From Angels to Aliens: Teenagers, the Media, and the Supernatural

305 Pages·2005·22.741 MB·English

by  Lynn Schofield Clark

Teenagers, the Media, and the Supernatural
Lynn
Schofield
—
Harr) Potter, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the
,
Left Behind series are but the latent manifesta-
tions of American teenagers' long-standing
fascination with the supernatural and the
paranormal. In this groundbreaking book,
Lynn Schofield Clark explores the implica-
tions of this fascination for contemporary
religious and spiritual practices. Relying on
stories gleaned from more than 250 in-depth
interviews with teens and their families, Clark
seeks to discover what today’s teens really
believe and why. She finds that as adherence
to formal religious bodies declines, interest in
alternative spiritualities as well as belief in
“superstition” grow accordingly. Ironically, she
argues, fundamentalist Christian alarmism
about the forces of evil has also fed belief in a
wider array of supernatural entities.
Resisting the claim that the media “brain-
wash” teens, Clark argues that today’s popular
stories of demons, hell, and the afterlife actu-
ally have their roots in America’s religious
heritage. She considers why some young peo-
ple are nervous about supernatural stories in
the media, while others comfortably and
often unselfconsciously blur the boundaries
between those stories of the realm beyond
that belong to traditional religion and those
offered by the entertainment media. At a time
of increased religious pluralism and declining
participation in formal religious institutions,
Clark says, we must completely reexamine
—
what young people mean and what they
—
may believe when they identify themselves
as “spiritual” or “religious.”
Offering provocative insights into how the
entertainment media shape contemporary reli-
gious ideas and practices, From Angels to Aliens
—
paints a surprising and perhaps alarming
portrait ofthe spiritual state ofAmerica’s youth.
Angel^
From
Ain
rom Angels
XI
E
I
TEENAGERS, THE MEDIA,
AND THE SUPERNATURAL
LYNN SCHOFIELD CLARK
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
2003
— —
OXFORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Copyright © 2003 by Oxford University Press, Inc.
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All rights reserved. No part ofthis publication maybe reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior permission ofOxford University Press.
An earlier, shorter version ofthis work was published as “U.S. Adolescents, the Media, and the
‘Funky’ Side ofReligion,”Journal ofCommunication 52, no. 4 (2000).
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Clark, Lynn Schofield.
From angels to aliens : teenagers, the media, and the supernatural /
Lynn Schofield Clark
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-515609-9
— —
1. Teenagers Religious life Southwestern States. 2. Mass media and teenagers
— —
Southwestern States. 3. Teenagers Southwestern States Attitudes. 4. Public opinion
— —
Southwestern States. 5. Mass media Religious aspects. 6. Occultism Religious aspects.
— —
7. Occultism Public opinion. 8. Religion Public opinion. I. Title.
BL2527 .S68 C57 2003
—
200'.835'0979 dc21 2002010397
987654321
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
on acid-free paper
PREFACE
When I was eleven, I bought my first and only book of witchcraft spells at a
Winn-Dixie supermarket in western Florida. The pink pocket-sized booklet
with a fluffy white cat and a red candle on its cover shared a display rack with
My
glossy teen magazines, mini-cookbooks, and candy bars. grandparents,
who were taking care of me and my cousin Linda while my parents were on va-
cation, were in another part of the store when I plunked down my allowance
money and quietly pocketed the purchase.
Later that evening, Linda and huddled together on a worn chaise lounge,
I
first intensely absorbed and then dissolving in laughter as we read the spells.
We finally settled on one we could cast on Joey, a ten-year-old who lived next
We
door and teased us incessantly. sneaked around surreptitiously gathering
We
the necessary materials, which included a branch of a tree and a candle.
performed our spell and then, gleeful from the experience, went on to choose
another, and then another. After a while our interest waned and we turned to
watching television in the living room, my sleeping grandparents none the
wiser.
