Usually, when people talk about learning from tv - especially when Christians do - we talk about what we shouldn't be learning. We criticize tv for its approach to sex and sexual ethics. We blame society's violence on it. Shows are depraved, and making us depraved. We fail to learn about consequences. The list goes on and on. The moral of the complaint is simple, don't get your morals from the television.
But what might be most interesting, is that for years shows - both serious and comedic - have often carried themes we ought to consider in our society. There is something quite real that we see regularly, never question (because we know it's true) and yet never claim as truth for us. I'm talking of course about guilt - real guilt, from real mistakes, sins, hurts, actions. Perhaps what these shows do so well is they are willing to put the main character out there as guilty of an offense of some sort. Now some shows will week by week focus on how the person will get in a jam and get out of it (this is especially true of 30min comedies), while others they face the gritty reality that their immorality has unavoidable consequences. That it catches up. Usually they are preserved from total destruction (since one needs to keep the show), but one is seriously flawed and forced to face that.
What shows like this do, is they make the character usually come to admit that they have been the transgressor. And even those where the character is in denial, the omnipotent viewer knows what they have done. Even when Vic Mackey gets off the hook from something in the Shield, we know he is a dirty cop. The characters are exposed in some way or another for who they are. It doesn't matter if it's Zack Morris and Will Smith from simple comedies like Saved By the Bell and Fresh Prince of Bel Air or brutally flawed jerk-type characters like Tony Soprano or Dennis Leary's character in Rescue Me, in all these situations the main character is often a key transgressor. The comedies often require the character to come clean, the serious ones often are about avoiding coming clean. But in all of them, they are thoroughly exposed. Both types carry a similar morality: coming clean is the right move. Trying to hide it will either inevitably fail or lead one down the depraved rabbit hole.
Yet this constant moral refrain is highly ignored in discussions about the moral role or impact of television. Perhaps it is ignored because though we agree with it in principle, it is the one lesson we never seek to learn for ourselves. Why is it I ask, that our inclination is to always move the blame for problems in this life on others? It is never our fault (or our childrens' fault) but always someone else. We always seek to be the victim never the transgressor.
I think it is for two reasons: the first is that we think no one knows. We think it is a secret that can be kept, and when it comes out we dodge it, resist it, and point the finger elsewhere in order to preserve this illusion. Whereas in the show where no matter what, the viewers know who this guy is, we don't have that. Or so we think. This is why confession is a key role in the Christian tradition, because there is someone who knows, and it is precisely when one realizes there is no hiding from this righteous judge that any notion of portraying oneself to be perfect, up to the standard, not all that bad begins to fade.
The other reason is the issue of forgiveness. If Zack Morris constantly caused so many screw ups in our lives, how much patience and forgiveness would we have for him? Forgiveness has by and large become something one must deserve - and therefore it only applies to things little enough that they are easily a thing of the past. The transgressions that really need forgiveness are usually the ones our culture has determined as undeserving of and therefore, unforgivable. Once forgiveness is something that must be earned, and only for little things, it is no surprise that we would work hard to not relinquish our good image. We don't admit (even to ourselves) when we were guilty because we cannot imagine being forgiven. Not only that, but it would damage our future ability to earn forgiveness by hurting our false image of being deserving of it. This is why the cross is so central to Christian confession, it means God does forgive, we not only open up because we know there is no hiding from God, but because we know that we can flee to God's mercy; that the forgiveness we don't "deserve" was secured. Similar to how a show can have Zack fess up because the writers have seen to it that his friends will forgive him - the cross has seen to it that there is forgiveness.
It is as 1 John says: "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us, but if we confess our sin, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
TV shows often lift up a willingness to forgive, or at the least expose the characters with all their flaws. This is the lesson that has not been learned by the viewers, even though many shows are literally built off of this pattern, our culture has by and large denied this moral ethic. One which Christianity not only holds to, but explains in light of the reality of God and the cross. But even Christian preaching and application often tries to soften this (especially post-conversion), and either use the word sin generically or address more the sins of the world rather than our own. We still do the finger pointing elsewhere. We preach in generalizations that let us wiggle out of the hard truth. But these fictional stories ought to remind us of the reality that needs to be faced: when our sins, our faults, our mistakes change our lives or the lives around us for the worse, covering this up will do one no good. This is not just a moral ethic, but actually a realization of the illusion we try to live by, and the reality that cries out for a Savior.
C.S. Lewis once wrote: "It is after you have realized that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that power--it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk."
That is to say, it is after one realizes they are the character, and there is a viewer, it is then that one begins to realize this message of confession and forgiveness is no simple ritual or crutch or enabler, it is the the story of the viewer (God) not sitting back and watching, but stepping in with the one word that can truly sustain us in this reality show we call life.
Yet it's like a parable that no one ever applies to us as the prophet Nathan "You are the man". And until it does, while it is left to our own watching with no one to speak the truth to us, it will likely always remain the lesson we see but never apply to ourselves. The one thing we won't let the television teach us.
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