likewise tend to wildly overestimate the number of minorities in the population.
See http://www.gallup.com/poll/4435/Public-Overestimates-US-Black-Hispanic-Populations.aspx. Americans tend to think blacks are 3 times as much of the populationas they really are and Hispanics about 2 times as much. What you might be seeing here is a type of perception bias. When people ‘look like them’ they don’t really notice but someone who is different stands out. The result is one minority in a community of 99 majority may be perceived as suddenly making up 10% of the population or more.
May 31st, 2011 | 11:39 am
[Emphasis added.]
May 31st, 2011 | 11:41 am
Joe –
Why?
May 31st, 2011 | 12:02 pm
I see all but a couple of posters overlooked the effect to focus on the mooted cause. All the points raised about percentages were correct: if the numerator is # characters, the denominator cannot be # shows. That is not a percentage but a rate, like # insect fragments per kilo of flour.
But the main effect remains: that respondents grossly exaggerated the proportion of homosexuals in the population. It’s just not likely to be the % of homosexuals as TV characters alone. More likely, the ubiquity of homosexuals in the public square.
It is also correct to question the accuracy and precision of the survey instrument. You can obtain whatever response you want by the way you ask the questions. I just wish people would be skeptical of surveys when they like the results rather than only when they dislike them. But, see Thucydides on that matter.
May 31st, 2011 | 12:31 pm
But the main effect remains: that respondents grossly exaggerated the proportion of homosexuals in the population. It’s just not likely to be the % of homosexuals as TV characters alone. More likely, the ubiquity of homosexuals in the public square.
How exactly do you measure that? What is the ‘public square’ when you’re talking about the United States? The rate of gay fictional TV characters seems to be on a par with their actual portion of the population. How about openly gay elected officials? Newscasters? Celebrities? Sports stars? Singers? Writers? Actors? Where and what is this ‘public square’ and how does one tell if gays are or are not ubiquitious in it?
May 31st, 2011 | 12:49 pm
Carter’s post illustrates one of the reflexes on the Christian right, the desire to blame the mainstream media liberal propaganda machine for every little thing.
As Boonton points out, Americans overestimate the presence of all minorities. Instead of pointing at the role of human nature, which is the real cause here, Carter leaps immediately to the conclusion that Hollywood must be at fault. So knee jerk is this response that Carter’s post has already received 23 tweets and 20 likes. Conservative Christians are that eager to see their biases confirmed that they don’t even bother to think through the factoids Carter offers. Meanwhile, it’s the liberals (Nickol, Boonton, Jeremy) who are reading carefully and questioning the numbers Carter provides.
Based on that, perhaps we should rephrase the question Carter opens his piece with to this: “Let’s take a survey: Are conservative Christians (a) really bad at asking questions, (b) really gullible, (c) both really gullible and really bad at asking questions?”
May 31st, 2011 | 1:09 pm
[...] Americans Believe: More Homosexuals Than Catholics in U.S. – Joe Carter, First Things [...]
May 31st, 2011 | 1:10 pm
Joe –
American television should look like America.
Why?
Because failure to do so is considered evidence of systemic discrimination.
Of course, if you believe discrimination is only “bad” when it is applied to “mascot” groups* then it doesn’t matter: go ahead and hold one standard for gays, and a different standard for Christians, and then bleat endlessly about how Christians are bad because they don’t treat gays a certain way.
*a reference to the book “Vision Of The Anointed” by Thomas Sowell, in which he argues that liberals adopt groups as “mascots”. (One may assume the insulting nature of the language is intentional….)
May 31st, 2011 | 1:14 pm
Totally unscientific here but I just glanced at the First Things homepage and counted 18 visible posts by Joe, of them 2 concerned gays giving a rate of 11%.
I count roughly 25 posts by all authors on the home page 4 of them concern gays for an overall rate of 16%.
It would seem that gays are quite over-represented on First Things by a factor of 2-4 times how often they are represented as TV characters.
May 31st, 2011 | 1:33 pm
Michael writes: “Conservative Christians are that eager to see their biases confirmed that they don’t even bother to think through the factoids Carter offers. Meanwhile, it’s the liberals (Nickol, Boonton, Jeremy) who are reading carefully and questioning the numbers Carter provides.”
Perhaps Michael should let the other liberals do the talking on this one. The quote above is an excellent example of the Hasty Generalization fallacy.
Michael, Joe already included himself in the quote you chose to modify. I imagine you did so to exclude yourself. Joe Carter is an American.
I opt for Ye Olde Statistician (and Joe’s initial quote). As a country, we’re pretty bad with statistics. And that does leave unanswered why Americans, at least in this survey, think there are so many gays. To find out, we need the controls that are suggested above in passing. The survey needs to ask for estimates of say blacks and Hispanics as well and maybe Christians and Catholics in particular. I think the closest comparison would be to ask for estimates of the number of Jews in this country. That minority is believed to be about as numerous as gays. But apparently they didn’t, so we can only guess.
May 31st, 2011 | 1:36 pm
All this reminds me of something James Davison Hunter argued in his most recent book. He takes up the question of why Evangelical Christians are such a large percentage of the US population, but are almost entirely invisible in popular culture, and in positions of cultural authority and decision-making. Meanwhile, Jews (for example), who make up such a tiny percentage of the US population, are vastly overrepresented (proportionally) among the cultural elite. To be sure, Hunter isn’t complaining about that, only trying to figure out why it turns out that way.
He ends up talking about how the real instigators of cultural change are networks made up of elites, who share certain convictions and who work to mainstream those beliefs. He is not trying to say it’s a sinister cabal, not at all; he’s just trying to show that this is how ideas are spread.
It is both absurd and credible that Americans would think there are so many homosexuals in American life. My parish newsletter, as Fr. Neuhaus used to call it, is the New York Times, whose coverage of homosexuals and gay-related issues is nothing short of astonishing in its sheer volume. There is almost nothing the Times cannot and will not find the gay angle on, and pursue it. You would be very hard-pressed to realize, from the Times’s own coverage, that there are three times as many Pentecostals in NYC (865,000, according to an article in the Times) than there are homosexuals (275,000, says Wikipedia). Pentecostals in NYC are typically black or Hispanic, and culturally marginal; homosexuals are at the center of Manhattan life, and therefore known to the people who put together the Times every day.
In the not too distant past, gays were invisible to the mainstream media. Now they receive wildly disproportionate coverage. In both cases, the lens through which most people in our society see gays (the mainstream media) was and is distorted by the biases of the elites who make editorial decisions.
May 31st, 2011 | 1:44 pm
Blake is no doubt happy to see that gays are not over represented on TV. I’m happy that my mathematical skills can bring some joy to a person who probably usually finds only frustration with me.
On the flip side of whether Christians are underrepresented, I think Joe has a serious denominator problem. One doesn’t need to just count up ‘openly Christian’ characters, but all characters. Out of the 587 characters for broadcast TV, how many are non-Christian? Off the top of my head the only TV fictional atheists I’m aware of are Dr. Gregory House and Brian the dog from Family Guy. House’s sidekick Wilson is Jewish, I believe, but now that Seinfield is gone I’m unaware of any other Jewish broadcast TV characters (and in keeping with my thesis, the Jewishness of Seinfield as more often assumed rather than stated directly).
If anything Christians are overrepresented. According to the breakdown on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_the_United_States we should have, out of that 587, around 53 Buddhist characters. I can’t think of one. 2.3 Hindu characters, I can only think of Kelly from The Office (if you’re going to include Outsourced, keep in mind it takes place in India so shouldn’t ‘look like’ the US). Ohhh and about 3 and a half Muslim characters!!! More brazenly, about 6% of Americans are atheists. That doesn’t mean an unsure ‘maybe so maybe not’ belief about God but a positive belief God doesn’t exist. That translates into 35.1 characters! Who are they? There’s only two that I can think of!
May 31st, 2011 | 1:45 pm
I’m surprised at the pushback against Joe Carter about this issue. His thesis is straightforward and so obvious as to be near undeniable: the ethos of television pushes a severe minority lifestyle so hard and so regularly as to create the impression that it is much, much larger than it seems, thereby granting it outsized influence in our consciousness.
Contrast their pet cause against a dominant cultural presence that is ideologically distasteful to that ethos, such as Christianity, and television’s ulterior motives become clear. I know it is old news that the cultural commissars are anywhere from indifferent to openly contemptuous of the dominant but acquiescent religious influence around which they ply their trade. What is not old news is just how far and how deep television’s deception has reached, and how silently influential they have become over our perception.
Twenty-five percent? Really? One in every four people? (Younger people surveyed skewed more towards a third.)
Garbage in, garbage out. We can’t even get certain issues to the controversy stage with so much disinformation to correct. Easier for them to label half the country bigots and be done with it. Why do Christians want to outlaw Ellen? She’s so nice! Where’s my rainbow bumper sticker?
May 31st, 2011 | 1:49 pm
“Check again what I wrote: “Of these 138 shows, 83% include at least one gay character.”
How about something else? Let’s chronicle the blocks or apartment buildings Joe and other conservative Christians inhabit. How many of them have at least on gay person?
“Perhaps America gets the impression that 25% of the population is gay based on the amount of attention to homosexuality on First Things.”
We laugh, but it’s undeniable. Nine million American gays or bi’s, and still the unemployment rolls outstrip that. Don’t conservatives have anything to say about jobs?
If someone on the Right complains about Hollywood, it would seem just as sane for someone on the Left to complain about the gay-obsession of the Right. They’re just trying to divert attention away from employment onto something that’s not quite as important. Unless, of course, your gay boss finds out you troll FT for its 16% equity in homosexuality.
May 31st, 2011 | 1:50 pm
My parish newsletter, as Fr. Neuhaus used to call it, is the New York Times, whose coverage of homosexuals and gay-related issues is nothing short of astonishing in its sheer volume. There is almost nothing the Times cannot and will not find the gay angle on, and pursue it
Scanning the NYT.com front page, I see maybe 70 articles or so, zero of them seem to have anything to do with gays. As I pointed out, Joe Carter and First Things both seem to be rather ‘gay heavy’. I wonder what a similiar analysis of Fr. Neuhaus’s writings, statements by various right wingers, stories on the 700 Club and so on would show. Why do I have a feeling they all would be a bit more than 3.9% ‘gay’ related?
May 31st, 2011 | 1:55 pm
. . . . go ahead and hold one standard for gays, and a different standard for Christians, and then bleat endlessly about how Christians are bad because they don’t treat gays a certain way.
Blake,
Gays and Christians are not really comparable groups, nor are they mutually exclusive. Having 3.9% of scripted characters on television be gay does not crowd out the representation of Christians, and many gay people are Christians themselves.
Few gay people would complain about all Christians treating them “a certain way,” because many Christians do not treat gay people badly.
May 31st, 2011 | 2:05 pm
King,
If you and other Christians feel that way, why not just boycott television? It would be difficult for the evil media to ignore the will of 80% of the population. Even if media moguls hate religion and love homosexuals as much as you claim, they are in business primarily to make money only secondarily to destroy everything good people hold dear. I guarantee you the airwaves would be flooded with Christian programming if there were big bucks to be made on it.
May 31st, 2011 | 2:15 pm
Having 3.9% of scripted characters on television be gay does not crowd out the representation of Christians, and many gay people are Christians themselves.
I think its pretty much fair to assume that unless there is positive evidence stated to the contrary, all TV characters that are depicted as ‘typical American types’ are Christian by default just as if I was watching a film that was set in Saudi Arabia I would reasonably assume all characters who appeared in traditional Saudi garb would be Muslim.
May 31st, 2011 | 2:18 pm
Bontoon:
I think you don’t watch CBS – the Epps characters in “Numb3rs” are Jewish, as well as at least one of the characters on “The Big Bang Theory” (I forget which). As for explicitly Catholic characters – the Reagans in “Blue Bloods” share a meal every Sunday after going to church.
May 31st, 2011 | 2:26 pm
King
I’m surprised at the pushback against Joe Carter about this issue. His thesis is straightforward and so obvious as to be near undeniable:
Indeed, for the community of people who take reality to be optional. Joe’s numbers do not add up and neither does his thesis. Just for fun let me give the cliff notes version of his thesis failing:
1. The # of gay characters is roughly proportional to the # of gays in the population (about 3.9%)
2. Nearly ten years ago when there were fewer gay characters, the public still over estimated the portion of gays in the population by nearly the same amount. If ‘gays on TV’ = people think there are more gays then this shouldn’t have happened.
3. Other minority groups are likewise over estimated by the general public which suggests:
a. People are unable to ‘eyeball estimate’ population groups smaller than 25% or so. When asked they like to default to a ‘generic small percentage’ like 20% or 25%
b. People tend to ignore other people who are ‘just like them’ and notice people who are unlike them. Hence an objectively small number of African-Americans, Hispanics, gays etc. appears to be a larger portion than they really are in a population.