The next morning at the neighbor’s door, Joey’s older brother told us that
Joey didn’t feel well and wouldn’t be playing with us that day. Linda and I gig-
gled and exchanged knowing glances. Could it be that our spell had caused his
—
illness? We didn’t really believe that but then again, it was a delicious coinci-
dence for a couple ofpreteens anxious to harness any kind ofpower in a time of
life when one feels particularly powerless.
PREFACE
vi
Although my family was actively involved in a church at the time, it never
occurred to me that worshiping God and my experiments with witchcraft had
anything to do with one another, much less that they might be considered by
some to be contradictory. Of course, I don’t remember ever mentioning the
my
witchcraft episode to Sunday school teachers, either.
As a young person, I learned about these “superstitions” from various
sources: in addition to friends and their stories shared from the insides of
A
sleeping bags as a preteen, I voraciously read novels like Wrinkle in Time, Mrs.
Coverlet’s Magicians, and The Witch’s Garden. Later, I came to love the super-
natural thrillers I saw on television years after their release, such as Carrie, The
Shining, The Omen, and The Exorcist. While I screamed gleefully at the horrific,
I was also drawn to positive and silly depictions of the supernatural, in films
like E. T. and Ghostbusters. If Harry Potter had been around when I was eleven,
I’m sure I would have been a fan, regardless ofwhat my church or school had to
say about And what young woman wouldn’t love Patrick Swayze as the
it.
prototypical pin-up guardian angel in Ghost
?
While I loved the stuffofthe supernatural realm, as a preteen I knew that the
story lines and practices that came out of the folk traditions of magic, witch-
craft, vampires, ghosts, aliens, and paranormal experiences were not about “re-
ligion.” Today, some might still see such dabblings as the harmless antics of
teens, as my friends and I did then. But others would probablywonder about the
possible harms of experimenting with witchcraft. In large part, this anxiety is
fueled by the increasinglyvocal protests ofconservative Protestant and Catholic
Christians, including those who are concerned that everything from Pokemon
to Halloween might be opportunities for the spread ofwhat they would call sa-
tanism and the occult. Among these people, there is a real nervousness that sim-
ply did not exist a few decades ago, when such talk about the Devil and other su-
pernatural evils was largely the province ofthe relatively small and marginalized
fundamentalist circles. Today, those holding such anxieties, as well as those who
eschew them, are important to consider in a study of teens and teen culture.
These views can be seen as placeholders for what can be characterized as the two
extremes ofcontemporary religious life: on the one hand, the growth ofvarious
fundamentalisms, and on the other, the growing number of persons who claim
indifference to religious or spiritual life. Teens are aware of these differences on
an unconscious if not a conscious level, and this context of religious change in-
evitably plays a role in how teens come to understand and experience themselves
as “religious” or “spiritual.”
Given the rise of fundamentalisms and of indifference, why is it that so
many people in the United States seem fascinated with the supernatural, the af-
terlife, the paranormal, and even the extraterrestrial? Moreover, why does there
seem to be a connection between religious belief or spirituality and interests in
the paranormal and supernatural? I want to explore what this fascination
means, how it plays itself out in the lives of individuals and the culture, and
why it is occurring at this point in history. In particular, I want to examine the
role of the entertainment media in this fascination. And because young people
PREFACE
vi
are perceived as both the most vulnerable to the compelling stories of the en-
tertainment media and the most likely to abandon traditional religions, I focus
on their experiences with this fascination.
