Since this blogspot is about the sacred making its way into the arts of our culture, I thought I might add an article concerning our culture’s most popular art forms which no doubt include television and motion pictures. I hope that I’m not overstepping the boundaries of this site by bringing television into the mix.
I was born in North Carolina, grew up in North Carolina, and still live in North Carolina. But unlike most of my North Carolina neighbors, I absolutely, positively, do NOT like the Andy Griffith Show which was about a fictional town in North Carolina known as Mayberry.
Here’s the problem. For most southerners, the Andy Griffith Show supposedly represents everything that was right about southern, small town living in a bygone era. For others, it represents simplicity and a wholesomeness that is utopian in nature. In fact, I would be willing to bet that most fans of the Andy Griffith Show would actually live in Mayberry, NC, if given the chance.
Unfortunately, Mayberry is as deceptive as the serpent in the Garden. Life in the pre-1970s South with its racial tensions and poverty was NOT the utopia that everyone nostalgically remembers.
The Andy Griffith Show was actually filmed at Desilu Studios in Hollywood, CA. Thus, not only did the town of Mayberry not exist, but it was merely the figment of a screenwriter’s imagination. For the most part, these facts are understood but simply ignored, and although the Andy Griffith Show was meant to be comedy, it is taken way too seriously by way too many southerners as a way of life to which we should return.
The most unfortunate aspect of the Andy Griffith Show is that it is seen as wholesome. In fact, there are on the shelves of certain Christian bookstores the Andy Griffith themed Bible studies. Even though some scenes include the cast sitting in a church, there was nothing even remotely Christian about the show and no aspect of Christian doctrine is ever dealt with. How you base a Bible study curriculum on Andy Griffith is beyond me, but this is what makes the show so deceptive.
It’s as if some people actually believe that redemption can be accomplished if we just return to a “Mayberry-way-of-life”. But Mayberry existed in Hollywood not North Carolina. Andy Griffith himself is not nearly as politically conservative as the southerners who worship him. Don Knotts’ character, Mr. Foley, on Three’s Company is probably a better description of his actual disposition than his character, Barney Fife. Andy Griffith and “Aunt Bee” actually feuded in real life and hardly spoke to one another when off camera. Of course, I don’t have to remind all our loyal blogging fans that Gomer was/is gay. Otis Campbell celebrated drunkenness; Ernest T. Bass celebrated stupidity while the Darling family celebrated ignorance.
Even Opie was nothing more than a pawn to help the show teach us moral lessons, but do we really need moral lessons? I already know that I need to do better; tell me something I don’t know. “Do better” shows are as bad as “do better” preaching. I don’t need a moral lesson; I need redemption, but it will never be found in “do-better-Mayberry”.
My all-time favorite television show is Seinfeld. The writers of Seinfeld NEVER attempt to teach a moral lesson. Rather, the writers use their cast to poke fun at all of our irrational obsessions. When we laugh at Jerry, Elaine, George, and Kramer, we are actually laughing at ourselves, and in doing so, we learn much about ourselves.
I know that the story of redemption is not told by Seinfeld, but that’s because Seinfeld makes fun of all our culture’s obsessions in which we think redemption can be found. So yes, redemption is missing from Seinfeld, but at least the writers are honest about it which is more than can be said about the writers of Andy Griffith. In fact, it is Seinfeld that leaves our culture with this question: Can redemption even be found? Well, isn’t that life’s ultimate question, and isn’t that the question that we Christians actually want our neighbors to ask?
Seinfeld was described and promoted by its producers as “a show about nothing” but nothing could be further from the truth. Seinfeld was and is a show about us.
4 comments:
Josh, I understand that barber shops are not too hard to come by where you are. And the barbers are eager to take as much off the top as you like!
Billy, I think you nailed it! Though I will call myself a "tweener" here -- a thoroughly nostalgic Carolinian like Josh, and a rabid Seinfeld fan -- I have voiced the same frustrations with "Good Ole Andy." Have you ever noticed how they tinker with the hymns they sing?
I recently heard a prison chaplain boasting of how many had been saved through the Andy Griffith show Bible studies. But a voice from my past (I think it was Alvin Reid) haunts me saying, "What you win 'em with, you win 'em to." So what have we won them to in this case?