May 31st, 2011 | 2:30 pm
The # of gay characters is roughly proportional to the # of gays in the population (about 3.9%)
No, that’s not exactly true. The number of gay characters on TV is much higher than the number of actual homosexual in America (1.7%). The number of bisexuals on TV is much lower than the number of homosexuals.
May 31st, 2011 | 2:31 pm
Would either of the persistent and vocal critics of Mr. Carter and First Things (Mr. Nickol, Boonton) care to weigh in with their opinion on why the U.S. adults who answered the Gallup poll, on average, estimate that 25% of Americans are gay or lesbian? Or would that get in the way of your griping about Mr. Carter (16 posts in a 35 comment thread) and First Things, a site you nevertheless both spend a great deal of time on?
May 31st, 2011 | 2:32 pm
“If you and other Christians feel that way, why not just boycott television? It would be difficult for the evil media to ignore the will of 80% of the population.”
Gosh, what was it I was saying about statistics up above? American Idol, a gigantic hit TV show, just drew nearly 30 million viewers for its finale. Sound like a lot, doesn’t it? That’s less than 10% of the population. A movie that sold 30 million tickets would pull in roughly 300 million dollars, i.e., would be a mega-super-duper-blockbuster, and yet 9 out of 10 people wouldn’t see it. The vast majority of America ALREADY tunes out “popular culture.” So let’s put the absurd canards that “The people want this!” (no they don’t) or “Why don’t you just stop watching?” (we already have) or “All Hollywood cares about it money!” (um, then maybe you should try to attract the 90% of the population that shuns your product, or even the 10% of the population that saw The Passion?) to bed, shall we?
May 31st, 2011 | 2:37 pm
I thiinkt he impression is not a relsut of television. It’s the result of a “six degrees of se[aration syndrome.” Gay and lesbian peooel are *everywhere* They are you rnext door neighbors, your co-workers and familay members.
Unlike in years bygone, many of these people are known to be gay and take fewer steps to conceal sexual identity. So it “seems like” there is a large perscentage of gay people and people might overestimate that percentage without carefully doing the math.
I don’t know if I’m typical but a fair number of my co-workers, relatives and friends are homosexual. I suspect I am typical.
There are also a number of high profile gay and lesbian people on TV who are not in telveision shows, Anderson Cooper, Rachel Maddow, Suze Orman, etc.
All of this may cause people to overestimate percentages and an off the cuff answer may be too high.
I don’t think TV has much to do with it. I think people are counting friends, neighbors, co-workers and relatives.
May 31st, 2011 | 2:42 pm
It seems to me that more important than the % of homosexual characters spread over the entire sample population of characters on TV is the % of homosexual characters that are seen in prime time viewing slots. If the networks take that relatively small 3% or so of homosexual actors and distribute the majority of them into the few hours of prime time viewing, that will greatly skew the view that their are more homosexuals in society than there really are. I would like to know; what is the percentage of homosexual actors as compared to the sample population of actors during prime time viewing, when the majority of the population is watching?
May 31st, 2011 | 2:45 pm
Joe McFaul I think people are counting friends, neighbors, co-workers and relatives.
Let’s assume this is true and that all Americans have an equal likelihood of knowing someone who is homosexual (statistically not likely, but let’s use it for the sake of argument). This means that for every 100 people a person knows, 2 of them are openly gay.
Is it really likely that people are going to misinterpret their own experience by a factor of ten? Even accounting for the innumeracy of the average American, this seems unlikely to be sufficient.
May 31st, 2011 | 3:08 pm
Joe
No, that’s not exactly true. The number of gay characters on TV is much higher than the number of actual homosexual in America (1.7%). The number of bisexuals on TV is much lower than the number of homosexuals.
A distinction without much of a difference. Where’s my 53 Buddhist, 3.5 Muslims and 35.1 atheist characters!
Frank,
Come to think of it, V had a Catholic Priest as a character too (both the original and the new series). To do this correctly I would start with the 587 or so characters and do the following:
1. Remove characters whose story lines are not based in the US, for example Outsourced….which I haven’t really seen but I believe is set in India.
2. Remove characters whose stories are set in hisortical eras that are either pre-Christian or where one would expect the distribution of Christians to be different than it is today….for example a story set in pre-colonial America among native Americans.
3. Remove characters set in alternate worlds, universes or whatnot. For example, Joe briefly cited the figures for cable TV but look the cartoon network probably has a good 50 or so characters who are part of Star Wars: The Clone Wars who wouldn’t be Christian. Likewise Caprica and a lot of Sci-fi channel stuff should have its characters excluded.
Then you’d have to try to map every remaining character to a religion. “Don’t know” does NOT mean the character has no religion, only that no episode to date has bothered to mention his or her religion.
Jerry
Would either of the persistent and vocal critics of Mr. Carter and First Things (Mr. Nickol, Boonton) care to weigh in with their opinion on why the U.S. adults who answered the Gallup poll, on average, estimate that 25% of Americans are gay or lesbian?
Yea like I did 3 or 4 times already. Maybe you should consider that some of our persistence and vocalness is due to the fact that it seems like many of the critic’s critics here seem to consistently ignore the points we make the first time we make them.
Brian
Gosh, what was it I was saying about statistics up above? American Idol, a gigantic hit TV show, just drew nearly 30 million viewers for its finale. Sound like a lot, doesn’t it? That’s less than 10% of the population. A movie that sold 30 million tickets would pull in roughly 300 million dollars, i.e., would be a mega-super-duper-blockbuster,
The problem you have is that the price of watching American Idol is sitting thru some commercials, a movie is $10 or more these days. A movie that is ‘just as popular’ as American Idol isn’t going to sell 30 million tickets. A movie that sells 30 million tickets would be much, much bigger than American Idol.
BTW, wasn’t there a gay guy who recently won or almost won American Idol? How are you goint to spin the whole bias meme when you have a show like American Idol where America is literally picking the winners?
May 31st, 2011 | 3:11 pm
Blake,
Gays and Christians are not really comparable groups, nor are they mutually exclusive.
No, but gay Christian was the contrast that was already mentioned.
The real opposite to the Christian is the humanist/unitarian (of which “the gay community” is a subset).
May 31st, 2011 | 3:14 pm
“a show like American Idol where America is literally picking the winners?”
Um, we just established that only 10% of America watches American Idol. So “America is literally picking the winners” is a ridiculous canard, as I said already.
Also, I never said anything related to this “bias” claim. As I pointed out already, I am 100% certain that nobody actually believes that 25% of the population is homosexual. Heck, I am certain that nobody even believes the 10% number that is often thrown around. A lot of people are willing to make up an answer for a phone poll, and don’t think about their answer one tiny bit, and then go on with their lives after hanging up.
May 31st, 2011 | 3:50 pm
Dave
what is the percentage of homosexual actors as compared to the sample population of actors during prime time viewing, when the majority of the population is watching?
I don’t think you’d get very far here. Broadcast TV basically only has prime time characters. Characters you’re seeing outside of prime time are either reruns or soap operas. At 3 in the morning the networks are not making original programming.
Joe
Is it really likely that people are going to misinterpret their own experience by a factor of ten? Even accounting for the innumeracy of the average American, this seems unlikely to be sufficient.
Yet they do drastically miscalculate the portion of blacks and hispanics as well. I suspect the more likely guess is that numbers like 20%, 25%, 30% are easy ‘defaults’ when trying to guess the population of the entire US. This might be compounded by regional misperceptions. A man in the midwest may say not know any gays but may wildly overestimate just how many gays there are in places like NYC, San Francisco and LA and how much that contributes to the nationwide average. It would be interesting to ask in a survey how many specifically know a gay person and how many gay persons they know…..but that’s a radically different question than to estimate the entire US population.
May 31st, 2011 | 3:53 pm
What exactly would a “Christian” character on TV look like?
I live in a country where, according to the last Census, 42% of the population belong to the Church of Scotland, 16% are Catholic and 7% are “Other Christian.”
About 5% of the population attend Church once a month or oftener.
I could not tell you the religious affiliations (if any) of the vast majority of my clients or colleagues. Living in a rural area, I do know the religious affiliations of every family in the district, by the schools their children attended or the churches where family weddings and funerals take place.
Then again, I know a place in the Western Isles of Scotland, where corn dollies are still, occasionally, hung from trees, usually near a spring or pool. I suspect, too, that the saucers of milk they put out at night are not always for the cat. On a winter’s evening, one can still hear old tales told in village pubs of the fairies or “Little People”; tales of bewitchings, changelings and murrain in the flocks. And I have heard such tales interrupted, by those who consider any mention of “na Sithein” as unchancy. When was the last time you saw a pagan or a witch on TV?
May 31st, 2011 | 3:59 pm
I think Joe you should note the economist you cited:
I think this almost hits the nail. The problem isn’t IMO that Americans think 1 out 5 people they meet is gay or that they don’t understand that 20% means about 1 out of 5 (although I suspect that’s a factor to some degree, interestingly the younger Americans more wildly overestimated the number relative to average…messing up percentages is probably more common when you’re very young as opposed to middle aged).
I think what is happening is when people are asked to estimate a demographic metric for the entire US their first thought is to recognize that they’ve probably only really experienced a small piece of the US. That being the case, they must first estimate the demographic for their small area, then try to add in the demographics for other areas and then try to figure out how much those other areas are more important in terms of the overall population. Ergo the midwestern farmer knows that there may be few blacks in his town. But he knows places like Chicago, NYC, LA etc. have a lot of black people. But he doesn’t know how many other than ‘a lot’ and he doesn’t know how important the population of those major cities are to the entire US population…other than ‘more important than my town’. What you’re seeing then isn’t really fair to call innumercy or poor math skills. You’re seeing probably OK math skills in many cases coupled with poor guesses.
May 31st, 2011 | 4:14 pm
Boonton:
You wrote:
Yea like I did 3 or 4 times already. Maybe you should consider that some of our persistence and vocalness is due to the fact that it seems like many of the critic’s critics here seem to consistently ignore the points we make the first time we make them.
For review, here are your comments and whether you talked about why you thought the Gallup poll respondents thought 25% (on average) of Americans were homosexual:
7:51 am ? Nope.
8:27 am? Nope.
9:15 am? Nope.
10:12 am? Nope.
11:24 am? Nope.
11:29 am? Nope.
Hey, here is is!:
11:38 am: 2nd Paragraph
Then, no:
12:31 pm? Nope.
1:14 pm? Nope.
1:44 pm? Nope.
1:50 pm? Nope.
2:15 pm? Nope.
Then again, in a comment you posted while I was writing mine
2:26 pm: point #3, which elaborates slightly on what you said at 11:38am.
My comment came a few minutes later.
So that’s twice, in 13 previous comments (one of which I did not see while writing), tucked in amongst a lot of complaining about Mr. Carter, First Things, and other posters. Sorry I missed those nuggets, lost as they got in all your typing. I see you’ve fleshed out your opinion on this in your 15th comment a few minutes ago. Though I hardly share your viewpoint, I would love to have your job, as you seem to have a lot more free time to fill up comment threads than I or anyone I have ever known (except perhaps Mr. Nickol or Mr. Ingles (in existence-of-God threads)) does.
May 31st, 2011 | 4:45 pm
Jerry,
Actually I complained slightly about Joe botching the percentages, there was some banter about various TV shows and some thoughts about why TV characters are not very explicitly Christian today nor were they in the past even going back to the 50′s.
But as you pointed out I addressed your question twice before you asked it. You can be excused once as you missed my second comment as you were writing yours. But then you should have caught David’s response at 10:39 AM, my follow up at 11:24 AM leading to my 11:38 AM comment where I pointed out Americans have been overestimating other minorities as well in Gallop polls.
Michael followed up again noting Joe’s problems with the numbers and Americans overestimating minorities at 12:49 PM.
Mike at 1:33 PM offered the thesis that Americans are just bad with stats to begin with.
Then at 2:26 PM I tried to offer King a short summary of the problems with Joe’s argument which covered the misconception with the numbers in #3. You coming in at 2:31 claiming no one had yet addressed why Americans were overestimating the # of gays, citing me and Mr. Nickol
May 31st, 2011 | 4:53 pm
I mean really I suppose you could have missed my comment but then it’s not like it’s been nothing but a “let’s all hate Joe” fest all morning. We covered a lot of points here…..things like whether TV characters are driven by marketing, whether we should measure the portion of characters who are gay or the portion of shows that have gay characters, how we should fairly count TV character’s religions, whether Christians really are underrepresented on TV, whether TV is overrepresenting gays relative to amount of coverage gays seem to get from Joe and First Things, as well as some banter about old TV shows.
May 31st, 2011 | 4:53 pm
[...] [...]
May 31st, 2011 | 4:57 pm
David Nickol- I work in theatre. To say that there is a strong hostility to Christianity among most people who work in it is an understatement. Hollywood is essentially the same; anyone who drifts from the left-wing orthodoxy spouted by most actors, directors, producers, etc., is blacklisted. Everyone who works in Hollywood understands this. I doubt that the number of people mentioned actually believe the 25% figure, but to say that there are more gay characters on TV than in the population is to state the obvious. If you think producers aren’t interested in pushing an ideology in the material they put on TV, you are extraordinarily naive.
