The Passion of Annie Camden

An interesting thesis is advanced in an article from the Sunday edition of the "Nation's Newspaper" (well, the Minutemen's nation, at least). I would like to take issue, however, with some of the postulates undergirding the overall argument of the article. For instance, I don't believe that Catherine Hicks is actually a Scottsdale native. Also, I would like to refute the notion that 7th Heaven, because it is a "family" program could not develop a cult following. I personally have experienced eerie moments of recognition with several fellow members of the tribe -- by the way, never use that term to refer to Jews in the North Central (AZ); it just causes confusion -- when we learned that we had been watching 7th Heaven religiously for years, all the time thinking "I've got to be the only young Jewish male obsessed with the Camdens." Well, no...

What is it about the Camdens that kept us watching like people at a superbowl party watching the Superbowl -- except more attentively? Was it the fact that they just seemed to thrive on a decision-making model that involves neither guilt nor rational thinking? Was it the sense of illicit discovery of how Christian families live (the famed "Christmas Invitation Complex")? Was it Mary, and her offscreen descent into a slattern and profligate life of infidelity and clandestine phone calls to her younger sibs? Was it Brian's whirlwind wedding to a beautiful Jewess, thus providing Richard Lewis another unexpected paycheck in his guest appearance as Brian's rabbinical father-in-law -- the greatest coup for middlebrow Jewish talent since Judd Hirsch saved the world in ID-4? Was it the bizarre and shameles Oreo tie-in of the entire last season on the WB?

Whatever it was, the Camden family kept us hooked, and Annie Camden is right in scolding America for not believing enough in family programming. What other show on television can pass off an entire brood's neurotic fear of sex and revolving door of vagrant male houseguests as a Norman Rockwell-style vignette of Protestant American life? In fact, I believe that we watched because we understood the show's secret agenda. In the end, it did much more to undermine than to uphold the sense of entitlement and normality possessed by its middle American, family values target audience. That is why, in the telling episode when Eric becomes obsessed with talking to Ruthie about her first menstruation, rather than being the shark-jumping, "Ruthie won't be an adorable child sage forever?!?" episode of the series, it was in fact the apotheosis of the show's primary mission of revealing religious America's mania to control every aspect of child sexuality. If only the CW was renewed for another season, we might have seen Eric battle Ruthie's school over its new HPV vaccination program. Alas, it was not to be...

In any case, I will keep seeking out and updating you, dear reader, on other 7th Heaven post-mortems. My gratitude goes out to all those who might draw my attention to similar articles.