Well, my lovely wife and I have been watching a few shows via DVD for the past couple months. Actually, there have only been 2 shows that we've seen this way - Grey's Anatomy and The Office. ( As an aside, I think this is a far superior way to view TV - no commercials, you get to watch them on your own schedule, it frees you from the addiction to TV to an extent, and, if you have the will to do so, you can censor them yourself.) However, after watching the first 2 seasons on Grey's Anatomy, I've had some mixed feelings about the show, and I think I will be much more careful about watching it in the future, if I do at all.
First of all, the show, which is about a group of surgical interns learning how to cut people open and fix them up and all their other life experiences, lacks any understanding that actions have consequences. The interns are constantly breaking the rules and cutting corners, and this in a business where life and death occur daily. Now, I realize that this is just entertainment, but entertainment often teaches us far more than books or classrooms. One intern even stops a man's life-sustaining heart treatment in order to make him worse so he could move up the donor list, only to have him die of some freak complication a day after he gets the new heart. While that intern, I've heard, gets booted out initially in the current season, I've also heard that she gets to come back. In addition, this sort of 2+2 does NOT equal 4 logic extends to their personal lives, where they are all sexually promiscuous and drunks.
The lack of integrity is bad, but the thing that Grey's Anatomy does that is so horrible is that it, through good storytelling and cool characters, makes the viewer start to want the things that the characters want, most of which are immoral things. This was pointed out to me by my wife, who said that the show makes her wish certain things would happen to/for the characters that she would never wish for a real person.
The best way I can illustrate this is with the following contrasting example - Grey's Anatomy, in the TV world, causes me to wish that Meredith and Derek, who is married to someone else, would become a couple, but in real life, I would never wish a marriage to end so a man could start an illicit relationship with a girlfriend. In fact, I would strongly counsel those people to stay apart and for the marriage to seek help, and I would pray for them and witness to them. The show so muddles things that the idea that there really is a right way to live life is gone.
So, I realize that there are probably some people here who do watch this show. I'm not saying you have to stop to be a Christian, but I am warning you to think about how you feel and think while watching any show. If the feelings and thoughts that are evoked are contrary to the truth of God, as revealed in the Bible, then you might need to stop watching. Sometimes, I wonder where the line is between being a person who will watch these sorts of things on TV for entertainment and being a person who would do them himself.
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6 comments:
TV shows are sneaky. We watched all the way through Seasons 1 and 2 before realizing we were rooting for the wrong things, and we sympathized with people who were messing up their lives royally.
It's hard to keep the proper perspective on real life, but how sad that I can't keep perspective on a TV show! That's probably when I know it's time to quit watching.
I've watched a handful of Grey's Anatomy episodes (I got sucked in when they aired that really intense episode after the superbowl). But I have to admit, sometimes I just can't handle the drama of that show.
There is one episode that sticks out in my mind... the Christmas episode from last year (or the year before, I neer know if I'm watching reruns or not). Anyway, Burk was a believer (in something, not sure if it was God) and Christine was not. They were dealing with a patient where Burk said there's not much medicine can do, you just have to believe, and if the kid had a will to live in his heart, then he would. Christine was visibly frustrated because they had tried everything medically. Burk said, when science fails us, we have to trust that there is something bigger than us at work here.
And then the kid, who's on a waiting list for a heart, is extremely bitter because he hears his mom pray to God everyday that someone would die so her son would get a heart. He says, what kind of God would do that? So, Christine shares her views with the kid, says why don't you live so you can become a doctor and find a way to cure heart disease without someone else having to day, etc, etc.
Anyway, didn't mean to detail the whole episode, but it was very thought-provoking, about faith and how it affects our lives. Of course, up until the Christmas episode, you wouldn't have known that Burk is spiritual.
day=die
I guess that is a good example of what I'm writing about. Burke is "spiritual," though without defining that which is the same as saying he's got a soft heart of something, yet he is living with his girlfriend. We see "religion" or maybe even "faith" without meaning.
And that seems to be the message the producers want us to hear - faith is unimportant, it means nothing.
You should watch Heros. I have the first 11 episodes on dvd if you want to watch it.
Ugghh, this show totally frustrates me too. I really dislike the character of Meredith. She dates a married man, has a chance to date a good man, that is even a vet, and she thinks he's boring so she dumps him and goes back to Derek!
Blah, and Derek...don't get me started. But yes, they have great stories and it is frustrating when you seem the writers swaying you to root for something you don't want too!
Ditto on Heros -- it's fun!
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