Portrayal vs. Advocacy in Arrested Development et al.

I'm having a hard time with these viewing/using responses, because I feel like I need to contribute something meaningful to the conversation, and I often feel like my regular media consumption isn't quite up to par (don't worry media--it's not you, it's me) so I usually try to find something that offers me the opportunity to sound like a smart consumer rather than what I am, which is usually lazy.

But this week, I didn't have an opportunity to seek out anything new or different or thought-provoking. It was actually a pretty dry week for media because we spent a lot of time hanging out with my missionary brother (which is the first time in a LONG time when I've been to my parents' house and the television wasn't on the ENTIRE time. I guess that could be a blog in and of itself), so I've decided to talk about the shows that I love and my mother hates, and how I can justify liking them (wow, that was a lot of setup, probably not for an adequate payoff).

My mom and sister refuse to watch anything with the rating of PG-13 or TV14. One time when I visited her, my mom asked how I could stand to watch all those "yucky" shows. My first response is, "I don't watch ALL those yucky shows, just the comedies." That's not really the response she wanted; essentially, what she wants me to ask myself is this: how can I support and consume media that often portrays characters with values that are not my own? How can I root for Jim and Pam's love story (which is actually fairly boring now...), how can I laugh at Barney Stinson's well-dressed womanizing ways, and reconcile them with my own personal belief of chastity?

When we talk about Naturalism in TMA 114, we talk about the difference between portrayal vs. advocacy, meaning that just because someone portrays a certain kind of behavior doesn't mean that they adopt it. I think that this is the main reason that I could ever justify watching and loving a show like Arrested Development. Yes, the show is populated with terrible people, but we always know that they are terrible! I don't think that any (intelligent) viewer thinks for a minute, "Gee, I think it would be a good idea to do business with Saddam Hussein," or even, "Man, it seems completely justified to have an affair as long as it's with my husband's identical twin brother who has more hair..." While these characters are desperately trying to make their way through their various legal, mental, and physical issues, we are seldom led to believe that their actions are moral or even admirable. We come to love the characters despite these flaws (which does seem like something we should take into the real world), and we come to realize that it is fully possible to love someone and still not agree with their life choices.

I think this (along with responsible resistance) is a skill/idea that all of our students need to be aware of. Just because someone puts something in a story doesn't mean they think it's a good idea (I don't really think that J.D. Salinger thought it was a good idea for a teenager to hire a prostitute...), and just because we encounter something in a piece of media doesn't mean that we need to adopt it in our own life. We can take what we like, reject what we don't, and recognize that things that are "virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy" are found all around us.