As for boycotting TV, shows do not actually need a very large chunk of the population to watch them in order to be successful. For example, ‘Dancing With The Stars’ had the top Nielsen spot last week, with about 22 million viewers. That is 7% of a country of 308 million people. So you could say that 80% of the population is ‘boycotting’ TV- but a show does not need to get a majority of the country to watch it in order to avoid cancellation.
May 31st, 2011 | 5:44 pm
But then you should have caught David’s response at 10:39 AM, my follow up at 11:24 AM leading to my 11:38 AM comment where I pointed out Americans have been overestimating other minorities as well in Gallop polls.
Michael followed up again noting Joe’s problems with the numbers and Americans overestimating minorities at 12:49 PM.
Mike at 1:33 PM offered the thesis that Americans are just bad with stats to begin with.
As a point of fact, both David’s response at 10:39 AM and your follow up at 11:24 AM talked about TV, and did not touch on the poll’s results; also, as opposed to both yourself and Mr. Nickol, Michael has only one post in this thread.
Out of curiosity, what other blogs do you patrol on a daily basis for posts that you disagree with in order to inundate with comments? Perhaps you could contribute a bit more in threads where it’s not apparent that you came looking for a fight, no?
May 31st, 2011 | 5:59 pm
I doubt that the number of people mentioned actually believe the 25% figure, but to say that there are more gay characters on TV than in the population is to state the obvious.
Mike P.
First, it is not obvious at all to me. Now, I work in the publishing industry in New York, so I probably run into more gay people than the average American, but given the fact that nobody really knows how many gay people there are, 3.9% doesn’t seem wildly off the mark. And that’s particularly in light of the fact that women make up 41% of the scripted characters. And of course the proportion of characters who are doctors, lawyers, and law-enforcement personnel on television far exceed their numbers in real life.
However people in the theater and in Hollywood may feel about religion, I don’t detect any hostility toward religion on television. Religion is just largely absent. I don’t think television executives put gay people on shows to stick it to conservative Christians. Maybe there is some awareness that conservative Christians won’t like it, and some pleasure to be taken in that, but even if you do have an agenda, you can’t push it on shows nobody wants to watch.
I can only name about three or four gay characters on television, but from what I have seen, they tend to be about as sexual as Ozzie and Harriet Nelson, June and Ward Cleaver, or Lucy and Ricky Ricardo (except they all had children, so they must have done something sometime). From what I have seen, gay characters on television tend to be basically straight characters who are occasionally referred to as gay.
Also, 80% of Americans are not boycotting television. I am having a hard time finding good figures, but I did find this from Nielson: “The average American every month watches approximately 153 hours of TV at home. In addition, the 131 million Americans who watch video on the Internet watch on average about 3 hours of video online each month at home or work. The 13.4 million Americans who watch video on mobile phones watch on average about 3 ½ hours of mobile video each month.” That was from 2009, and the report was that the amount of video watched was at an all-time high. Audiences for particular shows, even big hits, aren’t as large as they used to be, but then there didn’t used to be 500 channels. Americans watch a tremendous amount of television, and by far the majority of them are Christians.
May 31st, 2011 | 6:28 pm
Since I started on this train of thought….
Boonton:
Instead of beating around the bush, I’ll just directly state that I cannot understand what motivates you, Mr. Nickol, and Mr. Ingles (primarily on posts involving the existence of God) in what is quite apparently your daily monitoring of this blog for posts that argue a point you disagree with, in order that you may inundate those posts with comments, essentially adhering to the “submission by attrition” tactic of online discourse.
I’m speaking for myself here: I just don’t get the “opposing-view-blog” campers.
I’ m a Notre Dame grad and sports enthusiast, and frequent the ‘ndnation’ boards. Do I frequently, or even rarely, go to ‘WildWestSports’ (USC) or ‘Mgoblog’ (Michigan) or any other ND rival’s site to criticize their view of ND or of their own university/athletic program? Of course not.
I’m conservative politically, and read NationalReview and some other conservative publications. I also read Huffington Post and the Nation. Do I go on HuffPost and the Nation’s boards in order to criticize their view of conservatives, or to get in fights with them over their views? Of course not.
I’m a rather orthodox Roman Catholic. Do I spend time on atheist blogs, Evangelical blogs, leftist Catholic blogs, etc. criticizing the content of their views on their own site? Of course not.
So what gives with you guys? “We’re passionate” doesn’t answer my question, as I am passionate about the above interests, but do not fill up comment threads on opposing-viewpoint blogs about them. Neither does “I enjoy a good debate”, as both a) the narrowness of the range of topics of the threads that some ~90%-~95% of your combined comments appear on, and b) the apparent lack of respect and regard that you have for other posters here, testify against it.
I truly worry about you guys. Any insight into your obsession with First Things would be welcome.
JGB
May 31st, 2011 | 6:36 pm
Jerry,
“Perhaps you could contribute a bit more in threads where it’s not apparent that you came looking for a fight, no?”
It seems to me that Boonton, David Nickol, and Ray Ingles are all fulfilling Neuhaus’s dream for this magazine and this site. He wanted a place where serious people, including atheists, could discuss their “prejudices” (Neuhaus’s word). In general, all three of these commenters are fair, judicious, and respectful. They tend to bring in facts and opinions that might otherwise be disregarded. On this particular thread, they’ve been more insightful than the rest, arguing against the illogic they found in Carter’s post.
Carter’s original post was in fact spoiling for a fight, attacking what he called the “Hollywood propaganda machine.” Their responses to his provocation have at least upped the intellectual content of this thread, asking readers to think more deeply about the meaning of Carter’s numbers. The intelligent conservative replies have all come in answer to their posts. Perhaps some gratitude is in order. In the meantime, 47 people have tweeted the post and 31 have “liked” it.
I understand the desire to remain inside the conservative Christian bubble, but Boonton, Nickol, and Ingles are performing a valuable service as they often do.
May 31st, 2011 | 6:48 pm
Well, I note the articel didn’t exactly agree with your numbers and the actual number of homesexual people is differnt than the number of epoele willing to “self-identify” on a survey– the 3.9% figure cited.
The acutual numerbn is higher than that as evidenced by the number of people who have had same sex experiences. From the cited study:
“The two US surveys and the Australian survey all suggest that adults are two to three times more likely to say that they are attracted to individuals of the same-sex or have had same-sex sexual experiences than they are to self-identify as LGB.”
Puts it closer to 9%.
I can see people being off by a factor of 3, without thinking through it. Of the top of my head I know 20 homsexual people. I wouldn’t tink I know 2000 people, but upon reflection, maybe I do.
If the 2% figure is correct, then let’s just forget the same sex marriage issue. it’s not worth fighting about. The numbers are just too insignificant.
May 31st, 2011 | 7:07 pm
Joe Carter is very good at writing.
Not so good at math.
May 31st, 2011 | 8:11 pm
“So what gives with you guys?”
Speaking for myself, I find visiting here a few times a day keeps my mind sharp. There’s entertainment value here. I want to know what the opposition is thinking. I would say that about 20-25% of my comboxing is on conservative blogs. It used to be higher. I get tired of hanging with people who echo what I think or write.
Plus, I’m fascinated that Joe and FT post so often on sex.
May 31st, 2011 | 8:24 pm
Jerry Beckett,
I see what you’re saying and it is curious isn’t it? How on earth anyone has the time or even the desire to spend the amount of time Nickol and Boonton do on this site is odd. I like First Things and they frequent it more than I do! It’s a curious obsession, like talking with oneself, or raging at shadows. In any case, I’ve noticed they are sometimes useful foils in that they parrot typical secular tropes which are can be interesting to see swatted down. So, I guess there is some usefulness to their obsession.
May 31st, 2011 | 8:39 pm
Michael,
You wrote:
I understand the desire to remain inside the conservative Christian bubble”.
You were doing fine until you felt the need to baselessly ascribe to me this desire. As I pointed out in my post, “I also read Huffington Post and the Nation” (the DailyKos is just too much vitriol for me) with what time I have to peruse the internet. I just don’t consistently monitor any given “opposing viewpoint” site for posts I disagree with. In any and every First Thoughts post on abortion or homosexuality, Mr. Nickol and Boonton can be counted on for 1/4 to 1/3 of the comments; on any post dealing with the existence of God, Mr. Ingles can be counted on for about the same percentage of comments.
So while I do understand and practice living outside the “conservative bubble”, I still do not understand the practice of monitoring a specific opposing viewpoint site on a daily or even hourly basis looking for a fight, which can fairly and accurately describe the behavior of Mr. Ingles, Mr. Nickol, and Boonton.
JGB
May 31st, 2011 | 9:21 pm
When something keeps getting repeated, there’s a danger people will begin to think maybe there’s something to it.
What’s with all the comments about FT’s “obsession” with sexual issues?
FT is a journal devoted to cultural issues, yes? And we live in a culture awash, drenched, saturated in teen sex, out-of-wedlock sex, homosexual sex, pornographic sex, television sex, casual sex, serious sex, advertising sex, old folks sex, sex with dead people, live animals, dead animals, trees, bags of lawn mulch, mermaids, sex toys, children. And etc.
FT is obsessed with sexual issues the same way a doctor is obsessed with disease.
May 31st, 2011 | 9:28 pm
Joe Carter is very good at writing. Not so good at math.
Oh my. I had planned to ignore the comments about my math skills because I didn’t think anyone (other than Boonton) was taking that critique seriously. Since some people seem to think it is relevant, let me address the situation.
This all started with Boonton’s claim:
First, there is a good reason to discount the “587 characters” cited by GLAAD. They provide that number and claim it is “regular characters” but never say how they distinguish a “regular” from a “recurring” character. It’s rather convenient that they hit upon a number that just happens to coincide with what they believe to be the percentage of GLBT people in the U.S.
However, even if their numbers are accurate, there is a good reason not to use that as our metric. Let’s consider an alternate situation. Imagine that there are 100 TV shows on primetime. A combined 400 characters appear on 99 of the shows and none of them are gay. However, the 100th show in the ratings is called “99 Gay Men and a Lesbian” and has (you guessed it) 100 GLBT characters.
If you add all these regular characters together you have 20% that are gay. Now what would be the reaction if Christian group claimed that “1 out of 5 characters on TV was a homosexual”? Technically, they would be correct—but they would also be misleading with statistics since the vast majority of TV viewers would never, ever see a gay character.
What matters is not how they clump up together, but how they are distributed across the primetime schedule. That is why I counted the number of shows that had at least one gay character.
Take a look at the primetime schedule. Can you identify a two-hour block on any day that does not include a show with a gay character? No, you can’t. That’s because there are gay characters on almost every single show. No try to identify a two hour block in which openly Christian characters can be found. Is it possible?
May 31st, 2011 | 9:40 pm
From the study found here: http://www.glaad.org/publications/tvreport10/release
“From research and information provided by the five broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC and The CW — GLAAD’s “Where We Are On TV” study reviewed 84 scripted television programs scheduled to air this upcoming season, and counted a total of 587 series regular characters, 23 of which are LGBT.”
- That’s 3.9%, which isn’t off. But let’s explore more. If you click on the side tabs, under diversity you find this:
All information is for the 2010-2011 season, as of September 24, 2010
Total number of series regulars: 587
Number of series regular LGBT characters: 23 (3.9%)
(does not include recurring characters)
Total number of scripted shows: 84
Number of shows with series regular LGBT characters: 17 (20%)
- So maybe he was talking about shows with regular and reoccuring characters? I’m still unsure of his number. That said it gets confusing because the charts titled “Diversity for LGBT characters” totals 53 characters, not 23. Where did the extra 30 come from?
More fun happens when you look at the character breakdown pages. Looking at cable and broadcast you get 17 Leads, 41 Supporting, (58 regular characters) and 32 reoccurring for a full total of 90. Those 58 regulars are contained in 40 shows out of the 84 surveyed. (If you wish to throw in the reoccurings, it is 51 shows). So I guess that is where you got your number, Joe?
Overall, it seems like a lot a numbers not put together very well. Where did the 23 come from verses 58? Why is there diversity data for only 53 characters? How can they say 17 shows when secondary characters, which are regulars, place the number at 40?
I’m guessing a better way of phrasing it, on this data, is that exposure to LGBT characters is at 40/84 shows or 47.6% but actual LGBT character numbers is 58/587 or 9.9%.
May 31st, 2011 | 9:44 pm
Why on earth would someone just want to stick to blogs that reinforce their worldviews? That boggles my mind. Driving needles into one’s arms would be more educative.
May 31st, 2011 | 10:01 pm
==How exactly do you measure that [the ubiquity of homosexuals in the public square]? What is the ‘public square’ when you’re talking about the United States?==
1. I doubt it is a measurable scientific thing at all. I do not regard surveys as reliable instruments for measuring an objective reality. How do you ensure the truthfulness of a respondent, for example? Was Warner’s method used? What about non-response? I do not even know, without seeing the questions asked in the survey, the order of questions, and the method of selection for the sample, that the 25% figure cited is in any way meaningful.