I was brought up in a liberal Protestant household. I had no contact with
evangelicals or fundamentalists growing up, and no opportunity to form an
opinion about them one way or another. But was taught to be tolerant of the
I
religious beliefs ofothers, and I have tried to carry that tolerance with me in my
adult life. I first became acquainted with evangelicalism when I was in college,
and although I disagreed with their politics (now as then), I was attracted to
evangelicalism’s vitality and the optimism that suggested that young people
could change the world. “You can make a difference!” evangelical speaker and
comedian Tony Campolo had cheered at my college and at others across the
nation in the “Moral Majority” Reagan years ofthe mid- 980s. This was the era
1
when evangelicalism had become a major news story, with its prominence in
American political life and in televangelism. One added bonus to my own in-
terest in evangelicalism was that it was completely annoying to my parents. As
such, it was quite effective as a form of late adolescent rebellion. At some level,
then, this book is a part of my own search to understand the relationship be-
tween religion and culture as a media scholar, as a teacher and mentor ofyoung
people, and as a parent. I believe that it is especially important to understand
this relationship in the post-September 1 1 world. We now live in a society
where religion is an issue on the front page and, for some, in the forefront of
our minds. We have become increasingly aware of fundamentalisms and ofthe
relationship between religious heritage, politics, and social practices. Yet there
is still much that we don’t understand. 1 think that part of our misunderstand-
ings stem from the fact that as a society, we only rarely consider religion’s role
in our own country critically, looking at both its positive and negative attrib-
utes. Instead, we tend to live along the dividing lines of fundamentalism and
—
indifference to religion, defending religion, ignoring it, or especiallywhen it’s
—
someone else’s religion blaming it.
In order to better understand religion’s relationship to culture, I examine a
very particular case: the relationship between teens, religious identity, and the
supernatural in popular culture. Relying on in-depth interviews with teens
from a variety of backgrounds, I present a theory of different ways that young
people incorporate, dismiss, play with, reject, and wonder about what they see
in the media, and I describe what I believe is an emergent approach to religion
that seems well suited to the highly mediated, religiously plural, and diverse en-
vironment teens live in today. I build this theory by reflecting on the country’s
religions heritage and the contemporary representations of religions in popu-
lar culture, while considering how parents and peers also play a role in the
strategies young people adopt. Clearly, there is no single, unitary way that reli-
My
gions and culture intersect for all people and at all times. hope is that this
study can extend the fruitful critical discussions of religion and culture, so that
we can all become more aware of what’s at stake and can play a positive role in
creating a more equitable world for our young people.
PREFACE
viii
This book is therefore not meant to disparage evangelicalism or to pro-
mote what evangelicals believe is its opposite, what they would call “secular
humanism.” In fact, I hope that people who consider themselves evangelical
might find something of interest in the stories of young people and the way
they relate media to their experiences of faith. I think these stories will be of
interest to people outside those circles, as well. In the increasingly religiously
plural environment of the contemporary United States, we owe it to our
young people to try to understand their spiritual journeys and how these in-
tersect with other facets of their lives, including the entertainment media. It is
to the teens whose stories formed the basis of the theories presented here that
this book is dedicated.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book could not have been written without many people who assisted at
various stages of the project. I thank those who participated in the interviews,
both those who shared the life stories that are analyzed here and the many oth-
ers who provided important insights and background material. I also want to
thank Cynthia Read, senior editor at Oxford, who was able to see the possibili-
ties in this manuscript even at its earliest, unfocused stages, and Christi Stan-
forth, production editor, who shepherded it into a much better work. I am
thankful to have been a part of a research team at the University of Colorado
where, under the direction of Stewart Hoover, so many interesting conversa-
tions concerning the intersection of religion and the media were generated.
Diane Alters, Joseph Champ, and Lee Hood generously shared their transcripts
and analyses with me. Scott Webber provided exemplary help with the securing
of permissions for the book’s illustrations. Michelle Miles, Zala Volcic, Nicole
Dejarnatt, and Shane Chastang shared their expertise on young people. Anna-
Maria Russo brought me wonderful news clippings, while Christof Demont-
Heinrich and Helga Tawil provided invaluable knowledge of the Web. Crystal
Atkinson’s apt formatting and proofreading skills made this a much better
manuscript. Thanks also to Michael Abeyta, Rae Ann Armijo, Josh Hernandez,
Nicole Houston, Josh Ortega, Melanie Salazar, Sofia Sellers, Daniel Walsh, and
David Martinez for their assistance.
The research discussed here could not have been conducted without the
generous support of the Lilly Endowment, Inc., and the Louisville Institute. I