Become As Little Children

Click to enlarge: Radar on the '70s sitcom M*A*S*H asks a wounded soldier to bless his teddy bear. The soldier believes he's Jesus. That is a very interesting sentence grammatically. Consider some possible interpretations: "Radar on the '70s sitcom M*A*S*H asks a wounded soldier to bless his (Radar's or soldier's?) teddy bear. The soldier believes he's Jesus" (that he himself is Jesus or Radar is Jesus?"). English doesn't allow for an elegant way to handle the ambiguities. The picture and blog context explains it in a way the sentence itself does not.

A popular sitcom and dramedy plot in the 1970s revolved around a vagrant or wounded soldier who thought he was Jesus.

Invariably, a simpler-minded regular on the show (like Radar on M*A*S*H) would wonder if maybe the man was who he said he was.

Modern shows attempt this also, but are usually unsympathetic, since they're written by a generation that's grown up divorced from sincere piety and consider religious matters too juvenile to be taken seriously.

(See my post here on an episode of Bones, "And So Caricature Becomes Reality")

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Click to enlarge: This is Don Ameche (pronounced "ah-mee'-chee" if you don't remember him). He starred in an episode of the 1954 TV series The Triumphant Hour. The episode also starred Raymond Burr (Perry Mason), Jack Haley (the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz), Jim Jordan and Marian Driscoll (Fibber McGee and Molly), and other famous Hollywood stars from that period. The episode intersperses the story of Christ with Hollywood stars and their families praying together in church and at home. The Triumphant Hour on IMDb > (Haley, McGee and Molly are not credited at IMDb.) You'll only see this kind of thing late at night on religious cable channels, which I scan just for little gems like this.

The generation before me often made reverent movies and TV shows with no hint at the impending cultural skepticism. Religious figures, especially priests and nuns, were regarded sympathetically and politely.

My generation remained deferential but began framing its struggle with psychological insights that let the audience add their own religious layers around the personalities of the cast, permitting some belief, if only a little, if only briefly.

The current generation has grown up in a post-skeptical world and is often bitter, an understandable response when abiding questions have no answers.

The next generation will be nostalgic and wistful, I think, once the anger passes.

And perhaps the generation after that will be receptive.

And the cycle will repeat.

These are generalizations, of course.

[2013-04-18]

 

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