Sport as Religion: Friday Night Lights

When we discussed Christianity and sports and the interplay of religion and sports, Professor Harris mentioned the show Friday Night Lights. In class Professor Harris mentioned how sports serve a religious function for many people and outlined three specific religious functions of sports:
(1) the social or "communal"
(2) meaning
(3) transcendence

Friday Night Lights is a perfect example of a show that presents sports as religion and its portrayal of football embodies the three religious functions of sports. For those of you who may not be familiar with the show, Friday Night Lights is an American sports drama show that follows the events surrounding a high school football team in a small town called Dillon in rural Texas. Much emphasis is placed on the important role football plays in the lives of the Dillon Panther football team members and their family members.

The first religious function of sports, the social or communal function, is shown through the way football brings the citizens of Dillon together and creates a strong bond between the members of the Dillon Panthers football team. The second religious function, meaning, is shown through the way Coach Taylor teaches the team about the importance of winning and what can be learned from defeat. Football also brings meaning to the lives of particular members of the team.

For example, for Smash Williams being able to land a scholarship and play football at the college level provides him with a ticket out of the small town and with a means to go to college. The prospect of playing football at the professional level serves as motivation for Smash Williams to give his best performance in every game and lead his team to victory. Moreover, Smash Williams' father was killed in a car accident and the show portrays the financial constraints his family experiences. Smash regards securing a college football scholarship as a way to help his family out financially.

The third religious function of sports, transcendence, is revealed through the glorious depiction of what the Dillon Panthers football team can achieve when they come together and and collectively work towards victory. The show portrays how members of the team who do not get along in social situations put their personal feelings aside when playing football and strive towards working together to win.

The show also portrays how the town glorifies, and to a certain extent, worships particular members of the team, such as the star quarterback, Matt Saracen. However, this glorification and worship is contingent on the player being victorious. In this sense, Friday Night Lights reveals the pressure that is put on the members of the football team and how they experience a constant cycle of approval and disapproval from their fans who have high expectations for them.

The connection between Christianity and sports is explicit in American culture and Friday Night Lights reflects this relationship. The narrative of the show includes many scenes in which there is a voice over of either Coach Taylor or a member of the Dillon Panthers team praying to God, thanking God for their successes and asking God to watch over them, and so forth.

I think Friday Night Lights does a commendable and accurate job of portraying the religious function sports plays in the lives of both fans and athletes. For the most part I find this devotion to football serves a healthy role in athletes' lives as it provides them with the drive and motivation to stay focused on living a healthy lifestyle, provides them with gratification when they are victorious, and creates a sense of belonging from being a member of a team. However, the pressure from fans and Coaches to win can also manifest in negative ways for the athletes. For example in Friday Night Lights, Smash Williams, obsessed with winning and attracting the attention of college football team scouts, risks his health by using steroids to enhance his performance.

Overall, I think the positives outweigh the negatives. Their devotion to football allows the members of the Dillon Panthers football team to work together as a team and learn the importance of teamwork and striving towards a goal as a group. It also serves as motivation to overcome other circumstances in their personal lives. For example in Friday Night Lights, Tim Riggins is forced to become a better student and ensure he passes his midterms as part of adhering to the rule of "no pass, no play." Smash Williams is driven to give each game his best performance to ensure he lands a scholarship which would transform not only his life, but the lives of his family members.

Though at times this devotion to sports seems quite extreme, I think feeling so passionately about something is beneficial and gives a sense of meaning to the lives of both fans and athletes. It also brings people together and allows people to collectively wish for a common goal. It allows people to forget the social or economic class of fellow fans and simply focus on their shared desire for their team to win. Likewise, athletes are regarded as "good athletes" based on their skill and ability not on their race, social/economic class, or sexual orientation. This focus on skill and ability is another positive element in the interplay of sports and religion.