I mean it’s not like social “science” uses micrometers or gas chromatographs like the real sciences.
2. The “public square” is generally taken to include news and magazine stories, commentary by “public thinkers,” editorials, parades, public recognitions, and so on. The prominence with which a character appears may matter as much as his mere appearance. A Nexis-Lexis search on LGBT might be useful; google would not (because too many citations would be people copying and pasting the same story – though that might also be useful). Also the continual mention of LGBT in much political discourse. But one must also take into account the venue, purpose, and context, as well as the slant. For example, a magazine like First Things, which inter alia addresses moral issues, might be expected to address homosexuality more often than a hometown newspaper; whereas the latter will mention the high school football team rather more often.
Random thoughts:
3. TV shows also vastly overrepresent the number of doctors and policemen and lawyers in the population. (Also, an unusual proportion of perps in the crime shows are well-to-do whites and feature way too many “criminal masterminds.”) The telos of a TV show is not to be a statistically representative sample of the general population but to rally eyeballs in front of commercials.
4. I have been told by homosexuals that merely having a “same sex sexual ‘experience’” is not at all the same thing. Ask all those guys in prison. Nor is having affections for other men (or other women) significant. We are, after all, supposed to love everyone. But one way to exaggerate the numbers, if one is so inclined, is to define the category as broadly as possible. (As most famously done in a survey purporting to estimate the level of domestic violence in the US.)
5. Anyone familiar with statistical practice and esp. of risk analysis and related fields understands that respondents tend to exaggerate anything that is unfamiliar or over which they lack personal control. Thus, people rate auto travel as safer than air travel; overrate the danger of nuclear power plants; see McCarthyites under every bed, or commies behind every potted plant.
6. The appropriate statistics for #characters/# shows is not the binomial, but the Poisson. Take the GLAAD figures of 41 characters/84 shows. (I don’t know if these are regular characters only; but GLAAD may have reasons for exaggerating the number.)
6.1. The mean value is c = 41/84 = 0.49 char/show, which rounds up to one such character for every two shows.
6.2 Poisson distribution (which assumes that character orientation is random and not purposeful) predicts that 61% of the shows would have 0 homosexual characters; 30% would have one; 7% would have two; and 1% would have three. Of the 84 shows, this would be : 52, 25, 6, and 1 show, resp.
6.3. However, a missing bit of information is the size of the casts in these shows. This affects what we call “the area of opportunity” for the event to occur. If cast sizes differ by an order of magnitude, the shows are not strictly comparable. Given random occurrence, a larger cast is far more likely to include at least one homosexual in that show.
6.4. There is a significant difference in rate between network and cable, and so the two cannot be legitimately combined into a single figure. That would be like calculating the average number of gonads per person in a sample of men and women.
May 31st, 2011 | 10:23 pm
Folks! This article is about a Gallup Poll. Most of the comments discuss TV and find fault with some math.
The TRUTH is that the American public has been “lied to, spitted on and treated like dirt”. It is not news that TV treats the church like it consists of seven to nine people who are very rigid. But the public has been led astray.
People addicted to homosexual behavior are an objectively disorderd bunch who have lied their way into being treated like a minority. In fact, they are statistically insignificant in numbers.
Roman Catholics, on the other hand, number over 1,000,000,000.
May 31st, 2011 | 11:13 pm
Liam:
Why on earth would someone just want to stick to blogs that reinforce their worldviews? That boggles my mind.
What on earth are you responding to? I wrote that “I still do not understand the practice of monitoring a specific opposing viewpoint site on a daily or even hourly basis looking for a fight”, out of which you have molded the strawman of someone wanting to “stick to blogs that reinforce their worldviews”.
Unbelievable. I give up.
May 31st, 2011 | 11:13 pm
Blake –
Joe? Is that the reason you had in mind?
May 31st, 2011 | 11:29 pm
David Nickol- the fact that religion is absent tells you quite a bit about the environment most TV writers inhabit. Shows on TV do not really reflect ordinary American culture; they reflect the Hollywood subculture. This is why they feature a remarkably small number of Christians, but a large number of gays. As for ‘boycotting TV,’ let me qualify my statement. Certainly, Christians will watch some broadcast TV, especially sports. But most do not watch, for example, the stuff most of the people in my field watch. They did not watch ‘Will and Grace,’ for example; they did not watch ‘Friends.’ The point I was making is that these shows can survive on a parochial viewership: in absolute numbers they can do very well even if their viewership is a fraction of the total U.S. population.
As for the FT ‘obsession’ with sex…I agree with Craig. Sex is everywhere, and liberals have been quite keen on putting it everywhere (schools, TV, liberal churches, etc, etc). So why then complain when conservatives are inclined to respond to it being everywhere? We did not raise the issue.
June 1st, 2011 | 1:30 am
The figure spoken of in the article is a probably a little high. Other than the neferious bay city on the West Coast, a typical American city with a high percentage of homosexuals is around 1.5%
Homosexual women and homosexual men are generally tend to congregate in not the same areas. For instance, Sacramento has women homosexuals whereas San Francisco has male homosexuals. A commonsense blue-collar saying I heard someone say recently is, “Lesbians like straight men.” As a dockworker this reflects the reality.
It’s one of those things that sounds odd to the ear, but reflects a Gospel truth. We who are mired in sin have a deepest longing for spiritual constancy with God. This point is illustrated by a saying I heard a homosexual young man exasperate, “I wish they would leave me alone. Don’t they realise that I don’t to be sexually active.” I have heard variations of this by several young men.
Listen, there will always be folks who come from messed-up situations, whose minds have been bent. There will always be those people who are unable to form friendships in the way most other people do. A homosexual man can never have a normal friendship. He cannot turn to women and he cannot turn to men. He is alone. And, unless he is given the Cross he will despair. The suicide rates among homosexuals is scaryingly high. This is why Christ’s hands and feet were nailed done; to make Himself helpless. In a very real way a homosexual is crucified and the only person who understands their ordeal is Jesus the Christ; God Himself.
Armed with this reflection we should have pity on homosexuals. We should pray for them. Satan hates the Cross, and a homosexual who successfully embraces it, living like Job, saves many, many souls.
June 1st, 2011 | 1:44 am
Is it Nickol and Booton? “be the change we seek!” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbuVa6GEJUg
:)
June 1st, 2011 | 2:31 am
[...] Gallup: “U.S. adults, on average, estimate that 25% of Americans are gay or lesbian.” Link. Why the disconnect between reality and perception? Again, it’s hard to say, but here’s [...]
June 1st, 2011 | 3:44 am
I think Mr. Carter’s point is being lost on a lot of people. A lot of people are arguing that religion isn’t explicitly addressed because they don’t want to alienate audiences or offendt people by depicting, say, a character going to Confession.
OK, so how does that mesh with their exuberance about having openly gay characters?
Better yet, how does that mesh with their exuberance about depicting fornication as “normal.”
I happened to hear a few minutes of _Frasier_ on the Hallmark Channel this evening. It was probably the most dialogue I’ve heard on the show. Nyles was saying how he and his girlfriend were taking things to the “next level.”
Frasier said, “You’re getting engaged???”
“No, the level before that.”
“You’re moving in together????”
“No, the level before that.”
“You’re dating? I knew that.”
“No, that’s two levels down.”
“What are you talking about then?”
After much hemming and hawing, he finally says that he’s talking about intercourse, and Frasier says, “Oh, everyone figured you’d done that already.”
I really don’t buy the argument that Hollywood is afraid of offending people by talking about religion. Characters make disparaging comments about religion on both drama series and sitcoms all the time.
As someone noted, one of the shows that probably best depicts religion on TV these days is _The Simpsons_. _The Office_ has several characters who have been identified as Catholic–Stanley (who is on like his 3rd wife or something and has committed adultery several times); Toby (who’s divorced on the show and played); Darryl (also divorced; and the reference to being Catholic pertained to his daughter and ex-wife, and may not have meant that he is). Then there’s Oscar, the gay Mexican-American, who made references to Jesus before being “outed” on the show, and would presumably be Catholic. Angela, the only outspokenly “Christian” character (noting, of course, that “Christian” is contrasted with “Catholic”, though Angela’s religion has been downplayed in recent seasons) is depicted as an uptight hypocrite.
So I really don’t get the argument that Hollywood writers are afraid of depicting religion for fear of offending people.
June 1st, 2011 | 5:47 am
Listen, there will always be folks who come from messed-up situations, whose minds have been bent. There will always be those people who are unable to form friendships in the way most other people do. A homosexual man can never have a normal friendship.
I do not believe this is true. I do not believe it is true because a person is homosexual.
It becomes true only when the person becomes mired in the culture that is used to trap and enmesh homosexuals.
I have had friendships with homosexual men and women. It is no different from having a friendship with anyone else – until and unless they become so interested in their own homosexuality that there is no room in their life that all they can talk about is their own drama. And the worst part is that they are encouraged to think of this toxic gay culture of narcissism, scapegoating, and single-topic self-interest as synonymous with the state of being a homosexual itself, so that there is no way to talk about the problems of this toxic culture without it sounding like you’re targeting “gay people” (that is, targeting people based on their presumably innate sexual preferences, rather than trying to talk about all the signifiers they have attached to “being gay”).
I used to live in that part of town where all the gays congregated. I had friends who volunteered at the gay center (I never knew exactly what a gay center does, nor what they volunteered to do there, but I can tell you that when your friend starts to go there, that’s the beginning of the end – pretty soon there is nothing the two of you can have in common, that isn’t all about having a Gay Identity). At the huge church that actively courted the community, the minister would give sermons about how to live as Thoreau did (if you go to Walden Pond you can buy an official Thoreau coffee cup for only ten bucks) and then everyone would get to the real business: social justice (aka political activism, mostly focused on gay rights).
What I found was that gay people are nice, normal people – just like you and me – until the political machine known as “the gay community” indoctrinates them, at which point I literally had treasured friendships I had to abandon because the friend stopped being able to talk about or think about anything that was not directly related to being gay. And everything in the universe can be reduced to fitting through this lens, in sort of the same way a really dedicated Marxist critic can turn any work of literature into a statement about the relationship between the owners of production and the proletariat.
It’s like a very toxic church. Imagine a church that is big and powerful enough to suck in entire churches. People come in because they’re lonely, confused, hurting. I never met any of them that had not found their way in after some painful rejection from a loved one (although honestly they are taught to review every interaction within relationship they ever had, actively looking for slights and snubs and things to be wounded about). The higher-ranking crusaders teach them to find comfort in solidarity with others – but only those who live the code – and to get rid of negative emotions by converting them into “action”, which seems to mean “action working to rid the world of anything that isn’t part of the code”.
Sometimes guys get very hung up on what they wear and how they live – literally feeling that being gay includes living a certain way, liking certain films or being interested in certain irrelevant cultural items (like a high school clique only more intense)….
This is not about sex. This is about people whose issue was initially sexual, but who are being preyed on.
At its worst, they can become separated from any society that is not tolerant of their code and its core beliefs, even to the point of becoming unable to tolerate the presence of dissenters. (When this happens in Christian sects, it is rightfully viewed with fear and suspicion.)
There is a false shield up that protects them from hearing criticism – they are actively encouraged to think of anything that isn’t part of the code is hateful, hate directed at them. They are encouraged to see the world as divided into “with us” and “against us”. It is a toxic culture, but politically it is very powerful. And anyone who opposes it becomes the target of some real rage.
June 1st, 2011 | 8:15 am
“Unbelievable. I give up.”
Don’t give up. Read my blog and other liberal blogs. I promise never to call you a troll.
If we’re going to page through tv scripts, let’s also consider that we need to weight FT posts on homosexuality by the numbers of comments they receive. Plus consider that FT wants web traffic as much as anyone. Joe’s no dummy. If his boss says, “It’s a slow day, Joe. Let’s jack up the hit count. Post something homosexual, would you please?” he’s going to do it.
June 1st, 2011 | 9:05 am
Craig Payne wrote:
“FT is a journal devoted to cultural issues, yes? And we live in a culture awash, drenched, saturated in teen sex, out-of-wedlock sex, homosexual sex, pornographic sex, television sex, casual sex, serious sex, advertising sex, old folks sex, sex with dead people, live animals, dead animals, trees, bags of lawn mulch, mermaids, sex toys, children. And etc.
FT is obsessed with sexual issues the same way a doctor is obsessed with disease.”
This made me laugh out loud! ”Bags of lawn mulch”…hilarious!
June 1st, 2011 | 10:10 am
I just discovered Parents Television Council. There are two things of interest—a 2004 report titled Faith in a Box: Entertainment Television and Religion, and the Family Guide to Prime Time Television, which features a list of shows rated as follows:
• [Red] Show may include gratuitous sex, explicit dialogue, violent content, or obscene language, and is unsuitable for children.
• [Yellow] The show contains adult-oriented themes and dialogue that may be inappropriate for youngsters.
