NEW YORK - God has finally come to US reality television -- and
against all guesses, the oddball match has delighted the Roman
Catholic Church.
"God or the Girl" pits four aspiring young Catholic priests against
their libidos during the final four weeks before their decisions to
take the church's Holy Orders, with the vow of chastity.
The first two episodes, fittingly broadcast on Easter Sunday,
showed Joe, Dan, Steve and Mike as they steer between the
temptations of secular life, including old girlfriends, and the
path towards Catholic robes.
The show opens to intensely dramatic music, pictures of a crucifix
and a heavenly blue cloud-flecked sky, a censer slowly swings back
and forth.
"They're bright, All-American guys with ambition to spare, buddies
to party with, even girls they might want to marry. But beneath the
surface, they are in turmoil trying to decide whether they're being
called in an entirely different direction," the A and E cable
channel show says.
The show "captures the tension, terror, and triumph" of the four in
"the ultimate struggle between the choice of two goods," it
said.
Joe, 28, is the most torn by the decision he must make by the fifth
and final episode. In the opener he travels to Germany for the
Catholic World Youth Day celebration -- where he hopes to connect
with a German girl, for whom he has never declared his
affection.
Long-haired Dan, 21, has stopped seeing girls and joins a pray-in
in front of an abortion clinic. He decides to test his own faith by
marching 30 kilometres (19 miles) with a 40 kilogram (88 pound)
cross on his back.
Boyish Steve, 25, who dreamed of becoming a millionaire, declares
his intention to become a priest to his former drinking buddies.
And Mike, 24, is torn between his girlfriend Aly and a path laid
out by his mentor, a parish priest who is visibly jealous of Aly's
pull.
It is a long way from "Temptation Island", the reality show where
sexy young men and women bond, fight and make out in televised
dates set in a tropical paradise.
Reviewers expressed relief after the first episode of "God" that it
did not pursue the everything-goes, outrage-is-good credo of
American reality TV -- as does "The Swan," which transforms
unattractive women into living Barbies.
"It's only one percent as crass as it could be," said the online
magazine Slate.
"One can imagine the alternatives," Slate continued, suggesting a
seminary-based show in which "former altar boys would attempt to
fend off the advances of, say, kittenish human-resource specialists
who recruit them for jobs in finance while slipping Ecstasy in
their breakfasts."
The New York Times commented that "God or the Girl" "trivializes
the decision (to become a priest) and the deeply held beliefs that
drive it."
"Still, the show ... could have been much worse," the newspaper
said.
Ironically, the most positive comments have come from the church
itself which, after scandals triggered by pedophile priests, has
had difficulty recruiting enough clergy.
"It's finally happened: reality TV has found religion," cheered the
US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
"The series ... offers a surprisingly reverential treatment of a
profound life passage (and) is as serious-minded as a public
television documentary on the subject, albeit fitted out with all
the trappings of 'Survivor'," the conference said.
"The filmmakers have done all in their power to hook viewers, with
standard pre-commercial teases and cliffhanger closes. And if those
methods build a large audience for such an atypically
religious-based series, then why not?"
"At the beginning we were concerned, for different reasons: the
title "God or the Girl'," and the use of a girl in a tight t-shirt
in promotions," said Kiera McCaffrey, communications director of
the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.
Instead, the show has given the church an opportunity to advertise
itself to a new audience, literally -- by taking out ads during
commercial breaks to promote faith.
To Robert Thompson, a Syracuse University professor of television
and popular culture, a reality show about joining the priesthood is
more marketable than a documentary, because reality TV people can
more readily manipulate reality than documentary makers.
"What a reality TV show does is, it takes the idea of documentaries
that generally aren't known for getting big audiences, and packages
it into something than can survive in a mass medium," Thompson
said.
