Themes of the American Families on Television
Themes of the American Families on Television
Many families on television are portrayed using symbolism, religion, and traditional authority. One of the television sitcoms that depicts’ all of these three focal points is “7th Heaven.” In this show the father is a minister of the Church, which is the symbolic setting for the family to go to concerning religion. Thus the portrayal of families through television is commonly used as a source of education rather than entertainment.
The manner in which the 7th Heaven family is directed to its audience is that all families are devout in their beliefs in the sense that they attend church regularly like every avid Christian does. The Church is symbolic in the sense that whenever one of the kids did anything wrong in or outside of the house they would go to church to ask for forgiveness. They brandish the Church as their place to turn to when the turbulence of everyday life gets them down or poses an extensive problem that will affect them immensely in the future.
Faith is a universal feature of human existence, its one of the most dynamic, varied, and complex of all human phenomena. Faith maintains the existing social order, that’s why an individual’s credence is symbolic. Religion serves as a means of social control as well, by which members of society accept and conform to dominant norms and values. 7th Heaven speculates that believing in something or someone prevents people from doing regretful things, such as wanting to put someone through distress, because you know that you will be punished by your sins. Although this is true throughout most people, many individuals choose to make up their own beliefs and views on what is ethical and what is immoral, and in the television show 7th Heaven, they have everybody who exists on the show as Christian, when in real life, it varies throughout every individual. Something that is very noticeable and awkward on the show is how the people in the community come to ask for help from the preacher, and as soon as their problems are fixed those individuals are seen in the Church every Sunday. Of course this never really happens in real life; people don’t convert to a different religion or attend religious meetings just like that, because a preacher helped them out with their problems.
Television shows are...