Good? Evil? It’s complicated. And that’s a good thing.
Why TV’s demons and witches can help you raise good kids.
“Lately I’ve been thinking. Do you think I’m the Devil because I’m inherently evil, or just because dear ol’ Dad decided I was?”
— Lucifer Morningstar, “Lucifer,” Netflix
My son used to binge on a TV show all about teenage boys who insult each other as often as possible. Every volley of their rapid-fire sarcasm was rewarded by a cackling laugh track, and the canned laughter roared especially loudly when these self-congratulatory punks aimed their disdain at the inept adults they encounter.
Now his favorite show is about a guy who gives real thought to the morality of the choices he makes. He’s not perfect. He makes mistakes, like any of us. But he asks himself real questions about how people ought to treat each other and what it means to be good, versus being evil. He strives to become better day after day. (He also solves crimes as an unpaid helper to the LAPD.)
I’m really glad about this development. Finally, my son has ditched those toxic Disney sitcoms about fresh-faced teenagers for a dark and sexy nighttime drama about the devil himself.
“Why do humans think they can rectify one evil with another?”
— Lucifer Morningstar
If you’ve watched “Lucifer,” originally on Fox and now filming its fifth season for Netflix, you may be raising your eyebrows. How I can let my not-quite-13-year-old kid watch this show, which has the ultimate evil character as its sometimes sympathetic protagonist? This Lucifer prowls around L.A. having sex with practically everyone, including his therapist. And along with those naked bodies, there are dead bodies who’ve met their end in sometimes lurid fashion.
Yes, Lucifer may be the theoretical devil. But as he attempts to build a life in the mortal world, this demon wrestles with what one person owes to another and how to live decently even when those around you are descending into greed and selfishness.
When he does something rotten, it bothers him. That’s why he has a therapist.
The same battle goes on within Sabrina, the teenage witch at the heart of Netflix’s equally dark and sexy “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” another show my son watches.
Sure, Sabrina may have decided to sign on at the School of Unseen Arts. Sure, she’s striving to one day be named High Priestess of her community of witches and warlocks. But she stands by her friends. She’s true to her word. And she doesn’t put up with shitty behavior from anyone, whether they’re part of her group or not.
On “Sabrina,” the most toxic influences come from the closed-minded, judgmental adults and from the slick, arrogant high school jocks who wield their social power by treating everyone else like garbage.
The dramatic tension on the show is all about the challenge of figuring out what’s really right and really wrong, and questioning the impact of going along with the groups into which you were born.
As I consider the moral compass my son and his older brother will need to navigate our increasingly divided country, I want one thing above all else: I want them to assess people based on their behavior, not judge them on their surface appearance and the demographic groups that claim them. I want my kids to really ask themselves whether a given choice is actually right or wrong, and I want them to consider how they impact others every day — through small choices as well as big ones.
“Every avalanche begins with a snowflake. Trust me. The path to consummate evil is cumulative, not singular.”
— Miss Wardwell/Lilith, “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” Netflix
The most notable thing about so many of the kids on all of those Disney sitcoms isn’t their bright-eyed good looks or their flawless, shiny hair or the almost silent film-style overemoting they exhibit when the punchline comes. It’s that none of them ever question their sarcasm and obnoxiousness. There are no consequences for treating others like crap in their universe. Entire episodes are built around one teenager trying to do something shitty to another or trying to get away with something.
The rules in their universe are clear, episode after episode: The most attractive people win. The meanest girls and boys amass power. And as long as you get a laugh, it’s fine to say horrible things to your friends and family or tell random lies through plastic smiles if it’s part of a wacky scheme to get you what you want.
As my two sons worked their way through a decade of Disney TV, from “Kickin’ It” to “Jessie” to “The Suite Life” and beyond, we came to realize that these characters never seem to consider the fallout of anything they’ve said or done. They operate from assumptions — usually faulty ones based on incomplete information — and the audience is supposed to find that hilarious.
I’m not looking to raise kids — especially white male kids — who see the world that way.
You should know, I didn’t seek out TV shows about “evil” characters for my son to watch. But right now we’re in a sort of Golden Age of TV shows about finding your moral compass even in a world that’s eager to write you off as inherently bad. And a great many of them are set in the world of — or the underworld of — powerful evil people and their unquestioning minions.
Beyond Lucifer, my 12-year-old is also a fan of Michael, the actual demon who began by torturing self-professed “trash bag” Eleanor Shellstrop and her quirky band of friends on NBC’s “The Good Place” and struggles now with the moral implications of demon life.
Ted Danson makes it clear: Michael is vain. He gets frustrated. But increasingly as the series has progressed (season four is airing now), he acknowledges his mistakes, owns up to them and exhausts himself trying to fix them. The entire show is focused on the question of what it means to be good or bad, and whether our efforts to work to become better people are, perhaps, the point.
And my son also devoured the brief but brilliant six-episode arc of Amazon’s “Good Omens” last year — a show about agents of heaven and hell battling it out (and occasionally being friends) across the centuries on Earth. Same message there: Being good or bad isn’t anywhere near as simple as we’ve been taught.
“I had a friend that said whenever she was doing something bad, she’d hear this little voice in her head… Distant little voice, saying, ‘Oh, come on now. You know this is wrong.’ And then when she started doing good things, that voice went away. It was a relief.”
— Michael the demon, “The Good Place”
I get people who want to keep even older adolescents away from shows like this. I know “Lucifer” has lots of sex and “Sabrina” can get really, really dark. I know that real demons, if there are such a thing, are probably not like this. But I also know that when you come to the intersection of entertainment and life, the making of decisions about what to do next will more likely come from complicated characters in dark moral dramas than it will from any member of the dojo in “Kickin’ It.”
So I prefer for my kid to spend time in these fictional universes of fallen angels and morally struggling demons and witches with serious teen angst. Why? Because it’s what he’s actually going to face in the world. Because it has him asking the questions that matter if he’s going to be a person who judges himself and others on actions rather than categories, and who doesn’t rest easy that he’s already “good” just because he fits the mold of fair, blue-eyed kids that have long been showcased in typical teen TV.
And when he flips off his screen — which is sometimes hard to get him to do — I’ll be there to talk.
Melissa Rayworth is a writer and editor exploring pieces of daily life — the homes we live in, the ways we pursue our relationships and raise our children, the ways we attempt to balance work and home, and the impact of pop culture and marketing on our daily experience — in hopes of helping readers understand their world more fully. She currently does her storytelling from Pittsburgh and New York after three years in Bangkok. Find a collection of her stories here. She tweets at @mrayworth.
