John Nolte hails a positive trend in television. Some of the most popular reality shows celebrate WORK. From The Return of the Working Class Hero:
We marvel at the men populating “Ice Road Truckers,” “The Deadliest Catch,” “Dirty Jobs,” and “American Chopper.” Men who cuss and smoke cigarettes and lose their tempers and get the job done. We marvel at the creativity that gets them through, and we marvel at those fascinating six minute segments taking us into the dit-dit of How It’s Made. We marvel enough that every new season brings another guy just doing what he does so well. This year it was exterminators. Like eating cotton candy or slowing to pick up the grisly details of a car crash, watching the fame-addicted humiliate themselves may well fascinate, but it doesn’t feel very good inside. But watching the people who take enormous pride in the difficult work they do makes this the healthiest television trend since Fox News upended the liberal media monopoly.
While the cultural divide grew as wide as flyover country between those who create television and those who watch it, we’ve seen the working class pretty much relegated to buffoonish sitcom husbands; balding, heavyset men, married to impossibly lovely wives who bubble with love but also deliver sharp zingers that manifest the contempt she (and the show’s creators) have for their mate’s humble station in life. Gone are the lunch bucket heroes. They’ve long been replaced by lawyers, doctors, perfectly tailored detectives, and Manhattan lofted friends.
But something good is happening on the higher-numbered channels where the nobility of hard work plays out in such a fascinating way that “The Deadliest Catch” has been “synergized” into a video game and a family of motorcycle builders are treated like movie stars by movie stars. Somewhere along the line, narcissism on parade took a back seat to the virtues of the men in flannel. Yes, it’s our dads, uncles, and neighbors.
I love those shows. Don’t you? Notice that they are celebrations of vocation!
My hubby loves those shows. I find myself whining whenever they come on, but fall into fascination within a few minutes. It is nice to see someone like my dad on TV!
Deadliest Catch is probably the best show, but if you want to see what I get to deal with, check out Black Gold.
I probably would like those shows if I wasn’t reliant on the rabbit ears. I still haven’t purchased the converter box, and I am questioning if I will. Love/hate relationship with T.V. I have caught glimpses of these shows, and I don’t know why but I do like them. They glamorize the Blue Collar. They also give legitimacy to Masculinity, and I love that.
I’m reminded of Paul writing:1 Cor. 16:13 (ESV)
Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.
I don’t think he was telling us to be perfectly groomed, limp wristed men who are offended by a crude word, or cry at bambi.
At the seminary, I always enjoyed getting in on the PK (Pastor’s Kid) conversations, by saying, “Hey, I’m a PK too: Plumber’s Kid.”
And I’m still thankful for the great-paying summer job I had (all thanks to my father) during my seminary years working the bottom of the ladder in the pipe-trades when all the other workers teased me endlessly for being “the man-o’-the-cloth”. Good plumbers will always be my heroes. Especially when they are also faithful laymen in the church!
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About the Blogger
Gene Edward Veith is the Provost and Professor of Literature at Patrick Henry College, the Director of the Cranach Institute at Concordia Theological Seminary, a columnist for World Magazine and TableTalk, and the author of 18 books on different facets of Christianity & Culture.
Lucas Cranach, self portrait c.1530.
About Lucas Cranach
Lucas Cranach was the great artist of the Reformation. He was a close friend of Martin Luther. He was a businessman, who first printed Luther's translation of the Bible; a politician, who served on the Wittenberg town council and served the city as its mayor; a chemist, who operated a pharmacy; a teacher, who trained a host of apprentice artists; a family-man, who helped arrange Luther's marriage with the two men serving as the godfathers of each other's children; and an active layman in his church, who gave his pastors important personal and material support. As a Christian who lived out his faith in his many different callings, Cranach thus embodies the Reformation doctrine of vocation, using the gifts God had given him in service to Christ and his neighbor in the church, the family, the workplace, and the culture. In the spirit of Lucas Cranach, this blog will discuss wide-ranging issues of Christianity and culture with a Lutheran twist.
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