TVSquad

TV Squad man-at-arms Brad Trechak already filed his disappointment at last night's Family Guy episode, but I had a question of my own after I watched the it:

Was that the first time a network show actually endorsed atheism?

I mean, I've seen Bill Maher throw his anti-religion grenades, but that's HBO and that's Bill Maher. To my knowledge no network -- even a network like Fox, which once had a line-up made up entirely of World's Scariest Alien Autoposies -- had ever come down this hard on the beliefs of its viewers...

Up until now, the most daring exploration of this theme that I can remember was the season nine episode of The Simpsons, "Lisa the Skeptic." And even there, the well-worn theory that there are no atheists in fox-holes (or during particularly scary mall promotions) was in full effect. Lisa winds up open to the possibility that there are things she doesn't understand.

This is what I call the Santa Claus method of dealing with particularly troublesome concepts in a sitcom. As anyone who watched TV in the '80s knows, there were about forty-seven million Christmas episodes plotted around one character not believing there was a Santa Claus. At some point, this character meets a mysterious old man who somehow knows a lot about the character's past Christmas wishes. By the end of the episode, as we're hearing sleigh bells, the character, though still a skeptic, at least grants that there are things in this universe that are beyond his understanding.

The Santa Claus method is widely employed by the networks because it's the best way to mute a strong voice and keep the majority of your viewership happy. Any kind of principled stand is bound to turn some people off and, as any 1940's radio man will tell you, "We're in the business of selling soap, kid."

I fully expected The Family Guy to go Santa Claus method last night by having Brian and Meg find some middle ground on which atheists and religious people can both agree (perhaps on a shared hatred of televangelists or some other easy cop out).

But... wow. It didn't. It stayed the course and endorsed atheism.

My questions to you are these:

1. Is the atheism endorsement as groundbreaking as I think it is?

2. Are you surprised that Fox allowed this to air (especially considering that its other cash cow is Fox News, a channel on which atheists are often described only a little more gently than Brian was last night when it was discovered he was an atheist)?

3. Regardless of your own religious affiliation, are you happy that a network show is actually taking a stand, one way or the other, instead of employing the Santa Claus method?

Your comments, as always, the wind beneath my (fake angel) wings.