Pop-UU angst

Kinsi over at Spirituality and Sunflowers has coined the term "Pop-UU" to refer to those of us UU's who are more interested than most UU's in popular culture. It all started with a post he made last winter and then my response to it. He has recently posted more on the matter here. His post reminded me of how I felt at church this past Sunday so I thought I'd blog about it a bit.

I agree with what he says in his post. While American Idol or whatever your favorite TV show is may not be as world-changing as petitioning Walmart (as Kinsi mentions) or working to reverse the global climate change problem or whatever other "worthy" movement we are called to be a part of, sometimes watching these shows is fun. And I heartily believe that having fun is okay. It's almost like I sometimes feel that if we aren't actively working to make major world changes, then we aren't using our time wisely. Like I should feel guilty for tuning in to find out what is happening on Lost after working all day. And are people like us even welcome in UU communities who seem to have "more important things to do"?

This past Sunday I was co-teaching the 3rd/4th grade RE class at church. We taught the Samson and Delilah story and were talking about superheros and strength. The lesson plan that we were using suggested having a conversation about cartoon characters that the kids were familiar with and discussing superheroes and what their characteristics were like. To say I was hesitant to do this was an understatement. Now I know in a public school setting I could ask about popular cartoons and superheroes and I would be bombarded by kids raising their hands with different stories to tell. We had 7 kids in the RE class and most of the kids had blank stares on their faces. The most common response: we don't have cable. Even the woman I was co-teaching with said she doesn't have cable. Awkward silence. We go to the opposite extreme. We don't have cable - we have satellite.

I'm not questioning their parents' decisions which are probably well-intentioned. It is easy for kids to spend too much time watching junk instead of doing other productive things. But these kids don't have a clue about things that are mainstays in the majority of American kids' lives these days. They've never seen Spongebob, for cryin' out loud! I remember when I was in college and I met someone who said she'd never seen an episode of the Brady Bunch. I thought she was kidding. Surely a middle-class American-born girl can't have grown up in 1970's and 1980's America and NOT have seen the Brady Bunch. And there was the guy who'd never seen an episode of I Love Lucy. These things are just so ingrained in American culture that I cannot even imagine someone not being at least moderately familiar with them.

Anyway, in the RE class we stumbled through that discussion and it was pretty much a flop. One brother and sister said they had seen one cartoon - The Simpsons (gee, sure was a good thing they don't have cable, huh?). I suggested maybe they'd seen movies like Superman or Spiderman. Their reactions were lukewarm so I'm not sure if they'd seen them or were just agreeing for the sake of agreeing.

I'm so used to working with kids, that this reaction just seems bizarre to me. But the bottom line was that my son (and myself) were the odd ones. Remarks were even made which implied the "evils" of cable TV. These are the kinds of times when I wonder what I am doing in this community. I feel like I've stepped into the Twilight Zone and don't belong at all. When I get together with local (non-UU) friends we may swap stories about who got voted out of American Idol or Survivor or what happened with Jim and Pam on the Office. We laugh and I feel at home. In the UU community I get blank stares or eyerolls at the banality of common TV. Which do you think is the more welcoming of the two? ;-/