Frasier Crane Sells Out

Frasier continues to amaze. What a treasure trove of wonderful comedy and Gospel insight! Today's entry comes from the first season, episode 9, called "Selling Out." Here's a recap of the plot and the course of our discussion on Sunday evening:  Frasier is offered the opportunity to make some extra money by personally endorsing products on the air. First a Chinese restaurant, and then a hot tub company. At first, he refuses, seeking to maintain his medical ethics. Then, enticed by the amount of money he's been offered, he agrees, on the condition that he try and like the products that he is endorsing.

Before long, the Holy Grail of endorsements is offered: television. This throws him back into a quandary. He doesn't especially like the product (snack nuts) and the commercial includes a blow to his ego (he must pop out of a giant foam peanut shell). As is his custom, he goes to his brother, a psychiatrist in private practice, for advice.

"I'm afraid that I'm compromising my integrity as a psychiatrist," Frasier explains. "I don't see this as a problem," counters Niles. Frasier replies, "You don't think this is the selling-out of Frasier Crane?" "Oh, certainly not!" laughs Niles. "You sold out a long time ago. The moment you agreed to do that call-in show you sold out." Frasier is horrified. "Niles, you are such a purist. Granted, i can't do the kind of in-depth analysis one can with a single patient, but my show literally helps thousands of people a day!" "Let's face it, Frasier," comes Niles' retort. "You talk about wanting to safeguard your professional dignity, but the first time you went on the air you got out of medicine and into show-biz." Niles likens Frasier's show to an actress to did a nude scene and then complained that no one took her seriously as an actress. Crestfallen, Frasier asks, "So what you're saying is that I shouldn't do it?" "No, no, no," concludes Niles. "I'm saying it doesn't matter. Let's face it, Frasier. They've already looked up your skirt and seen everything there is to see."

As is the norm with Frasier, there is meaty human-nature stuff here, all couched in hilarious dialogue and situations. The first thing we see is Frasier's casuistry. Loosely defined, casuistry is the practice of finding exceptions. We tell children who play the piano poorly that they play well because we feel it is heartless to be honest in this situation. This is casuistry. We know that lying is not "right." But we do it, because we find the exception to be worthwhile. For Christians, casuistry is a dangerous practice. God's law does not leave wiggle room. There are almost no exceptions made in Scripture. Frasier is being casuistic when he claims that his ethics are intact because he has tried and liked a product. As Niles points out, Frasier is being casuistic in his claim that his ethics even still exist! He's using an "ends justify the means" argument: I cannot break my ethics...UNLESS a huge number of people is helped in the process!

Niles points out the truth of Frasier's situation, and the truth of the human situation. We let our ethics go long ago. We excuse all manner of sin because we like the people committing it. We say things like, "No one will ever find out" or "No one is getting hurt." We pretend that we're still "good" with God because we haven't broken the "important" laws. Niles urges us to stop being so defensive. It doesn't matter! Don't worry about finding the exception! You're already too far gone! And finally, this illustrates what happens when this realization hits home. We believe that sinners are justified while still in their sin. In fact, we urge sinners to take note of the depth of their sin, to be able to see the corresponding grace! But what of the next step? Doesn't such unmerited grace encourage licentiousness? Won't people just do whatever they want, knowing that, as Niles (and many Protestant theologians put it) IT DOESN'T MATTER?

NO! St. Paul asked, "Shall we continue in sin so that grace may abound? By no means! We died to sin, how can we live in it any longer?" (Romans 6:1-2) He's not telling the Romans NOT to sin, he's saying that they're incapable of it! He's with Niles! Frasier CAN'T lose his medical ethics! They're gone! So what does Frasier do? Knowing that he has the freedom, being already a "sinner" and forgiven by Niles, does he shoot the smarmy snack nut commercial? No, Dr. Joyce Brothers does. Freedom in the Gospel does not create license. It creates the thing that ethics, that the law, wanted in the first place. Righteousness.

Have You Cliffed Yet? Frasier Crane and "One Too Many"

In the aptly-titled second season Frasier episode "The Show Where Sam Shows Up," Sam Malone (Ted Danson), Frasier's old friend and bartender from Cheers comes to visit him in Seattle. We learn pretty quickly that Sam's there running from his impending nuptials. He's engaged but afraid. As an inveterate womanizer, his basic argument is "ME? MARRIED?" When Niles (David Hyde Pierce) is horrified that Sam flirts with Daphne (Jane Leeves) while engaged, Frasier responds, "Of course he's flirting with her. He's a sexual compulsive. He flirts with everyone!" Those of us who know Sam from Cheers know this all too well (Kirstie Alley, anyone?).

Through normal machinations of the plot, Frasier meets Sam's fiance, Sheila (Tea Leoni). When he sees her, he realizes that, only a few months ago, after she and Sam were engaged, he slept with her! He met her in a bar, and one thing led to another. She reveals that she is a sexual compulsive, too, and that she and Sam met at a 12-step meeting. Frasier decides, in the interest of saving their relationship, that Sam and Sheila should be honest with each other, and ask for forgiveness. "Honesty," he says, "is the cornerstone of any healthy marriage."

