On Faith

[ateolf]

Last night Mary Beth and I watched the latest episode of The Good Place and then we watched Hale County This Morning, This Evening. She saw it at Indie Memphis last year, I think, but I hadn't. It was a real good movie. Anyway, now it's today and I've been awake for a bit.

I remembered the couple things I forgot to mention in my last post. The first was how the last episode of Bluff City Law kinda pissed me off a bit. The whole trope of can't have a main character atheist (or agnostic or whatever she is) without someone giving a little speech about faith that's full of quaint nonsense but gets treated as some sort of profundity (some half-assed folksy analogy or whatever) and then said main character, if not completely converting in a huge way, relents in some fashion like goes to church or prays or does some such similar shit. Network television just can't let an atheist be an atheist and have it be alright. I mean, their religious friends and family can stay religious and that's okay and they can stay atheist and that's just fucking peachy. You don't have to run everyone through the goddamned spiritual ringer. For all the show's attempts at portraying a viewpoint that's slightly progressive, they can fuck off royally for this one. Well, I ranted a little bit more than I'd intended. The other thing is much less ranty. Katie, who again bought my car the other day, used to have a 2001 Honda Accord back in the day so it was a nostalgic revisit for her. Was I going somewhere with that? Probably not, just a fun and interesting fact to note!

Comments

[ifjuly]

first, def. not trying to invalidate you with this comment, hope that's clear. your point it's weird how rare (if ever?) network tv just lets an atheist be totally an atheist and that's as fine and immoveable as faith-based characters is on point, of course.

i'm still trying to wrap my head about that episode. like. she relents in a few different ways thematically, and then they lose. but also i think they want the loss to feel ambiguous. so it's kinda...i dunno. noncommittal while seeming so, in both directions, arguably? and i can't tell if i think that's sort of cool or just evasive. hm. the whole episode is kind of mentally exhausting to me, for other reasons too, in terms of the whole "let's talk about something else while seeming like it's just this specific thing" in retrospect, aaaand also this weird nested feel i get sometimes with it where it's as if the writers are trying to walk a balance they perceive as delicate because of notions of where they think the viewership, or memphians/southerners maybe, are at philosophically and culturally. but i'm not sure. i have been curious about who the writers are and their relationship with the city.

[ifjuly]

oh, i started to type more and forgot and now it's coming back to me. also the whole dimension with "women's choice", how nested-twisted all that appears at first. that episode is Difficulty Paper level in feel for sure, i just can't tell if i think in a personally worthwhile way or not, just mindfuck headtwist exhaustion to not enough useful purpose/yield. i dunno.