Homophobic and conservative Christians; aggressive and scruffy Muslims; thrifty and stingy Jewish people — all are stereotypes of different religions that are played out in the media daily, but for those who practice these faiths, these negative views can have a much bigger impact than simply depicting a character on a screen.
Religious stereotypes play a part in everyday life, partly because of the role they play on television. Shows like Glee, Friday Night Lights and Family Guy have all tackled the subject of religion in various ways, whether through making light of situations or showing a stereotypical congregation.
Mia Davis, a member of Cru and a junior studying Spanish education, said she believes religion is not shown in a positive light on TV.
“I can’t remember ever really liking how it was portrayed,” Davis said.
Catholicism, in particular, sticks out in her mind as being negatively portrayed, which reflects badly on the entirety of Christianity, she said.
“I think it warps people’s view of how Christians actually are, and it makes it even harder for an organization like Campus Crusade to get their actual beliefs across,” Davis said.
The television show Glee is one that Davis enjoys watching and she said she finds the portrayal of a Christian character on that particular program to be inoffensive.
“I think Glee might be an anomaly in a sense because all of the characters represent their own stereotype,” Davis said. “It really plays on all the stereotypes in high school, so it’s not singling out the religious group.”
But Davis said she does think that the majority of times religion is brought up in any show, it is when something bad is happening.
“There’s so much more to (religion) than just praying for healing,” she said. “I think incorporating it in other ways would give people a more rounded perspective.”
The Rev. Evan Young, the campus minister at United Campus Ministry, said the stereotypes portrayed give a one-dimensional view of religious people.
“Religion is much more personal (than TV suggests),” Young said. “Power and content is communicated better through personal stories rather than generalizations.”
Mainstream TV shows have access to a large audience, many members of which fall under some category of religious affiliation. More than eight out of 10 people identify with a religious group, according to a study conducted by the Pew Research Center.
The average American spends more than 34 hours a week watching TV, according to a study done by Nielsen. With numbers as large as these, television show creators are able to extend a message to audiences of differing backgrounds.
The media has to grab audiences quickly, and it’s easiest to do that through stereotypes everyone can relate to, Young said.
“Faith depends on people who are willing to wrestle with ambiguity,” he said.
A television show’s main goal is to make revenue and gain viewers, which makes it difficult to represent religion in the correct light, Omar Kurdi, communications chair for the Muslim Students Association and a junior studying political science and global studies, said.
“They want viewers, so most television shows aren’t going to be the main source to crush stereotypes,” he said.
Kurdi said events such as the Boston Marathon bombings, which placed a large focus on Muslim groups, aren’t helped by the stereotypes the media portrays.
“Most television shows don’t help at all because they portray the stereotypes and just propagate what people want to see,” Kurdi said.
Muslims are usually portrayed as being uncivilized and aggressive to help the audience know whom the character is and it becomes more of a caricature, he said.
“The stereotype might be based in some truth, but it isn’t valid over the whole population,” he said.
Jenny Nelson, a media studies professor, said in order to remedy the problem, TV shows should bring a sense of normalcy to religion by incorporating it more into everyday life.
“We have the small-town woman who bakes the pies for people, and that’s a Christian thing to do,” Nelson said. “But it’s also a Muslim thing to do and a Jewish thing to do and a Catholic thing to do.”
Nelson also recommended that television highlight the good acts all religions do, rather than singling out the stereotypes.
“There’s a way to show the human acts of kindness and generosity that all religions in a sense preach, but they always make those actions very secular,” Nelson said.
Kurdi said he thinks TV shows tend to have a certain bias when portraying religion.
“When you use religion in the public space that is television, you need to make sure that how you’re presenting it is in a neutral, third-party kind of way, and that’s very difficult because each television show tries to have a certain message,” he said.
Elisa Kreiman, a member of Hillel and a junior studying middle childhood education, said some television shows take religious stereotypes too far.
“Normally I’m really comfortable with my religion and nothing bothers me, but shows like Family Guy take it too far,” Kreiman said.
Kreiman said while she’s mostly comfortable with her faith, her biggest problem is when the jokes attack her own religion.
“Anything to do with the Holocaust is the worst thing you can say,” she said. “Holocaust jokes aren’t funny.”
Even if shows continue with stereotypes, Kreiman said she still thinks more could be done to positively influence people’s perceptions of religion, such as the Rugrats’ “Chanukah” episode she viewed as a child.
“At college, it’s shocked me because I’ve had people say, ‘You’re the first Jewish person I’ve ever met,’ and they don’t know anything about Judaism,” she said. “I think you could use the media to positively educate people.”
Kurdi said remedying religious stereotypes could always start somewhere.
“I think there are television shows out there that do have a positive message, and there are people out there who try to use media to crush stereotypes, which is a step in the right direction,” Kurdi said. “Maybe they could have a religious figure that isn’t crazy or a good guy that is somewhat religious.”
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