And a quick peek at my other blog (http://russreaves.blogspot.com) will make you aware of what I think about Opie's newest adventure -- the DaVinci Code film. I guess that church in Mayberry didn't do too good a job discipling its young people.
By the way, though Mayberry doesn't exist, you can still get a mean pork chop sandwich at the Snappy Lunch in Mt. Airy. (Don't even get me started about my adventure tonight at LeBlon -- the Brazilian Churrascaria here in GSO -- let's just say "Carnivore's Paradise").
Now, as to Seinfeld, I would assert that no show has ever so accurately portrayed human life. I often found it documentary-like. JOSH -- you remember the dorm days -- I was the Jerry, the Bod was the George, you were the Kramer. Elaine's weren't allowed in the dorms. Might get hit with a baseball in the hallway!
Great post Billy! Keep 'em coming!
Living in what was the nation’s 16th fastest growing county in 2005, I too have a certain nostalgic and longing for the old Union County, North Carolina. In fact, I see my community’s obsession with suburbia to be rather self-centered attempt to put as much capital in as many pockets as possible. But this comes at the expense of the environment as well as low to middle income taxpayers who are paying for new schools, utilities, and roads (it is a fact that growth is NOT paying for itself in Union County).
Nevertheless, my nostalgic North Carolina doesn’t include Gomers, Goobers, Barneys, and Andys. However, I must confess: I did enjoy the Darling’s music. If Denver Pyle would’ve kept his mouth shut and just blew on his liquor jug, the addition of the Darlings to the show would’ve been much better.
Thanks Russ and Josh for the comments... this blog site is going to be fun!
By the way, I do a great Brisco Darling impersonation -- minus the liquor jug.
I think you bring up a good point there Billy that deserves expansion. Seinfeld is decisively URBAN, while Andy is RURAL in the classical sense, but nowadays, it is hard to find a true RURAL area, as most of them are becoming bedrooms for the bigger towns around them. So, if Andy was being made today, Mayberry would be SUBURBAN.
Now I have pastored three churches, and have been in all three settings. If I had to rank them in terms of personal preference, I would rank BOTH the rural and urban over the suburban. There is a self-saturated mindset in the suburbs that says, "I am better than everyone in the city or the country, so I will just hang out here on the fringe of both. I can drive out and look at the cows for fun, and drive into the city -- well, I will NEVER drive into the city."
I was at the SBC in Atlanta in 99 when Patterson challenged churches to focus on the cities. Now I am in the city -- our church facilities are across the street from this year's SBC meeting site. And daily I am challenged by the task of urban ministry. It is hard. If it wasn't for Ray Bakke's books I don't know what I would do. But I wouldn't trade it for the suburbs again! God deliver us from Suburbamania.
Now, for those of you attending the SBC this year, you will stay down on the "good end" of High Point Rd. and drive through "the bad part" to get to the meeting site. And as you go, you will see all kinds of sites. Count the number of international restaurants and shops you pass. Count the homeless. Count the suspicious looking people. Count the people who approach you for a handout at the gas station, the restaurant, the stoplights. But God forbid, don't turn up your nose to them. Apart from grace any and every one of us would be right there, and if we all got what we deserved in life, most of us wouldn't have it that good.
Don't turn up your sanctified noses, and turn a blind eye to my city. Don't count the seconds until you can return to your safe and happy Suburbia. Because this is my Jerusalem -- maybe it is your Samaria (it sometimes resembles the Ends of the Earth). But it is full of people who need Jesus. Why can't we reach them? Because Evangelicals have hunkered in our suburban bunkers and we don't want to get our hands dirty in the city.
It is said of Southern Baptists that they went to Las Vegas with the Ten Commandments in one pocket and a Ten Dollar Bill in the other, and they left without breaking either one (God, I wish that were true). My concern this year is that people will come to Greensboro with the Great Commission in one pocket and the Great Commandments in the other, and will leave without using either one.
Anyone interested in special urban evangelistic activity surrounding the SBC, contact me by email: russibc@yahoo.com
On Dooley --
Ah, this comment deserves its own page. New post coming.
jrr
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