The Stranger

[OneLight]

Count your blessing Bro, even when you were an atheist. That family were angles compared to my family.

[nebula]

So what type of family would you have wanted them to be. A family where there was no drama, no issues, where everything was ok because they are Christians. The thing about certian types of T.V shows is they take many situations in order to make points. I really never was into 7th Heaven, but they were like any other family. The thing that bothers me in hindsight was no real meat.

I do not believe he meant wanting "no" drama. It sounds to me like he was disgusted with the over-kill.

[Guest shiloh357]

I don't think 7th Heaven depicted a dysfunctional family. When I think of a dysfunctional family, I think of things far worse than the issues or characters portrayed on that show.

What did not like about the show was how the "Christianity" of the family was watered down. The father is a pastor, but they went out of their way to make him as weak as possible as far as his ministry was concerned. While, thankfully, they did not portray him as a man plagued with all kinds of secret addictions or a hypocrite or a lunatic, they made him very weak, innocuous and irrelevant as a pastor. Essentially, they depicted a Pastor that fits with how the world would like for pastors to be. He kept his "Christianity" in the church and didn't really bring it home with him.

I don't think the family went through much that other normal families have gone through, more or less, but their faith played no major in role how they overcame their problems. They solved their problems the same way any secular family would have. That, for me, was a turn off. I will say they have had a few interesting episodes, but I would not go out to by the DVD set of any of the seasons it ran.

[Guest]

I don't think 7th Heaven depicted a dysfunctional family. When I think of a dysfunctional family, I think of things far worse than the issues or characters portrayed on that show.

Then I think your standards are too low, your expectation are not high enough, and that you have essentially given people a pass for bad behavior. It reminds me of the problem in education, where it is hard to fail, because we lower the standards to make everyone feel better about themselves, instead of rising to a high level, to fell better about themselves because of their actual accomplishments.

Perhaps it does not meet the 'official' definition of a dysfunctional family, if there is such a thing, but paractically, they were a family with consistent, continual family conflict, misbehaviors, and often the solutions, were not really solutions, they were only compromises, instead of doing the right things.

My issue is not that there was drama or problems, my issue is that you tuned it and there were always problems. We all have problems, but we do not all have problems (of note) every week. Many of our bigger problems, tend to be ongoing, perhaps never really dealt with or solved. It struck me, that this family would have a problem, and it would remain a problem for a long time, that is realistic, but before that problem ran it's course, there would be another problem, and another, many were never really ultimately handles, they just sort of faded out of the picture. So my impression, byt the time the series ended, was that this family hand hundreds of huge problems, that had not been dealt with.

Now, if this was the sort of family, where the father was an alcoholic, the mother was a drug attic, and one kid was a gang member, another promiscuous, etc etc, then that would be a realistic depiction of a horribly dysfunctional family, one that is not (thankfully) overly common, but none the less do exist.

This family is not presented to us that way. This family, is presented as a 'normal, middle class family, who happen to be people of faith, and where the father is a pastor. I do not think that the number of problems in this family, is a realistic depiction of the kind of family they producers wanted you to believe.

It seems to me, that is is almost a subtle attack on people of faith, such that the view is shown that people of faith are more messed up that you are.

What would I have rathered? Well, I know that the producers have to make money, and that show had elements that keep us coming back, because it is our nature to want to see the dark side of things. It is why gossip magazines exist, why we rubberneck at accidents, why we are glue to the TV whenever a 'newsworthy' trial is on, you can probably add to the list. Of course, I know none of you do those things, or if you do, it is only out of your concern for others.

I would like to see a show, that is more like this series that shiloh had posted, where people of faith, have answers to problems, a show that offers hope and shows the benefits of faith. This show (7th Heaven), had some of that, but I got the feeling that it was there to sucker the religious into watching their own kind get subtly trashed, and enjoy doing so. Just how I saw it.

Continue to dispute this if you like, but I am through with that part of this thread. it is, after all, not about 7th heaven and my particular view of it, it is about the Stranger.

P.S. Other that where shiloh disagreed with me in his above post, I agree with everything he said about negatives and positives.