From the beginning, I noticed that the ways in which Christians are portrayed on narrative broadcast television and the ways in which they are portrayed on reality TV. Narrative TV characters are mostly politically correct, reasonable and moral depictions of who Christians are and what they represent. Reality television on the other hand, has taken a turn for the more extreme. Why? Because that's what gains ratings. Apparently, that is what people want to watch. It is the case in so many train-wreck reality TV shows.
Here is an example of the most extreme Christian reality TV personality to grace primetime television.
Here we have the "God Warrior" herself: Marguerite Perrin
Perrin was featured on the show Trading Spouses , in the episode we can see that she comes from an extremely religious household, and for the sake of reality TV ratings, she is sent to live with a family who practice witchcraft and look to astrology for prayer and any type of religious insight. Of course, Perrin is outraged by this, and upon her return home, frantically explains to her family that "they were not Christian!!!!!!" and were devil-worshippers.
Watch it for yourself here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOpva_iit-8
As you can clearly see, Marguerite's behaviour is completely outrageous. As a result of the portrayal on this show, people may see Christians in a negative and satirical fashion. Many people may take this example and make the generalization that all are like this. Upon reading some comments on youtube, I noticed that a lot of people criticized Christianity, even to go so far as to say that this woman's behaviour made them embarrassed to be Christian.
However, when I did a search about Marguerite Perrin... I found websites that portrayed her as a calm, loving mother and Christian who was accepting of differences. It led me to the conclusion that Christians on TV suffer from stereotypes which depict them to be overtly extreme and irrational beings -- almost to say that you would have to be an irrational and bigoted individual to believe in Christianity itself.
I guess that's just some food for thought. Looking forward to what other people thought!
I would agree that reality television shows blow depictions of Christians out of proportion for ratings sake. I find it funny that they attach the label of reality to these shows. I much prefer a narrative show which takes the time to construct believable characters. If you were to take a character from a reality show and place them as they were in a narrative it would be ridiculous. Though scripted shows are fiction they still need believable characters to create immersion. Immersion is key because it allows for deep messages to be expressed. Reality shows don't seem to want to carry a message. They seem to want to create volatile environments. It seems that the quest to create reality actually strips shows of all reality. An odd paradox indeed.
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