This show was religious?!: Online reactions to religion in Lost and Battlestar Galactica finales
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Published version
Date
2016
Authors
Howell, Charlotte
Version
Published version
OA Version
Citation
C. Howell. 2016. "This Show Was Religious?!: Online Reactions to Religion in Lost and Battlestar Galactica Finales." Journal of Religion, Media and Digital Culture, Volume 5, Issue 2, pp. 297 - 314. https://doi.org/10.1163/21659214-90000083
Abstract
As the American populace is increasingly identifying as non-religious, religious
representation is surprisingly also increasing on television, leading many to discuss the limits
and boundaries of acceptable representations of religion through the cultural forum of
television. The series finales of Lost and Battlestar Galactica serve as a particular pair of case
studies I place in discussion with each other about religious-representational and generic
concerns. Online reactions in discussion forums or comment sections to the religious
elements in these finales generally occur in one of two ways: negative reactions that set the
religious endings in opposition to the genre expectations viewers had for the shows or
generally positive reactions that focus on the religious themes as successful affective tools
that provided adequate or at least justified narrative closure. In both discursive strains, the
tone was overwhelmingly respectful and occasionally aware that those entering into the
discussions were engaging in larger cultural debates, providing one site of exploring the
changing role of religion in popular television through a study of expectations of science
fiction narratives and their conclusions.
Description
License
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).