• [Green] Family-friendly show promoting responsible themes and traditional values.
• Not yet rated by the PTC.
The family-friendly (green) shows for 5/13/11-5/19/11 were as follows:
Friday Night: Nothing
Saturday Night: Nothing
Sunday Night: Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Minute to Win It
Monday: Nothing
Tuesday: Nothing
Wednesday: Minute to Win It
Thursday: Nothing
Dancing with the Stars, American Idol, Friday Night Lights, America’s Funniest Home Videos, Modern Family, and The Simpsons made it into the yellow category. Glee and basically all the police/crime shows were categorized as red.
In every category (Faith, Institution and Doctrine, Laity, Clergy, and Miscellaneous) of the 2004 report, the combined percentage rankings of Negative and Mixed never exceed Positive and Neutral combined, although in the case of Laity it’s 50-50. Some might look at this as “fair and balanced,” but given the religiosity of the United States, the report considers it unreflective of the country.
At what age (if any) is someone under 18 mature enough to watch a show with a gay character who is sympathetically portrayed? Does Glee belong in the red category?
June 1st, 2011 | 10:28 am
[...] however, but the polled. In a separate post, Joe links to a Gallup survey which found that “Americans Believe There Are More Homosexuals in the U.S. Than There Are Catholics.” Joe blames [...]
June 1st, 2011 | 10:51 am
I rejoin with 82(!) comments on this FT “obsession” with gays/sex. Yet, a disproportionate number of the comments are by the same small set of “liberal” contributors. I think that says more about these contributors than it does about FT readers in general, let alone Joe. I note they are less likely to comment if the post is not about sex.
BTW, I think Joe’s math is fine here. The early go-round about the “wrong” denominator showed those contributors hadn’t read Joe’s post in detail. Shows was the numerator and the denominator in the original. Maybe it’s not Joe’s skills that should be in question.
June 1st, 2011 | 11:18 am
[...] More Homosexuals Than Catholics? – Well, that’s what one survey concludes most Americans believe. Hard to argue with the results. While the results are based on people’s perception, sometimes perception is reality. [...]
June 1st, 2011 | 11:40 am
Mike P
but to say that there are more gay characters on TV than in the population is to state the obvious.
Except the numbers prove you wrong. At 3.9% you can’t say there are more gay characters on TV than in the population unless you want to quibble about something like a percent or so of ‘slots’ that would go to bisexuals if we had some type of super fine affirmative action czar who was keeping fictional character demographics a perfect match w/the US population.
In terms of hostility to religion, I again call attention to the striking shortage of non-Christian characters.
Jerry
Out of curiosity, what other blogs do you patrol on a daily basis for posts that you disagree with in order to inundate with comments? Perhaps you could contribute a bit more in threads where it’s not apparent that you came looking for a fight, no?
Actually I look to be proven wrong which is why I’m happy to make a point once but not (much) more than that.
I’m a rather orthodox Roman Catholic. Do I spend time on atheist blogs, Evangelical blogs, leftist Catholic blogs, etc. criticizing the content of their views on their own site? Of course not.
My thinking generally is that we are all biased creations who tend to ingore evidence that disputes our beliefs and embrace evidence that does (i.e. confirmation bias). This post is an example of that, note how Joe leaped on the 50% of shows metric because it confirms his belief in a “Hollywood propaganda machine ” while ignoring the 3.9% figure which is much less impressive. He likewise ignored the fact that Americans answered nearly the same way when asked the question 10 years ago with fewer gay shows and fewer gay characters and he ignored the overestimating Americans do of other minorities. All these items were ignored even though they were in the very articles Joe was citing. Now my motive here is simply mutual benefit. I point out the flaws in your thinking that you’re likely to overlook, in exchange I hope to see some of my flaws pointed out to me by people who are quite incentivized to see them. I find the idea of reading blogs who agree with me to be very boring (although sometimes valuable). You go the opposite direction, that’s are really all there is to it, no big plot of conspiracy here.
That and sometimes I’m not really arguing with anyone, just putting out some ideas motivated by the discussion. For example, the reason why TV characters are usually extremely non-denominational.
And let’s go to the man of honor, Joe:
First, there is a good reason to discount the “587 characters” cited by GLAAD. They provide that number and claim it is “regular characters” but never say how they distinguish a “regular” from a “recurring” character. It’s rather convenient that they hit upon a number that just happens to coincide with what they believe to be the percentage of GLBT people in the U.S.
The GLAAD story was not some great piece of research to begin with. IMO it’s a weak piece that argues for a point they like (there’s more gays on TV) and at the same time works for you (the machine is pusshing more gays on us). But there apparantly is a more comprehensive report they issue at the end of each year (The Network Responsibility Index), I would imagine though the distinction between a regular and recurring character isn’t so hard. Archie Bunker was a regular character on All in the Family. The next door Jeffersons were a recurring character until they went off and got their own show. Likewise the criminal or patient of the week on House or Law and Order is neither a regular or recurring character.
However, even if their numbers are accurate, there is a good reason not to use that as our metric. Let’s consider an alternate situation. Imagine that there are 100 TV shows on primetime. A combined 400 characters appear on 99 of the shows and none of them are gay. However, the 100th show in the ratings is called “99 Gay Men and a Lesbian” and has (you guessed it) 100 GLBT characters.
But here’s the thing Joe. If you have 3.9% of characters there’s only so many ways you can distribute them. If you lump them into one ‘super gay show’, well then all other shows will have no gay characters. Likewise if you spread them out over many shows then you can’t quite create the impression anywhere that more than 3.9% of the population is gay, let alone 20% or 25%! Recall your original thesis was that gay characters were driving the impression that there’s more gay people than there really are.
Quick aside:
FT is obsessed with sexual issues the same way a doctor is obsessed with disease.
Not really. If Joe is right that only a tiny, tiny, portion of the population is gay then FT is like a quack doctor obsessed with some rare cancer while he ignores his overweight patients with clogged arteries, diabetes and chronically smoking. While Joe and FT have written about divorce and, say, pornography, I bet you’ll find an equal or greater number of posts relating in some way to gays than those other topics which presumably impact a much greater portion of the US population. (BTW, I wonder what portion of TV characters are divorced?)
Take a look at the primetime schedule. Can you identify a two-hour block on any day that does not include a show with a gay character? No, you can’t. That’s because there are gay characters on almost every single show. No try to identify a two hour block in which openly Christian characters can be found. Is it possible?
By channel or anywhere on the TV? Right off the bat I see huge swaths of time devoted to game shows. NCIS & Law & Order have no gay characters that I’m aware of and they too consume big blocks of time.
As for ‘openly Christian’ characters, I think by default all characters depicted as ‘regular American types’ are fairly assumed to be Christian. See my previous posts about marketing driving most TV characters to be as generic as possible in some respects. Perhaps most importantly, to your argument, this is not some modern development but an old one. I challenged readers here to idenfity the religions of characters from 1950′s and 60′s TV too and it’s often difficult to impossible. For the same reason it’s almost as rare to find a TV character whose ‘openly’ a Republican or Democrat (the two exceptions I can think of were All in the Family and Family Ties, both shows that have been off the air for decades). As was noted before even shows that explicitly are targeting religion friendly audiences keep their religion so generic its almost impossible to pin them down as ‘openly Christian’ (see Touched by an Angel, Highway to Heaven, and 7th Heaven).
June 1st, 2011 | 12:09 pm
If we’re worried about TV accurately representing America – then why do all shows, with very few exceptions, portray the characters as upper-middle class or rich, with the characters spending lavish sums of money on high-end bars, spontaneous plane tickets, top-of-the line technology and clothing? Think of it, almost every show’s main characters live in large suburban houses, or upscale Manhattan apartments. The only (off the air) shows that I can think of that actually show the middle class are Roseanne and That 70′s Show, and many people would probably call Roseanne’s family poor, even though they’re middle class. Why not have a show with middle class (or God-forbid, poor) people, to accurately represent American demographics? What kind of message does it send that “normal” is actually the richer minority that spends freely? But, no, can’t talk about the majority of Americans be unrepresented, instead we have to talk about gays being slightly over-represented.
June 1st, 2011 | 12:37 pm
John C Hathaway
I think Mr. Carter’s point is being lost on a lot of people. A lot of people are arguing that religion isn’t explicitly addressed because they don’t want to alienate audiences or offendt people by depicting, say, a character going to Confession.
I do think the Bill Donohue effect is a factor. Unless you want to deal directly with religion or purposefully court the publicity that controversy generates, there’s not much to be gained by putting a Catholic in your TV show. The moment you do all you will get is people like you alleging that the Catholic character is really an attack on Catholics so unless you make your character a perfect person, you might as well not bother. Or you’ll get hints of character’s religions that are relatively minor. For example, the detective that played opposite Jerry Orbach, mentioned in an episode I caught in reruns that him and his wife don’t use birth control because they are Catholic. But you prove the point nicely with your examination of The Office. Stanley’s Catholic, he’s had multiple wifes and has affairs therefore it’s just Catholic Bashing! Again if you’re writing a light comedy why even bother? But then The Office has been going for half a decade with more or less the same characters. At some point backstories have to get filled in and when they do my ‘default Christian’ argument holds. In generall all TV characters are Christian unless explicitly stated otherwise.
Mike P’s comment, I think, reveals that you both are just not getting it. His comment was “Shows on TV do not really reflect ordinary American culture; they reflect the Hollywood subculture. ”
But now really think about it. John just cited Fraiser. If you watched Fraiser or the original character from Cheers, you’d know that the entire premise of the show was to laugh AT Fraiser and his equally pompous brother. I suppose pompus therepists are encountered more by Hollywood writers than, say, rural farmers, but the shows purpose was not to glorify the therapist but to gently mock him. Likewise note that Brian the atheist dog from Family Guy more often than not ends up the butt of mockery for his pretentious intellecutalism.
Likewise the reason The Office is such a big hit is because it strikes as so true to life. There really is something delightfully absurd about ‘office culture’ and the radically different people it brings together and forces to work together under a facade of forced professionalism. I mean is Toby on The Office not a totally sympathetic character? Here’s a guy who originally wanted to be a monk or priest, got married but his wife left him. He tries to do the right thing but is hounded by his lunatic boss. The episode where they discovered the files he kept of everyone who came to him with complaints about co-workers was not only hysterical, it was also kind of sad to think that this guy who can’t ever score a break is the Office’s de facto counselor that everyone brings their heartache too…. Look if all you see when you look at Toby is “Hollywood bashing Catholics or Christians” well you have a serious mental problem. You are totally tone deaf.
I think a major problem with the hole “Hollywood bias” meme is that it misses what appears to be an important truth. Liberals in general seem to be better at fiction than conservatives and end up having more sympathy for their subjects. All in the Family, for example, had a huge amount of affection for Archie Bunker. The people who wrote it, though, were more represented by Michael, but you could tell the show cared little for him. Oliver Stone’s movie about George Bush, likewise, you’d expect to be reaking with hatred but ended up surprisingly sympathetic IMO.
More often than not, the entertainment I’ve seen produced from a right leaning perspective is either sickeningly sappy at best or outright propaganda at worst. I think the carping about ‘agendas’ reveals the problem. I think the goal of the creators of, say, The Office or Family Guy are to capture a bit of truth in their work, not push an ‘agenda’. If you approach fiction, even light comedy fiction, as an ‘agenda’ driven process you’re not going to get far beyond 700 Club style niche stuff.
June 1st, 2011 | 12:46 pm
David,
I’m kind of skeptical of the PTC’s ‘rating’ system. I think in general The Simpsons is probably better for a kid to watch than gameshows….which if you bother to think about it is just glorified gambling. While there’s no sex or violence it is a lot of taudy materialism. I suspect the PTC’s system rests upon an unsupported assumption that any violence or adult ‘inside jokes or references’ are the worst thing possible for a kid to consume in fiction. In reality traditional children’s literature doesn’t back that up in the slightest.
There is also a factor in that TV has changed radically. The Networks used to literally own TV with cable stations playing 2nd fiddle. Now most people watch specialized channels. The kids I’ve seen gravitate right to the 24-7 kids channels. Unlike 1985, ‘prime time’ on the broadcast networks simply doesn’t have as many kids as it used too.
June 1st, 2011 | 1:47 pm
Think of it, almost every show’s main characters live in large suburban houses, or upscale Manhattan apartments.
Stohn,
True!
Average rents in Manhattan (doorman building):
Studio: $2,367
One Bedroom: $3,428
Two Bedrooms: $5,327
But, no, can’t talk about the majority of Americans be unrepresented, instead we have to talk about gays being slightly over-represented.
Off the top of my head, the only really poor people I can recall seeing on television were on Sanford & Son.
June 1st, 2011 | 1:55 pm
[...] Apparently, this same survey also showed that US adults estimate that 25% of the US population is gay! More gays that Catholics, or blacks, or hispanics! Hah! The actual figure is 1 or 2%! Read [...]
June 1st, 2011 | 2:16 pm
I think that says more about these contributors than it does about FT readers in general, let alone Joe. I note they are less likely to comment if the post is not about sex.
