Television, Religion, and Supernatural: Hunting Monsters, Finding Gods (Paperback)
Television, Religion, and Supernatural examines the text of the CW network television series Supernatural, a program based in the horror genre that offers viewers myriad religious-based antagonists through the portrayals of monsters, which its two main characters "hunt" and destroy, as well as storylines based on the Bible. Even as the series' producers claim a nonreligious perspective, the authors contend that story arcs and outcomes of episodes actually forward a hegemonic portrayal of Christianity that portrays a good-versus-evil motif regarding the superiority of Catholicism. The depiction of its protagonist brothers, Dean and Sam Winchester of Lawrence, Kansas, provides a pro-American perspective regarding a more generalized fight against evil in contemporary times.
Erika Engstrom is professor of communication studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. She is the author of The Bride Factory: Mass Media Portrayals of Women and Weddings. Joseph M. Valenzano, III, is assistant professor and basic course director at the University of Dayton. He has co-authored two public speaking textbooks, The Speaker: The Tradition and Practice of Public Speaking and The Speaker's Primer.