A Response to Sandra's Post "Making Good Deals Public"

a response to Sandra's post: Making Good Deals Public

Sandra, I agree with you that celebrities are blatantly public about their good deeds and this seems to go against the Christian view that a good deed is most genuine when done in privacy. However, I disagree with your point that the fact that Justin Bieber has so much money makes his philanthropy far less meaningful. I think a kind act is a kind act no matter how much money the person who does it has.

Though I agree that the sincerity of the celebrities who make their support of charities public is questionable and that they often benefit from their good deeds by gaining popularity, I think at the end of the day the fact is, they are donating to charities and that in itself is good and benefits the recipients of the charities. In other words, the number of recipients who benefit is far larger than the one celebrity who's popularity and public image benefits from the deed.

I also think it's important to consider in what context the celebrity mentions or presents their good deed. Personally, one celebrity whose shameless self-promotion of their own good deeds that really irks me is Oprah Winfrey.

 

Though it is undeniable that Oprah has made numerous contributions to making this world a better place, such as her Oprah Book Club that has helped increase literacy in America, I find that her philanthropy is often presented in such a way that it's hard not to notice how she is in many ways congratulating herself. 

Another thing that bothers me about Oprah's method of charity is how highly consumerist it is. Her idea of "changing someone's life for the better" is giving them a brand new car or the latest iPad. Granted Oprah's "favorite things" giveaway isn't the only charity Oprah participates in--- she also has contributed lots of money towards funding schools in America and towards building schools for girls in Africa. However, Oprah makes those good deeds a public event as well, and has had many episodes in the past that talk about her various charitable endeavors. And like Sandra mentioned, it's hard to find these good deeds sincere when celebrities present them in ways that come across as bragging and as blatant attempts to make them seem like good people.

Sandra mentioned Ellen DeGeneres as an example of a celebrity who makes their charity well-known. One thing I admire about Ellen DeGeneres is that the gifts she gives away to the guests on her show are more often than not gag gifts and are very much a parody of Oprah's blatantly consumerist giveaways. I really get the sense that Ellen DeGeneres doesn't take herself or these gift giveaways that seriously but when she is advocating for something she genuinely and seriously supports, her attitude is completely different. For example, Ellen DeGeneres was quite vocal of her support for the It Gets Better Campaign. 

As you can see, Ellen is advocating for working towards suicide-prevention and putting an end to bullying, especially bullying people based on their sexual orientation. In this case, I find her public support for these issues and organizations that work towards this issues, admirable and extremely genuine.

Sandra also mentioned George Clooney and the announcement he made showing his support for Hope For Haiti Now. Again, I find this far more appropriate and genuine than Oprah Winfrey's giveaways or Justin Bieber's music video for his song Pray. I think that in this case George Clooney is putting his name behind a cause he truly believes in and is trying to motivate other Americans and the fans that respect  him, to follow suit. With this in mind, I think there is a distinct difference between a celebrity advocating for a cause they truly believe in and using their name to help gain support for the cause, and a celebrity using charity as a way to create a positive public image. More often than not, most celebrities achieve the former and though the latter is often a consequence, I think the more important thing to focus on is how celebrity endorsement of particular issues helps support these issues.

California, here we come: Sex and Gender in The O.C

When we discussed sex and gender in popular culture and the depictions of gender in prime-time television during lecture 11, I instantly thought of The O.C.

The O.C is an American teen drama series that was immensely popular in the early 2000's. The series was created by Josh Schwartz and portrays the life of a group of teenagers and their families in the affluent suburb Newport Beach in Orange County, California. Josh Schwartz is also the creator of two other immensely popular shows, Gossip Girl and Chuck.

The O.C is a perfect example of the gender roles and stereotypes that are recurrent in prime-time television. It focuses on the lives of four teenagers: Ryan Atwood, Marissa Cooper, Summer Roberts and Seth Cohen. They each are stereotypical and archetypical representations of teenagers. Ryan Atwood is the troubled bad boy from an underprivileged poor neighbourhood who ends up living with the Cohen family after being thrown out by his alcoholic mother. Marissa Cooper is the beautiful girl next door who despite being a straight A-student and chair of the social committee at school, often struggles with the circumstances of her family life and is often presented as a damsel in distress. Summer Roberts is Marissa's best friend and the love interest of Seth Cohen. She is presented as a superficial and ditzy girl who gets by on her good looks and charm. Seth Cohen is a comic book geek and neurotic nerd that is very much the antithesis of Ryan Atwood.

