How Should Christians Evaluate TV Shows?
What does C.S. Lewis say about art and criticism? Part 1
How should someone evaluate a TV show, movie, book, or other works of art? More to the point, how should a Christian evaluate those things?
C.S. Lewis most likely never owned a television. He rarely read the newspaper or saw movies.1 Despite that, he gave principles for criticism that we can apply to film, TV, or any type of art.2
In An Experiment on Criticism, Lewis distinguishes between the two ways of engaging with art. “A work of (whatever) art can be either ‘received’ or ‘used,’” he writes. “When we ‘receive’ it, we exert our senses and imagination and various other powers according to the pattern invented by the artist. When we ‘use’ it, we treat it as assistance for our own activities.”
For Lewis, the proper way is to receive the art. “‘Using’ is inferior to ‘reception’ because art, if used rather than received, merely facilitates, brightens, relieves, or palliates our life, and does not add to it.”
For every piece of art, you can choose only three paths. You can choose not to engage. You can choose to engage and use. Or you can choose to engage and receive. Over the next few weeks, I want to talk about each possible path. Today, let’s talk about the choice to not engage.
Choosing not to engage
Every viewer is entirely within their right to not watch a show. There are dozens of television shows and movies I would love to watch but don’t have the time. I certainly don’t have the time or expect others to make the time to watch shows they’re predisposed, for whatever reason, to dislike.
One of those legitimate reasons is that you believe the ideology of the show’s creator contradicts your own. Either from statements by those involved or advice from others you trust, you discover the show will promote what you believe to be falsehoods. You can choose not to watch the show.
Obviously, these types of shows exist on a sliding scale for believers. Some may be so objectionable that no Christian should watch them. Others may watched by some but not others in a matter of Christian freedom. As with so much of discipleship, the questions involved center around the heart and our motives.
With that in mind, I want to challenge us to think about our decision to not watch a show. What is driving us to do so? For Lewis, we may be driven by a harmful skepticism that may take us and the culture further than we’d like.
Poisonous skepticism
Lewis recognized a “reasonable motive” that may lie behind a tendency to approach every work with suspicion. “In a world full of sophistry and propaganda, we want to protect the rising generation from being deceived,” he writes, “to forearm them against the invitation to false sentiment and muddled thinking which printed words will so often offer them.” Yet, he called this desire “especially poisonous” because “the very same habit which makes them impervious to bad writing may make them impervious also to the good.”
As we train others, including the next generation, to approach every work of art with suspicion and skepticism, we hinder their ability to find and appreciate good art. “The armed and suspicious approach which may save you from being bamboozled by a bad author may also blind and deafen you to the shy and elusive merits—especially if they are unfashionable—of a good one.” Lewis writes.
“The armed and suspicious approach which may save you from being bamboozled by a bad author may also blind and deafen you to the shy and elusive merits—especially if they are unfashionable—of a good one.” — C.S. Lewis, An Experiment on Criticism
While he died long before the idea of “cancel culture” existed, Lewis would’ve confronted this on both the left and the right. For us conservatives, we cannot rebuke or mock the left for “canceling” conservative artists or creators and then refuse to engage with the work of any artist who may disagree with us. An unintended consequence of this mindset may be fewer non-Christians or non-conservatives reading and interacting with The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, and other works produced by Christians.
One aspect that Lewis didn’t highlight in An Experiment on Criticism but lived throughout his life is using works of art as a bridge for gospel conversations. Only engaging with works by those who agree with us limits our ability to spark discussions with others. When Paul interacts with the Athenian philosophers, he references their statue to the unknown god and quotes from one of their poets. He used cultural touchpoints as bridges to Jesus.3
Viewing everything through the lens of skepticism prevents us from discovering good art, may lead to others not engaging with works from Christians, and may hinder gospel conversations. Perhaps even more to the point in an online culture driven by hot takes, Lewis would say we give up our right to critique when we refuse to engage.
Forfeit ability to criticize
Again, to be clear, you certainly are under no obligation to watch a show, read a book, watch a movie, or engage with any work of art. You may decide doing so is not the best use of your limited time. That is understandable, but when you do so, you lose the right to share your opinion about something you have not engaged with.
So many online critics rant about shows they’ve never watched. For Lewis, they can’t know if the show is bad. You can only know for certain if you actually watch and if you watch to receive, not use (which we’ll talk about more in later pieces). “We can find a book bad only by reading it as if it might, after all, be very good,” Lewis writes. “We must empty our minds and lay ourselves open. There is no work in which holes can’t be picked; no work that can succeed without a preliminary act of goodwill on the part of the reader.”
C.S. Lewis does not give us the option of joining in the online outrage surrounding a TV show having never watched it, he did not intend to.
What about something that is almost guaranteed to be bad? Surely, we can just skip watching it and criticize it based on what we’ve heard others say. Lewis refuses to give us an out even then. “No one asks you to hear the evidence in every case that goes through the courts. But if you are the bench, still more if you have volunteered for that position, I think you should,” he writes. By voicing an opinion, you are volunteering for the position.
To paraphrase Lewis’ famous quote in Mere Christianity and apply it to his advice on evaluating art: he does not give us the option of joining in all the online outrage having never watched the show, he did not intend to.
For those who decide to watch, you then must choose how you will watch. Next week, we’ll discuss the problems with watching to use.
Not Safe But Good
C.S. Lewis quote of the week
All joy (as distinct from mere pleasures, still more amusement) emphasizes our pilgrim status: always reminds, beckons, awakens desire. Our best havings are wantings.
November 5, 1954 letter, The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis, Volume 3: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy, 1950-1963
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He did see Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs twice, once with his brother and once with J.R.R. Tolkien. Unsurprisingly, Tolkien was much more pointed in his criticism of the film than Lewis.
These are particularly for adult viewers. Children are a different discussion.
Obviously, there are limits. Paul didn’t visit the pagan temple prostitutes so he could share that experience with others.