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Reality divines the spiritual life
More articles on this topic: MediaReality TV has long relied on big prizes to motivate risk taking, back stabbing and other engaging behaviors that keep viewers watching from week to week.
But now the genre’s producers are turning cameras on a side of life where signs of self-interest could be a big turn-off: religion and spirituality. And while religious observers welcome the fresh attention to holy pursuits, they question whether reality TV is capable of doing justice to sacred subjects.
On Sunday, The Learning Channel (TLC) premiers The Messengers, (10 p.m. ET/PT) an eight-part series that weeds out contestants in search of America’s next great inspirational orator. This fall, TLC launches The Monastery, where five men and five women grapple with the rigors of cloistered religious life for 40 days. And earlier this year, A&E aired God or the Girl (out on DVD Tuesday), about four men’s struggles to determine whether God has called them to the Roman Catholic priesthood.
People behind the shows see them as opportunities to present spiritual quests in an entertaining format that borrows conventions from other reality shows. The Messengers, for instance, eliminates one contestant a week until the winner walks away with a book deal and a starring role on a TV special.
“These techniques hook people who might not otherwise be interested,” says David Abraham, executive vice president and general manager of TLC.
Still, he insists, the prize isn’t what motivates these speakers: “Their motives are to do with getting a message out. The prize is a way of extending their vocation” as communicators.
Some observers, however, have their doubts. Glamorous prizes undermine the purpose of The Messengers, which is to identify an inspirational figure who clearly isn’t driven by personal gain, says Ronald Simkins, director of the Kripke Center for the Study of Religion & Society at Creighton University in Omaha
“The real practitioner (of inspirational speaking) would say, ‘Vote me off so I can go back to my ministry’,” Simkins says.
Others worry that faith can get portrayed inaccurately when packaged in a reality TV format to deliver high drama.
God or the Girl, for instance, offered a “disingenuous presentation of the process” of becoming a priest by overlooking the church’s integral role in the process, and wrongly suggesting the men were up against a deadline to decide, says the Rev. David Nuss, director of vocations in the Diocese of Toledo, Ohio.
“When deception comes to characterize the programming, we’re in dangerous water,” Nuss says. “It is the responsibility of those who are given the privilege of production to create truthful portrayals of the people, of the events, and of the situations.”
A&E disputes that characterization. The show belongs in the category of “pure documentary” because it includes “no contrivances and no manipulations,” says Neil Cohen, vice president of non-fiction and alternative programming.
The men’s struggle with discernment “was a process that would have occurred whether we were filming or not,” Cohen says.
Both upcoming shows on TLC represent a “hybrid” of genres, Abraham says, part reality TV and part documentary.
The Monastery is especially documentary-like, he says, showing a “social experiment” involving real people who answered a classified ad on the Internet. Participants in that one get no prizes, although TLC covers their travel expenses.
Whatever the genre evolves to be, its success in tackling spirituality will largely depend on whether viewers believe the characters to be sincere, says Bobby Schuller, a pastor at Los Angeles’ Crystal Cathedral and a speech analyst on The Messengers. For that reason, he says, the show’s creators not only held auditions but investigated whether finalists really “walked their talk” in their lives off-camera.
Other religious leaders, meanwhile, are planning to wait and see how reality TV handles sensitive matters of belief.
“If (reality TV) treats the faith communities with respect, then I think it’s a good thing,” says Bob Edgar, general secretary of the National Council of Churches, which represents 35 Christian denominations.
“If it makes trivial one’s call or one’s commitment to the faith, then I think it’s a problem.”
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