CBS's entertainment division portrays devout teens as murderers and
hypocrites and their youth pastor as a pervert, while taking cheap shots
at abstinence education.
By Colleen Raezler
Culture and Media Institute
October 1, 2007
When's the last time your local Christian youth group stoned somebody to
death?
Hollywood likes to claim their programming simply reflects reality, but
the latest episode of Cold Case was an exercise in bigoted,
Christophobic fantasy.
In the September 30 episode of the CBS forensics show, the devoutly
religious teens in an abstinence club turn out to be sexually active
hypocrites who murder one of their own members - by stoning her, as the
Bible teaches - to keep their sins secret. Their youth pastor
encourages one girl to describe her impure dreams to him, and
masturbates while listening.
In a ham-handed attempt to influence this fall's Congressional debate on
abstinence education programs, the show also depicts abstinence-only
education as useless, if not actively harmful.
The episode centers on the unsolved 1998 murder of Carrie Swett, a
promiscuous 15-year-old girl. New clues lead the detectives in the
Philadelphia homicide unit to reopen the case.
Shortly before her death Carrie joins Hearts Wait, an abstinence club
whose members are not actually abstinent. The biggest hypocrite of all
is Tina, the president and most outspoken Christian in the club. By
portraying the group's leader so unsympathetically, CBS uses the same
device employed in the anti-Christian Mandy Moore movie Saved.
One couple in the group, Laurie and Manny, are said to "pretend they
were Mary and Joseph" but are actually having sex. Another young man,
Phil, is terrified he might be a homosexual.
Worst of all is the portrayal of Nathan, the youth pastor overseeing the
club. When Tina tells him about impure dreams she's having about him,
he encourages her to "confess" them - to him. Nathan encourages her to
turn her back to make it easier for her to talk, but viewers learn (as
does Carrie) that he does this so he can pleasure himself.
Tina describes a purity ring ceremony in which she went to Nathan's
office alone, after hours, and took the vow to remain pure in front of
only him and God. This description injects a furtive, sinister aspect
to a movement that is anything but.
Carrie's mother ominously tells detectives that "someone or something
was making her change," implying that Carrie was hanging out with a bad
crowd before she was murdered. The next scene shows Carrie telling her
mother, just before she leaves to meet with Tina, that she wants new,
modest clothes because she doesn't want to appear sexy any more.
When Carrie finds out about Tina and the youth pastor and encourages her
to stop meeting alone with him, Tina replied with "you're just some *****
with a ***** for a mother," portraying Christians as judgmental and
downright rude. Carrie also promotes a little Hollywood morality,
telling Phil, Laurie and Manny there isn't anything wrong with their
feelings or actions.
The "good Christian" kids respond by calling her "dirty," "*****,"
"*****" and "*****" before literally stoning her to death. Tina
justifies the murder by paraphrasing the King James Version of
Deuteronomy 22:21: "the ***** should be stoned so thou shalt put evil
away among you."
Apparently Hollywood is taking note that Congress is currently debating
abstinence funding. Weighing in on public policy, CBS takes some
gratuitous slaps at abstinence-only education. The opening scene
features a high school "health" teacher telling her class "Now if school
policy allowed me to do so, I would tell you how these methods of birth
control can be used and what they do. But I cannot. I would be fired."
In another scene, Laurie (a product of abstinence-only education) asks
Carrie how to tell whether she's pregnant. The dialogue implies that
abstinence programs leave teenagers ignorant of all things sexual.
Just another night of prime time "entertainment" programming, courtesy
of CBS. Welcome to the fall TV season.