Mike,
I am not sure it’s correct to say Joe’s post was about sex. It was a “culture war” post, the premise of which was that the “Hollywood propaganda machine,” by making 3.9% of scripted characters on television gay, had successfully fooled the American people into believing that 25% of the general population was homosexual. And furthermore, this was some kind of anti-Christian effort on the part of Hollywood, the possible implication being that one either has to choose between gays or Christianity. I am sure Joe did not explicitly mean to imply this, but the impression one gets is that if it weren’t for gay characters on television, all of prime-time television would be family fare. In the entire discussion (as best I can recall without going back and rereading it) there was one objection to television depicting sex before marriage. There were no objections to violence or anything else objectionable on television. There were two complaints: (1) gay characters and (2) lack of Christian characters, as if these were flip sides of the bad penny that is television. From the liberal point of view, Joe’s post was “red meat” for the people who agree with him. It is no surprise at all that the more liberal commenters took strong exception to it.
I would say (from my certainly liberal perspective) that First Things bloggers have a “thing” about gay people and atheists. The gay people “thing” is a culture war issue (and a visceral response), and the atheist “thing” seems to be a genuine bafflement that anyone can disbelieve in God that goes so deep that atheists are regarded as a separate class of human beings (if not aliens). I am not an atheist myself (most of the time, anyway), but I find the view of atheism so strange that it is always my first instinct to side with atheists just to even up the odds.
June 1st, 2011 | 2:47 pm
Todd:
Don’t give up. Read my blog and other liberal blogs. I promise never to call you a troll.
I already do read about the even amount from the right and left, which I mentioned a couple of posts ago. You are now the third commenter to twist my statement that I have neither the time, energy, nor inclination to trawl opposing viewpoint blogs on a hourly/daily basis looking to engage in an argument and inundate it with comments into me avoiding liberal content.
Congratulations.
June 1st, 2011 | 2:53 pm
Boonton:
I think the carping about ‘agendas’ reveals the problem. I think the goal of the creators of, say, The Office or Family Guy are to capture a bit of truth in their work, not push an ‘agenda’. If you approach fiction, even light comedy fiction, as an ‘agenda’ driven process you’re not going to get far beyond 700 Club style niche stuff.
Boy, did you pick the wrong day to write that. Posted today:
http://tv.yahoo.com/blog/tv-executives-admit-in-taped-interviews-that-hollywood-pushes-a-liberal-agenda–3086
Your denial and spin will be entertaining.
June 1st, 2011 | 3:24 pm
So while I do understand and practice living outside the “conservative bubble”, I still do not understand the practice of monitoring a specific opposing viewpoint site on a daily or even hourly basis looking for a fight, which can fairly and accurately describe the behavior of Mr. Ingles, Mr. Nickol, and Boonton.
Jerry Beckett,
I remember reading a story once that I am unable to find, so I will summarize it (badly, no doubt). A rabbi and his neighbor, an atheist, spent an enormous amount of time together having heated arguments about whether or not God existed. After this had gone on for years, someone finally got fed up and berated them for their pointless waste of time, arguing constantly when neither had any reasonable chance of convincing the other. The rabbi and the atheist both turned on the person and protested that what they were doing was a waste of time. The point was that while they didn’t agree on the answer, they both were in complete agreement about the great importance of the question. I was raised Catholic, and while it’s a rare person who would believe me if I claimed to be Catholic at this point in my life, by education and by personal beliefs, the issued discussed on First Things, the two blogs at America Magazine, dotCommonweal, Vox Nova, Mirror of Justice, and Catholic Moral Theology are the ones I am interested in discussing. I am often in disagreement with the “orthodox” positions, but frequently my disagreements don’t amount to saying “you’re wrong” but rather asking how certain positions can be reconciled with other positions, or with things I was taught in the past that now turn out not to be as true as when I was in Catholic school. As a younger, conservative Catholic, you may not have as much of a sense as I do (having gone to school in the 1950s and early 1960s) how much has changed. You may not have experienced how the simple answers in the old Baltimore Catechism have either turned out to be wrong, or have turned out to be vast oversimplifications.
I can’t imagine anything more boring than finding a atheist forum where everyone discussed how God didn’t exist, or even a gay forum where everyone discussed, from an anti-Catholic perspective, how wrong the Catholic Church was about homosexuality (even though I think they are). Such forums wouldn’t engage the questions in the way I am accustomed to looking at them. When I talk to people who are not interested in these issues the same way I am, and I try to explain a point that I am arguing against, people tend either to get angry that I don’t just dismiss it out of hand, or they are bored to tears. So while you find me hostile, others find me really strange for taking people like yourself and Joe Carter seriously enough to argue with, and if I try very carefully to lay out the argument I disagree with, people say, “You’re taking their side!” I am always puzzled when people (especially Catholics, who are so certain they have the Truth and are supposed to be spreading the Good News) seem to wish I would go away rather than stick around and listen to what they have to say.
No one, by the way, is forced to read a particular thread at all, or every message in a thread. There are certain people who exasperate me, but I would never request that they stop writing or find another forum where they would feel more at home. I can just skip over their messages if I don’t find them worth reading. Also, just because some of us write more message than others does not mean that anybody is being crowded out. “Submission by attrition,” if I understand your meaning, works only if people feel obligated to respond to every point in every message. If somebody says something (or a lot of things) that are unhelpful to the discussion, they can just be ignored. I have never seen a thread in which someone couldn’t write enough because someone else had written too much. It is not as if we are all speaking at an event that is limited in time and there’s only one microphone.
June 1st, 2011 | 4:31 pm
Mr. Nickol:
While I do not find you “hostile” and have nowhere suggested that you “stop writing or find another forum”, your thoughtful comment nevertheless highlights a perception gap in how you view your commenting habits and how I view them. You claim that your wish is discussion of issues – though you seem to put most of your energy into disparaging the “orthodox” positions on abortion and homosexuality, then claiming it’s FT with the ‘thing’ for sex. Like Mr. Ingles with “existence of God” threads, the narrowness of the focus of your energy would lead a reasonable person to describe your behavior here as less “discussion of issues” and more as “riding your hobby horse”. And it’s not like some of my fellow ND fans/alums on ndnation.com who post there about ND sports and occasionally get incensed over certain issues (just bring up “Jumbotron” on an ndnation.com board to see what I mean); it’s more like your primary interest in this blog is finding dissent from your position and unloading the full barrage of your keypad. And I just don’t get that kind of argument-trawling.
To save you the time of penning another long post detailing the purity of your motives, and the possible inferences about and ascriptions towards mine, I grant that I have no doubt that you view your commenting and motivations behind it as you described above, and that you are passionate and articulate in your views. Which brings me to the even more important question: For the love of God, where do you find the time?
Have a nice week,
JGB
June 1st, 2011 | 4:48 pm
Re: Commenting about sex…..
I never said my interests represent some perfect demographic mirror of my town, my state or the US or the world. I comment whenever I take an interest in a subject. I’ve recently had long discussions on economics, whether or not the FDA inhibits cheap medical innovations, a really long conversation about the economics of the Empire in Star Wars…..
Joe however argued from an affirmative action viewpoint that ‘TV should look like America’. Well then how come FT shouldn’t ‘look like America’ or Joe’s posts for that matter? At less than 5% of the population why is FT running 16% gay and Joe running 11% gay or so? The counter was that FT is focused on trying to counter sinfulness…..but then you can’t have it both ways. If gays are such a tiny portion of the population then doing ‘gay stuff’ is only a tiny portion of the sins people are doing. (Unless of course harping on gays is a modern variation on plucking the splinter from thy brother’s eye…)
I think ‘tv should look like’ what Americans want to watch. We like stories about lawyers, cops, doctors because they are great fodder for drama and conflict. Last time I checked, TV shows were supplied in a free market and most of us are paying nearly $100 a month or more for our ‘TV’ which is coming to us on TV’s as well as by the internet, Netflix, cell phones and more. So no I’m not going to buy easily that ‘The Office’ would make more money with a few devout model Catholics but NBC Executives woudl rather forgoe profits to push the gay Mexican character to further their ‘liberal agenda’.
June 1st, 2011 | 5:04 pm
I would say (from my certainly liberal perspective) that First Things bloggers have a “thing” about gay people and atheists.
Gay activists and atheists are violating our boundaries – many of their leaders have outright said that Christianity needs to be “banished from the public square”.
I do have a “thing” about people who are aggressive, who violate boundaries.
When gay activists, atheists, humanists, etc. are willing to reciprocate, we can talk about “tolerance”, “respect”, blah blah blah. But they’re not willing to reciprocate. “Coexist” means we should coexist with them – never the other way around.
June 1st, 2011 | 5:49 pm
Jerry Beckett May 31 6:28pm–
I was thinking the same thing. But it’s not an obsession so much as it is an attempt (by what I assume are Christian liberals) to lead traditional-minded but weak-minded Christians away from their beliefs about homosexuality. By weak-minded I mean ordinary Christians who don’t really understand the basis for their beliefs and who have never taken seriously (being typically intellectually lazy Americans) the biblical injunction to “give a reason for the hope that is in you.” These are the ones who might gravitate to a liberal way of thinking about homosexuality under a barrage of what might fairly be called commenter propoganda.
The style of argumentation employed by the Christian liberals seems to me to deserve this harsh description. That their comments are covered over with niceness is all the more deceiving. I hope someone–perhaps an academic who has time for it–will take the trouble to expose the logical sleights of hand and clever mendacities so often used by the Christian liberals in their arguments for homosexuality. An interesting book could be written on this subject just using the First Things online material.
June 1st, 2011 | 6:05 pm
I feel obliged to give an example of what I mean by propaganda. All too commonly, the liberals say that we (the defenders of the western tradition in regard to homosexuality and marriage) are treating marriage as if it is all about sex–after all, we insist that procreation is crucial to the very idea of marriage. At first, I was a little flummoxed by this. I denied that it was true, but the criticism of “reducing” marriage and love to mere acts of sex still stung. And then I thought of a good analogy.
The purpose of marriage/the military is procreation/national defense. But to say so is not to *reduce* marriage/the military to sex/war. Sex/war is the means to procreation/national defense, but is not as such the heart of marriage/the military–not what marriage/the military is for.
Just a little clarity on an important point . . .
June 1st, 2011 | 7:25 pm
And I just don’t get that kind of argument-trawling.
Jerry Beckett:
And I don’t get commenters who don’t stick to discussing the topic of the thread, but try to make other commenters (be it me, Boonton, or Ray Ingles) the topic of conversation. I have looked back over your ten messages (this will be my twelfth), and I can’t find one actual comment on the question Joe Carter posed: What do you think? Should we give the Hollywood propaganda machine credit for effectiveness or can we pin the blame for this one on America’s math teachers?
I am not the issue here, nor is Boonton or Ray Ingles. The issue was raised by Joe Carter, and many of us have been discussing it, while you have been making what don’t even amount to ad hominem arguments, since you’re not discussing the topic of the thread. You are just complaining about the people who are.
June 1st, 2011 | 9:16 pm
It would be unfair to lay it all at the door of math teachers and television programming. Do not PACs get a bit of the credit? A representative voice (3.9%) is less powerful than an equal voice (50%).
June 1st, 2011 | 9:30 pm
KenZ
The style of argumentation employed by the Christian liberals seems to me to deserve this harsh description. That their comments are covered over with niceness is all the more deceiving.
This may be difficult but you should cite the actual arguments being made by actual people and explain what their flaws are. If it will help I’ll try to be less nice to you in the future but arguments should stand and fall on their own, not the niceness of those who make them. More importantly, you should be able to articulate why you find an argument good or bad.
For example,
All too commonly, the liberals say that we (the defenders of the western tradition in regard to homosexuality and marriage) are treating marriage as if it is all about sex–after all, we insist that procreation is crucial to the very idea of marriage.
Exactly who has made this argument and where?
Blake
Gay activists and atheists are violating our boundaries – many of their leaders have outright said that Christianity needs to be “banished from the public square”.
So the disporportionate coverage in FT of gays has to do with a sense of entitlement. That’s an interesting restatement from Craig Payne who said, “FT is obsessed with sexual issues the same way a doctor is obsessed with disease.” It’s refreshing to see some backing away from the assertion that the motives here were more charitable.
David
And I don’t get commenters who don’t stick to discussing the topic …
It is amusing to see commenters commenting aghast that comments are posted in the comment section of a blog.
See what I think is happening with some here is that they are upset that the script was upset. What was supposed to happen was this. Joe posts that Americans think there’s more gay people than there really are and he blames too many gay characters on TV. Then everyone is supposed to pat him on the back and bemoan the vast left wing conspiracy to hijack the culture. After that died down, maybe some liberal blogs would bother to post about the shoddy problems with Joe’s thesis (and they are still there, there’s no overrepresentation of gays on tv, no underrepresentation of Christians, Americans were overestimating gays before there were as many gay characters and they overestimate other minorities) but by then attention would have drived elsehwere.
