> But Christianity isn’t the default, secular is the default.
Says whom?
Not-strongly-denominational non-to-weakly (note the “a”; not a typo for “weekly”) practicing Christian, or similarly weakly-attached Jewish, seems to be the norm, outside of showed focussing on a distinct and different subculture.
> When there are identifiably Christian characters, they are often some cringey stereotype
I don't think that's really all that much more true than other identities, and it tends to be most true in the same genres and places that there same thing is done with other, including nonreligious identities. I mean, its probably true of most identities in most of TV and film, but that’s Sturgeon’s Law, not a particular problem of Christian characters.
I suspect just about every avid connoisseur of American media who isn’t out to peddle a narrative, but I didn’t do a survey at our last quarterly meeting so I can’t tell for sure. :)
> Not-strongly-denominational non-to-weakly (note the “a”; not a typo for “weekly”) practicing Christian, or similarly weakly-attached Jewish, seems to be the norm, outside of showed focussing on a distinct and different subculture.
Of the characters who are identifiably religious I could agree that Christians and Jews are a majority, but I strongly suspect that they outnumber irreligious characters.
Consider that the mainstay of virtually all pop culture are drugs, alcohol, and premarital sex, most or all of which are embraced by the “normal” characters but taboo among American Christians. When a character is identifiably Christian, they are almost always portrayed as judgmental of those things, which is to say they contrast from the “normal” characters. The default has to be some identity which jives with the popular culture, and since Christian ethos are incompatible with the bread and butter of pop culture, I am certain that the default is not Christian.
> I don't think that's really all that much more true than other identities
It seems to be different for the irreligious identities. Pop culture doesn’t rarely leans on cliches to identify a character that doesn’t believe, because it doesn’t need to, they are the default. But yes, I agree that for other identities, writers need to do something to indicate the identity and per Sturgeon’s Law (TIL, thanks) most of that is lazy stereotyping.
> Consider that the mainstay of virtually all pop culture are drugs, alcohol, and premarital sex, most or all of which are embraced by the “normal” characters but taboo among American Christians.
Leaving aside the question of whether those are the mainstays of popular culture (the traditional formulation would drop alcohol and add rock-and-roll), that seems...distorted.
While attitudes on some of those things differ between American Christians and the general public, it doesn't really seem at all defensible to claim that either drugs, alcohol, or premarital sex are “taboo” among America Christians, generally.
Those pew links are certainly surprising with respect to Christian tolerance for premarital sex, but with respect to alcohol I should have been more clear that I was talking about binge drinking. In whichever case, the fact that half of Christians disapprove of premarital sex still makes it unlikely that the default is Christian (especially considering I suspect those attitudes represent a relatively recent shift, probably due in large part to influence on Christian attitudes by pop culture for several decades).
Anecdotally, I also ran this past my wife and a few friends and the consensus was pretty unanimous that the default character since at least the early 90s was secular. I did a little Googling for something more authoritative but couldn't find anything. It's an interesting question in any case.
Says whom?
Not-strongly-denominational non-to-weakly (note the “a”; not a typo for “weekly”) practicing Christian, or similarly weakly-attached Jewish, seems to be the norm, outside of showed focussing on a distinct and different subculture.
> When there are identifiably Christian characters, they are often some cringey stereotype
I don't think that's really all that much more true than other identities, and it tends to be most true in the same genres and places that there same thing is done with other, including nonreligious identities. I mean, its probably true of most identities in most of TV and film, but that’s Sturgeon’s Law, not a particular problem of Christian characters.