I'm only going to address the Catholicism vs. the rest of Christianity aspect of this, but I suspect a lot of it has to do with perceptions about liberals and conservatives as pertains to religion.
American Catholics have a reputation as a fairly liberal bunch, or at least containing a lot of people who are comfortable being liberal and more or less comfortable being Catholic. Writing a character on TV as Catholic is an easy shortcut to portray the character as liberal but not so liberal that they're Godless atheists. But outside of Catholicism the perception is that when people hear "Christianity in America" a lot of them are going to think of evangelicals and the Moral Majority (OK, showing my age) and all the types that come across as prudish, sexist and homophobic. I imagine to most TV writers challenging those perceptions seems risky and unrewarding so they stick to the easy path and then perpetuate those stereotypes.
It really is unfortunate. You mentioned Quakers - I'd love to see more Quakers on TV! Not to mention Buddhists that aren't Tiger Woods, but that's another issue entirely.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2011-04-29 03:48 pm (UTC)American Catholics have a reputation as a fairly liberal bunch, or at least containing a lot of people who are comfortable being liberal and more or less comfortable being Catholic. Writing a character on TV as Catholic is an easy shortcut to portray the character as liberal but not so liberal that they're Godless atheists. But outside of Catholicism the perception is that when people hear "Christianity in America" a lot of them are going to think of evangelicals and the Moral Majority (OK, showing my age) and all the types that come across as prudish, sexist and homophobic. I imagine to most TV writers challenging those perceptions seems risky and unrewarding so they stick to the easy path and then perpetuate those stereotypes.
It really is unfortunate. You mentioned Quakers - I'd love to see more Quakers on TV! Not to mention Buddhists that aren't Tiger Woods, but that's another issue entirely.