Instead the narrative was stopped almost immediately in the very first comments on the very blog that’s supposed to be ‘friendly to the cause’. This is all very frustrating I’m sure in the sense that if you’re fan of a football team there seems to be something deeply unfair about watching a brillant play ruined by the other side intercepting the ball and scoring on them. But if you’re a fan of football before being a fan of the team you want to see both sides play the best game possible and interceptions are part of that.
June 1st, 2011 | 9:55 pm
BTW, trying to veer back to the actual topic here, over on http://www.pseudopolymath.com/?p=4981&cpage=1#comment-88174 we have a discussion going about what % of the population is gay. As it turns out the CDC has a pretty extensive study of sexual behavior out and the long and short of it is it depends on how you define gay.
1.5% or so seems to be a lower bound of only counting people who say they are gay. I think its a lower bound because there’s probably more gay people who deny being gay than straight people who falsely claim to be gay.
6% seems a reasonable upper bound for men, that’s the portion in this survey who claim to have had any same sex experiences. I say its an upper bound because we know there are men who are mostly straight who have had some experiences, although you may have gay men who never have sex who may not be captured here….but I think that population is small so 6% is an upper bound.
So basically between 1.5% and 6% or so any number you want to say is probably pretty reasonable depending upon how tight you want your definition to be…(for example do you insist that men who say they are ‘mostly attracted’ to men are not really gay since they occassionally want to be with a woman?). At that point 3.9% or so of TV characters is not only not overrepresenting gays, it’s actually pretty surprisingly in proportion with the overall population considering that in the writing and entertainment fields there’s probably a higher proportion of gays than in the general population. If anything Joe should be patting Hollywood on the back for being ‘demographically correct’ in the number of gays its putting up!
Now in terms of underrepresenting Christians, I’m still waiting for my list of 50 or so Buddhist and atheist TV characters that I would be owed with a quota based system of TV character creation!
June 1st, 2011 | 10:29 pm
Apparently I’m not obsessed enough, since I missed this until now.
The thing is, I do enjoy a good debate. There are very few places on the Internet where one can have a discussion about things that people care intensely about that doesn’t descend rapidly into cuss words. First Things is one such place.
As to ‘apparent lack of respect and regard’, I’d be interested if you can point up some examples on my part. I prize civil discourse, so while I don’t tend to have mercy about ideas I’d like to know if I’ve overstepped those bounds and attacked people…
June 2nd, 2011 | 12:33 am
David, Boonton, and Ray,
What occurs to me at this moment is the high quality of your comments and their thoughtfulness.
Previous liberal commentators on this site were people like Brettongarcia and Papalinton, who were basically bomb-throwers. They’d say something outrageous, just hoping to tick people off. They weren’t really interested in engaging ideas the way you all are.
On this thread, each of you have gone off to do a little homework, read something more about the subject, and bring back some new information to add to the mix. What you’ve received in reply is mostly restatements of various points with very little real engagement in return. It’s a shame because I think real engagement does produce deeper thinking. It’s too bad it’s all flowing in one direction on this particular thread.
On the other side, I think David captures Jerry well when he observes that Jerry hasn’t actually commented on Carter’s claim, which is too bad because I have the feeling that Jerry could actually be a good conversant if he weren’t so defensive. Blake, on the other hand, is just a bomb-thrower himself. He likes large exaggerations and seems intolerant of exploring any kind of nuance. But I’m most disappointed in Ken Z. He and I had a wonderful conversation that lasted a week I think, but he seems to have gone over to the other side. And by that I mean that he’s become more interested in thinking the worst of people than in thinking out loud with them.
In the meantime, 261 people have logged in to say they like Carter’s comment. It’s all about reflex for some.
June 2nd, 2011 | 4:40 am
Boonton,
First, your reply to me is an excellent example of what’s wrong with using “you” as a hypothetical pronoun. “You can’t put a Catholic character on TV without someone like you” . . . .
First of all, someone like me? You presume to know me from one post?
I happen to love _The Office_. Never really watched _Frasier_ and have mixed feelings for _Cheers_ but merely pointed to the scene as an example of society’s attitudes.
Flawed characters are fine. I’m not talking about that.
You’re making a straw man argument. I don’t think you’ll ever see a press release from Bill Donohue attacking a show for *positively* depicting a Catholic who is theologically and morally orthodox. The problem is that when orthodox Catholics, or conservative Evangelicals are depicted, they are *always* depicted as nutjobs and hypocrites and violent terrorists. My point is not that Stanley is a “bad Catholic”; heck, Toby’s the voice of moral authority on the show, and he’s Catholic. My point is that the only kind of Catholic Hollywood writers are comfortable with is a bad one.
It is nonsense to say that Bill Donohue makes Hollywood phobic to mention religion. Bill Donohue makes Hollywood phobic to talk about the kind of Christianity they *like*.
They claim to represent “real life.” Yet the “real life” depicted in most TV shows and movies is skewed towards the world that Hollywood elites live in, and, by their own admission (see also the recent articles about Ben Shapiro’s collection of interviews with studio execs), they will not admit conservative world views, which they consider to be “stupid” and “medieval” and “intolerant.”
Thus, you have a situation where people fornicate and never get STDs–or merely joke about them if they do, where there is a “gay” person in every prominent group (and if you think the 25% figure is an inaccurate view of what people think, you haven’t talked to most young people these days), etc.
Maybe the average American does presume the characters they see are Christian unless otherwise mentioned. But what kind of Christians? The kind who get married in fields by female ministers reading the KJV Psalm 23. It’s a vague, Masonic, cultural Christianity that has no real importance.
They think it’s so darned important to represent GLBT people, but they refuse to represent sincere Evangelicals and Catholics. Even if we’re only 3% of the population (and I know we’re far more than that), we should still be at least as influential. If fairness and representing a microcosm of society is what these people are about, then for every gay person you see on TV, you should see at least one happily married Catholic, Mormon or “full Quiver” Protestant with 7+ kids (and not depicted as a loser who hates his wife and kids but feels trapped).
Flannery O’Connor said the Christian writer should write with Christianity as the lens through which he or she sees the world. It’s not so much important to have perfect characters doing perfect things as to make sure the world you show reflects how the world really is. Hollywood elites live in a dreamworld and depict that on TV. The old escapism was represented in the idyllic suburbia of the Nelsons, Stones, Andersons and Cleavers. The new escapism is that people can do drugs and have illicit sex without any real consequences.
June 2nd, 2011 | 9:01 am
Am I a bomb-thrower? Let’s compare insults. You’ve lobbed three insults at me in just that one post. How many have I lobbed at you? (BTW sorry you can’t refute my claims. It must hurt to be wrong. But, at least it gives you a pretext for hurling accusations and insults at me – all the while projecting what you’re doing, so that you don’t have to feel bad about being a “bomb-thrower” LOL)
June 2nd, 2011 | 9:04 am
Someone has asked about Hindu and Buddhist characters:
a)Both Hinduism and Buddhism are depicted favorably on _The Simpsons_.
b)Westernized versions of Hinduism and Buddhism are *far* more likely to be depicted in a positive light. Yoga, for example, is everywhere on TV and movies. You’ll hardly ever see a movie where people are praying the Rosary or fasting on Fridays, but boy, Yoga and mantras and tantras are everywhere. Buddhist monks are always depicted as the standard of holiness and spirituality. Catholic monks are mostly shown to depict them as hypocrites and sexual abusers.
I don’t know where New Age beliefs fit in, but New Agers are everywhere.
Liz Lemon on _30 Rock_ worships Oprah, and she seems to represent a significant portion of Americans.
b) Atheists. It is absolute Gospel on TV that smart = atheist. Right off the top of my head:
Greg House
Temperance Brennan
Adrian Monk (inconsistent)
Using _The Office_ again, apparently Gabe and Oscar are both atheists, but I’ve seen every episode and don’t recall the reference.
Here is the list of TV atheists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fictitious_atheists_and_agnostics
June 2nd, 2011 | 12:16 pm
John
The problem is that when orthodox Catholics, or conservative Evangelicals are depicted, they are *always* depicted as nutjobs and hypocrites and violent terrorists. My point is not that Stanley is a “bad Catholic”; heck, Toby’s the voice of moral authority on the show, and he’s Catholic. My point is that the only kind of Catholic Hollywood writers are comfortable with is a bad one.
But as far as I can tell Toby seems to be pretty orthodox. Yes he is divorced, but the impression I get is that his wife left him not the other way around. He appears to want to date so he has compromised slightly from strict Catholic Orthodoxy but if we are considering Joe’s demand for TV that ‘looks like America’ that looks like a lot of even relatively faithful Catholics. Angela is an uptight nutjob, but she appears to not belong to any particular denomination and if anything is sort of like the female mirror of Dwight whose just an amazingly odd person. Being an ensamble comedy about dysfunctional office life, all the characters need to be at least partially flawed.
From the point of view of a TV writer, though, this is all minor stuff. The show’s been on air for 5+ years and backstories need to be developed but they are relatively safe from the Donohue wrath. Imagine pitching an ‘Office’ style show that’s set in a Catholic seminary. It would be a relatively light comedy, not a serious drama like The Sopranos. Perhaps you have a writer or two who were former members of a seminary who can bring some funny true life stories to the mix as well as some ideas for funny characters. I don’t think Donohue would let it get off the ground and unless the producers were sure they had a hit, were sure they had a great show instead of a dud, they probably wouldn’t care to try it. They’d probably say whats the upside? Non-Catholics may not associate with the Catholic theme and if Catholics themselves are just going to complain….well why bother do another show about lawyers where almost everyone’s a ‘generic Christian’. Maybe I shouldn’t have said ‘people like you’ but I think you have to admit its fair to say that there’s at least a little bit of that element in the mix, it’s not just all about “liberal elitist Hollywood” types just not wanting to depict anyone whose serious about religion. While it’s not light drama but serious drama, I think Big Love demonstrates that the entertainment industry can do a great job seriously exploring religious characters and that’s a religious minority of a religious minority!
Thus, you have a situation where people fornicate and never get STDs–or merely joke about them if they do, where there is a “gay” person in every prominent group (and if you think the 25% figure is an inaccurate view of what people think, you haven’t talked to most young people these days), etc.
Well we already covered the gay people, at 3.9% of gay characters TV is just about ‘demographically correct’. In terms of the other things, well let’s think about the shows I’ve watched. Family Guy has mostly monogamous characters. Peter’s father-in-law was caught in an affair. to the disapproval of all other major characters. A next door neighbor is a chronic fornicator but he’s written to be the butt of jokes. The dog Brian does date (and he’s viewed as pseudo-human as he dates people not dogs) and its implied he has sex but its with steady girlfriends….probably not too far from ‘looking like America’….except for the wacky cartoon elements of course. The Office has had a few affairs going on, the most important one being Pam and Jim but that culminated in marriage. Stanley’s affair resulted in the other characters staging an intervention. House does have a lot of fornicating by its lead character, even with prostitutes. But House is a dysfunctional, bitter, drug addicted genius and the show rarely misses an opportunity to depict how angry and unhappy he is. He doesn’t seem to worry about STDs but since he’s able to tell you have diabetes by the way you wear your hat I suppose he doesn’t have too.
They think it’s so darned important to represent GLBT people, but they refuse to represent sincere Evangelicals and Catholics. Even if we’re only 3% of the population (and I know we’re far more than that), we should still be at least as influential.
But you just said Toby is a sincere Catholic! House, for a while, had a sincere Mormon as one of his team members. I think the issue here, though, is that marketing for the most part does not like characters that deviate too much from the ‘generic Christian’ type. The problem with the ‘generic Christian’, though, is that you can’t push the character to be too sincere without having to start answering some questions like what type of Christian is he specifically. Even so, writers are ingenous people and can keep characters ‘generic’ even under pretty amazing circumstances. For example, the father on 7th Heaven was a pastor yet of what it’s not so easy to tell. Even angels remain so generic that it’s hard to tell if they are even Christian (I suppose Judism doesn’t specifically reject angels).
Again refer back to 1950′s, 60′s, 70′s TV. On I Love Lucy or The Honeymooners try to name the religions of the major or minor characters? What you’re complaining about is nothing new IMO, its a very old dynamic and it has less to do with non-Christianness than possibly too many Christians!
The old escapism was represented in the idyllic suburbia of the Nelsons, Stones, Andersons and Cleavers. The new escapism is that people can do drugs and have illicit sex without any real consequences.
You may simply be asking too much of light entertainment. Most TV drama that I’ve seen does not push a hedonistic wonderland of illicit drugs and sex with no consequences. Serious drama does a pretty good job IMO of presenting the world as it really is, through a lens of course. For example, I think the Sopranos will be seen hundreds of years from now as a true masterpiece. Even the Office, though, does its work. Do you not recall the episode where Stanley was called upon to apologize to Michael for being insubordinate to him and he said to the camera “I don’t apologize, I didn’t apologize to my first wife, I don’t apologize to my wife, and I won’t apologize to my next wife!” or something like that. Even light comedic drama captures the ‘world as it is’….if you look.