The show follows the tumultuous relationships between Ryan and Marissa and Seth and Summer. It also focuses on the dynamics of the relationships of their families. Ryan, Marissa, Summer and Seth each embody specific gender stereotypes.

The depiction of Ryan reminded me of the depiction of male characters in Disney films that were identified and outlined by Mia Towbin and her colleagues. Towbin identified five themes that emerged in the portrayal of men in Disney films:

(1) men primarily use physical means to express their emotions or show no emotions,

(2) men are not in control of their sexuality,

(3) men are naturally strong and heroic,

(4) men have non-domestic jobs,

(5) overweight men have negative characteristics.

Ryan embodies the first three themes; he is depicted as having a bad temper, constantly getting into physical fights as a way of protecting his loved ones, and is depicted as having difficulty expressing his emotions. He is very much the strong and heroic male character in the series and he comes to Marissa's rescue time and time again. 

The portrayal of Marissa and Summer tie-in with the themes Towbin identified in the portrayal of female characters in Disney films. Three themes in particular come to mind:

(1) a woman's appearance is valued more than her intellect,

(2) women are helpless and in need of protection,

(3) women are domestic and likely to marry

 Both Marissa and Summer are depicted as beautiful girls who are desired by many. Summer is blatantly presented as a ditzy girl who isn't the best student. Summer places much value in her popular status at school and her good looks. Though Marissa is a straight A-student and chair of the social committee at school, she is portrayed as the damsel in distress who Ryan saves time and time again from others and most frequently from herself. She struggles with drug abuse and alcoholism. 

Much like The Big Bang Theory's Sheldon is depicted as highly intelligent and neurotic, Seth is portrayed as the antithesis of Ryan. He is a geeky, neurotic and skinny loner who pines for Summer. His lanky physique and sarcastic sense of humour are used as emphasis in establishing how he and Ryan are in many ways opposites. Ryan is the muscular, macho guy with a bad temper and Seth is the lanky, neurotic comic book nerd. Furthermore, Seth's wit is often used in contrast to Summer's ditziness.

Another element of The O.C that strikes me as very stereotypical is the portrayal of the dynamics in Ryan and Marissa's relationship. Ryan is constantly rescuing Marissa, whether it be from her own demons such as her alcohol abuse, or from the dangerous people she at times associates with. 

The dynamics of their relationship are laid out in their very first encounter. Ryan appears as the brooding James Dean-esque bad boy who draws Marissa in with his mysterious persona. Throughout the series Ryan truly takes on the "whoever you want me to be" role in Marissa's life. He is her lover, protector, and friend. Ryan's savior-complex is undeniable -- Marissa even dies in his arms after he pulls her out from a car-wreck after a fatal car accident on graduation night.

Taking into consideration the blatantly stereotypical portrayals of gender in shows like The O.C and the immense popularity of shows like The O.C, an important question comes to mind: what do these shows reflect about our culture?  

I think that though these portrayals of gender are stereotypical, each character serves as an archetype and that viewers identify with specific aspects of each character. Much like the ubiquitous line from John Hughes' The Breakfast Club, "you see us as you want to see us. In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal." -- each character in The O.C embodies particular traits that all viewers can identify with.

Though I do not necessarily condone the at times sexist portrayals, I think that the show effectively engages viewers with plot lines that attempt to deal with 'real life situations.'  When watching shows that use such strikingly archetypical representations of gender, it is important to remember that we need not always present particular traits, such as heroism, with particular genders. Just as women are just as strong and brave as men, female characters should be portrayed accordingly. It is important to show that particular traits are universal human traits and that gender does not necessarily equate one's strengths and weaknesses.