June 2nd, 2011 | 12:51 pm
If you stop watching TV for a year, then go back, you can’t watch it. It is just too stupid, and too blatantly manipulative as well. Most people don’t realize because they are ‘hooked’….but truly, they are hooked in a world where crime victims are always gorgeous blonde women, and heroes tend to be gorgeous men, and liberal stereotypes are fun, kind, sophisticated and hip, while conservatives are cranky, stupid, and/or mean….really, it amazes me that anyone has time for TV: a mind really is a terrible thing to waste….
June 2nd, 2011 | 1:37 pm
1. Yoga is for all practical purposes an exercise. Yes some Hindus have a beef with what for them is a spritual practice being turned into a pretty secular one, but if you’re going to count Yoga doing characters as Hindu-ish then I get to count any character that wears a cross, celebrates Christmas or says “God bless you” after someone sneezes as a Christian!
2. Buddhist monks do often appear as messengers of ‘holiness and spirituality’. Part of this is, no doubt, that some Buddhist inspired work has had a lot of influence among intellectuals, the Dali Lama is very popular esp. among entertainment types and no one really seems to have any beef with him except the Chinese Communist Party. They also, though, serve a stock purpose in fiction….the ‘voice of otherworldly wisdom’. And note the ‘otherworldly’ word there. While often viewed positively, they are never really explored much and aside from the essential messages they provide the hero in the story they do little else in terms of spiritual doctrine…aside from the generic do-good messages that any given ‘generic Christian’ preacher character would provide. A few decades ago I think their place would have been taken more often by a Native American Medicine Man. A type of character most people know enough to know they don’t know much about them. But the downside to ‘otherworldliness’ and ‘mysteriousness’ is, well there’s no actual character that I can think of whose a real Buddhist in the world of ‘tv characters’. The ‘voice of otherworldly wisdom’ is fine as a plot device but they aren’t really characters IMO.
3. I don’t follow 30 Rock, does she ‘worship Oprah’ or is just a huge Oprah fan? Off hand I can’t think of any real New Age TV characters. I suppose you could count the witches on the old Charmed series as New Age but again do they follow any coherent set of New Age beliefs or just live in a world with magical powers?
4. You’re right that atheist characters are usually pretty smart (Brian the Dog, House). Interestingly, though, they are also usually wrong. I think, for example, House has had maybe three or four religious patients so far….a boy who was a faith healer/preacher type, a woman who converted to Orthodox Judism from a wild younger life, another former wild woman who became a nun and I think one priest. In almost all the episodes House gets one-upped by his religious antagnoists….I recall his collegues throwing up a sign “God 1, House 0″ when the faith healer type appears to do more for a patient than House does. While House is always brilliant at the end, I don’t think any of the stories went the route of the evil hypocritical religious person that you say is so common a theme.
Blake
Most people don’t realize because they are ‘hooked’….but truly, they are hooked in a world where crime victims are always gorgeous blonde women, and heroes tend to be gorgeous men,
http://www.online-literature.com/chesterton/the-defendant/1/
Michael,
thanks for your kind words. It’s been a very fascinating discussion on many levels this time around!
June 2nd, 2011 | 1:51 pm
Boonton,
I have seen the procreation-reduces-marriage-to-sex argument quite a few times. If I’m not mistaken, Andrew Koppelman, Andrew Sullivan, and Jonathan Rauch—to name three prominent defenders of same-sex marriage—all make it, and in triumphalist tones. It was also made in previous First Thoughts comments by Michael (welcome back!). I’d guess it’s a common charge in law review articles on same-sex marriage. But if you think I have time to look up the where and whens, you are sadly mistaken (nor do I have the inclination to do so—I think it is fairly obviously a common rebuttal point against the defenders of traditional marriage).
I should explain that my charge of propaganda is relative to the forum. This is an orthodox Christian website. That’s why the discussion of TV shows is interesting. Such shows may indicate a bias in favor of homosexuality among our elites. In this forum, discussion of pro-homosexual bias, and the degree to which it exists on television, is worthwhile and interesting. But as a species of sociology, it has its limits. And that’s related to my real point in response to your comment.
The proper or non-propagandistic way to argue about homosexuality in a place like this is with theology and philosophy and biology (as per the philosophy of creation). The social sciences don’t tell us anything of moral import about the created order. Cultural anthropology comes the closest to doing so, but it is incapable of giving any warrant to moral relativism (“Homosexuality is OK”) or multiculturalism (“Homosexuality is definitely OK”). The social sciences, relative to the moral question at hand, (“Is homosexuality morally OK?”), consist entirely of question-begging assertions.
If homosexualists want to engage orthodox Christians in a meeting of the minds, they should start with Romans 1:26-27, the doctrine of which is rooted in both natural law and a philosophy of creation (unlike Paul’s injunction to women). Few Christians are equipped to argue about homosexuality in social science terms because they don’t think it’s important to do so (rightly, insofar as it can’t lead to the moral or spiritual truth). They are better able to debate in terms of the meaning and implications of biblical passages (Romans 1:26-27) and theological premises.
That’s in general. In particular, the homosexualists keep slithering away from difficulties instead of confronting them. This is easy for them to do in regard to homosexuality because conservative Christians typically feel an “ick” factor in talking about the proper and improper functions of certain bodily organs. This in itself gives a big advantage to the homosexualists, who are more than happy to talk about such things—but always with the assumption that there is a fact/value dichotomy in the whole realm of reality (“The fact that the X is used on Y doesn’t mean X should only be used on Y”). That’s another debate we should be having.
Ultimately the problem is that too many Christians are cowed by “intellectuals”—people who seem to know a lot of things and who deny the validity of common sense beliefs (such as that we can infer from the function of X that it is supposed to do what it normally does, and other things it may do that are contrary to that function are morally otiose). For these Christians, I recommend Clyde Wilson’s brilliant essay “Hanging With the Snarks: An Academic Memoir.”
June 2nd, 2011 | 1:51 pm
Since gay rights is one of the more fashionable leftist causes, I though this might be relevant, coming, as it does, from the horse’s mouth:
http://tv.yahoo.com/blog/tv-executives-admit-in-taped-interviews-that-hollywood-pushes-a-liberal-agenda–3086
June 2nd, 2011 | 2:33 pm
Ken Z,
I suppose, though, that this is by definition a ‘sociologish’ type of thread by the nature of the questions Joe raised which are quite morally neutral. (whether or not gays are ‘overrepresented’ on TV shows and whether that impacts public perceptionof just how many gay people there are). Maybe we should explore your ideas when another gay marriage post comes up (and I’m sure not two weeks will go by without another one).
June 2nd, 2011 | 4:01 pm
[...] This is from Joe Carter at First Thoughts. [...]
June 2nd, 2011 | 4:32 pm
Blake,
Throwing bombs differs from insults. I can’t ever tell whether you know you are making ridiculous claims or whether you sincerely believe that you are speaking accurately. On one thread, I finally got Papalinton to admit that he was making outrageous rather than sincere claims, but he defended his behavior, explaining that he was trying to shake up people’s thinking. I think it’s a weak answer, but he believes it. I just don’t bother to engage him anymore. Why talk to someone who wants to open every conversation with nonsense? I’m just not interested to dig through the layers to figure out what he actually believes.
The same is true with you. There’s no need for me to even try to refute your claims because I can’t tell whether you actually take them seriously. You’re just not a reliable correspondent. I’ve tried to explain a couple of times why I find you unreliable and so have others. Deaf ears.
—
Boonton,
“thanks for your kind words. It’s been a very fascinating discussion on many levels this time around”
You’re welcome. What I still don’t get about this conversation is Carter’s propaganda premise. Americans, like all people, exaggerate the numbers about anything that’s in the news. People overestimate the number of crimes, of blacks, of gays, etc. The conversation about kinds of TV characters and the allowable range of personality types for those characters is all very interesting, but Carter’s premise remains standing for more conservatives here. That’s disheartening. We’re now up to 304 likes and 54 tweets. Ridiculous.
June 2nd, 2011 | 7:18 pm
Michael, if you don’t read my posts, then why bother spending so much time on what you imagine is wrong with me? You don’t know my motives and if I were really as nonsensical as you want people to believe I am, then there would be no point in attacking me at all. But I am not nonsensical. You may or may not be able to follow my logic, but the logic is there, and there are some real issues, some real concerns, that the gay rights argument has yet to even attempt to address – it can’t; it is a weak argument, and that is why gay rights advocates have to rely on techniques like distorting perspectives, through devices like the argumentum ad misericordium, and through misdirection, and lots and lots of lying.
June 2nd, 2011 | 9:37 pm
Michael, I’m 50-50 on Blake personally. The fact that he doesn’t respond to criticisms of his logic or even questions about it (instead he is more likely to just toss out other arguments instead) leads me to suspect he isn’t raising ‘real points’.
On final thing on TV characters, from our friend Blake:
and liberal stereotypes are fun, kind, sophisticated and hip, while conservatives are cranky, stupid, and/or mean
As I pointed out, Archie Bunker was more fun than his son-in-law and that show clearly had a lot of fun depicting Michael as often being right but still a ‘meathead’. Going forward in time, Michael Keaton from Family Ties was a pretty fun conservative, very smart and not too cranky but with a slight mean streak. His parents, aging liberal hippie types were depicted as niave, deer in the headlight types. Diane from Cheers was pretty liberal but depicted as elitist and out of touch with the more fun, down to earth pub patrons. Fraiser, likewise, was almost invariably mocked as pretentious and wrong while his more down to earth, ex-cop father was much more with it (I don’t think he ever got into politics but he struck me as more right than left). We covered Brian the Dog from Family Guy already, Lisa Simpson usually makes out better than other TV liberals but she usually still ends up ‘out of touch’ to much more with it Bart, Homer or her mother. I suppose Murphey Brown fit the pattern you are carping about (didn’t watch the show much but I do recall her co-anchor was an uptight, always dressed sharply guy who I took to be conservative but maybe never actually said anything about politics).
I have to disagree that today’s TV is blatently ‘stupid’. We are, IMO, living thru a golden age of TV. It’s hard to measure these things but I think about the stuff I watched in the 80′s. Shows like “Knight Rider”, “A-Team” etc. could never get done today. “V” was the greatest science fiction show ever done by a network. Drama was stuff like Dynasty, LA Law, Remington Steel, Moonlighting, St. Elsewhere. Some of that was good stuff, some was just cool ’cause I was a kid. But the stuff that came later was better. The Cosby Show, Cheers, 3rd Rock from the Sun, these were great comedies. The Office, Always Sunny in Philidelphia, Everybody Loves Raymon, are/were all wickedly funny. Sopranos and Battlestar Galactica are fantastic.
Yea some of its is stupid, lots of shows are treading water and declining (The Simpsons ‘jumped the shark’ IMO probably a decade ago). But look at it this way, if you lived in London in Shakespear’s era you’d see great plays put on, but you’d also see a lot of bum plays too. In fact, you’d very well may think you were living in an era of poorly done plays when in fact for hundreds of years later many theatre lovers would kill to trade places with you.
June 2nd, 2011 | 9:38 pm
It does strike me as funny that most of the time, conservatives find actors and other Hollywood types who get involved in social and political causes to be laughable, but occasionally they turn around and claim that the very same laughable Hollywood liberals are actually in control of the culture.
June 2nd, 2011 | 11:00 pm
Boonton,
“The fact that he doesn’t respond to criticisms of his logic or even questions about it (instead he is more likely to just toss out other arguments instead) leads me to suspect he isn’t raising ‘real points’.”
Thanks for explaining to Blake what I meant. I considered doing so a couple of times, but my explanation would have been long winded so I didn’t. But you capture his problem pithily.
I think you’re right about the fate of liberal characters on TV. Archie Bunker was supposed to be satire but ended up a conservative icon. It’s funny how these things happen. for the most part, however, TV doesn’t like any kind of forceful idea, right or left.
I also think you’re right that we’re living through a golden age of TV, even though I only manage to watch one show a week what I see is quite good.
June 3rd, 2011 | 1:59 am
[...] Joe Carter at First Things matches these perceptions up to GLAAD’s evaluations of representations of “GLBT” people on scripted “prime time” television (he notes the numbers are even higher if you include “reality TV,” news, talk shows and daytime dramas. Now, the number of gay characters on network and cable scripted series today has skyrocketed since Ellen’s controversial outing nearly 20 years ago. The number of prominent “gay” characters out of the total number of regular and recurring characters on current-running shows is probably about 4%, anyway. [...]
June 3rd, 2011 | 6:24 am
Boonton, I don’t always respond to your criticisms because I don’t always read your posts. I always try to respond to criticisms unless (a) I already have, a million times, (b) it’s just too stupid to bother with, or (c) I didn’t read the post in question. I wish you would come up with a criticism that is actually challenging, instead of just time-consuming and tedious. “Oh yeah? Prove THIS! and THIS! and THIS!” is not a criticism, it’s a form of trolling……