Sam confesses an infidelity to Sheila, and she forgives him. Sheila confesses an infidelity to Sam, and he forgives her. Everything seems to be back on track until Sheila says, "I have another one." "It's okay, don't worry about it," Sam says, "this is what it's all about...honesty and forgiveness." But then she says that it's someone from Cheers. Frasier, of course, is terrified that she's about to reveal their tryst. However, the name she blurts out is Cliff (Cheers' frumpy mailman, John Ratzenberger). "CLIFF?!?!?!" Sam explodes. This is over the line, he can't take it, storms out of the room, calling off the marriage. "CLIFF?!?!?!" This is too often how we think of God's forgiveness, and why assurance eludes us.

If God said, like Sam, "Oh, it's okay, don't worry about your transgressions," we'd always be worried that one day, one of our transgressions would be a Cliff. What then? What if it stopped being okay? But God doesn't say it's okay. Paul says that God "made you alive together with him, when he forgave us all our trespasses, erasing the record that stood against us with its legal demands. He set this aside, nailing it to the cross" (Col 2:13-14). He nailed our indiscretions, our infidelities, our trespasses to the cross. He paid the ultimate price, laying our sins on the shoulders of his son. He doesn't ignore them...he pays for them.

Thank goodness our God isn't like Sam Malone!

Frasier Crane and the Day Spa of Death

The Gospel According to Frasier continues on Sunday evenings (7:30) in the Memorial Room.  Here's a recap of our last meeting, to encourage you to come to the next one, to participate in the discussion. Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) is a member of every exclusive club in Seattle. So, the episode called "Door Jam" (Season 10, Episode 11) when he gets his even-more-snobby neighbor's invitation to a secretive establishment in his mailbox, he's driven wild by jealousy and desire. When he calls the place to find out what they even do, he's prompted to enter a secret code that he, of course, doesn't have. His brother (David Hyde Pierce) remarks, "The allure of La Porte d' Argent has increased ten-fold!"

By pretending to be his neighbor, Frasier and Niles, his brother, gain access to La Porte d' Argent, which turns out to be a fabulous day spa. After an amazing afternoon of coddling, Frasier and Niles say, "I feel like I've been rubbed by angels" and "I've never felt better in my life." All of a sudden, they see a golden door, through which they are forbidden to go. "It's for our gold-level members only" they are told. Immediately, the wonder of the day turns to hatred. "Just how are we supposed to enjoy THIS?" wonders Frasier angrily. When asked what the place was like at home, he spits, "It was a hell hole!"

After trying everything to wrangle an invitation through the golden door, Frasier and Niles are having coffee with their friend Roz (Peri Gilpin), who chides them: "You only want to go in there because you can't. How much better can it be? And then, what if you do get in the gold door? What's next, the diamond door? And after that a titanium door? And after that a plutonium door?" Roz knows that there is no end to the human struggle, the human quest for achievement. For Christians, the analogy is our quest to get to God, or to at least become closer to him. There will forever be another door through which we must pass.

Of course, it turns out that Roz actually knows someone with enough influence to get Frasier and Niles through the gold door, and it turns out that she's wrong. The gold-level spa is SO much better than the silver-level spa. Frasier describes the "relaxation grotto" to his brother like so: "It's just paradise. From the rare, exotic orchids to the perfectly bubbled stream to the..." and then he sees it. "There's a platinum door." When Niles wants to go through the unguarded door, Frasier cries, "This is heaven! Right here and now! Why do we have to think about someplace else!" Niles retorts, "This is only heaven for people who can't get in to the real heaven...the PLATINUM heaven!" Finally, Frasier wonders, "Why can't we be happy?"

Frasier goes over to the platinum door, to take a peek through it, but just then, an employee of the spa comes into the relaxation grotto: "You're not allowed through there...please remain in the relaxation grotto." And with that, the relaxation grotto becomes an intolerable prison: "Please remain in the relaxation grotto?" grumbles Fraiser. "Have crueler words ever been spoken?" Rules create the desire to break them. We put our satisfaction out of our reach on purpose, so that we can later congratulate ourselves for achieving it, not thinking that we'll just do the same thing again and again. We do this with our relationship to God.

So finally, Frasier and Niles go through the platinum door, and the truth is revealed to them. There is no platinum-level spa. They are outside, with the dumpsters and garbage, locked out of the spa altogether. For us, we can say that there is such thing as a "close enough" relationship to God. We would all affirm this, and yet we all chase this mythic state. Like Frasier and Niles realized too late, the profundity of the Gospel is that we are in the best place (a perfectly justified relationship with our Creator, mediated by the blood of Jesus Christ) already! There is no improving on this relaxation grotto. Let's stop trying so hard and enjoy the rare orchids, the bubbled stream, and the beauty of a God who promises to be with us wherever we go.

Gospel Television Criticism

I spend a lot of time reading the A.V. Club.  It's a site that reviews movies, music, comics, video games, and TV, and produces features related to those media as well.  Check it out.  The writers swear sometimes, and are a little hoity-toity (they tend to favor artsy fare), so caveat emptor.

I read their recaps/reviews of all the shows and movies that I watch.  I recently read the review of the third season premiere of Community, and found a lot of Gospel truth in it.  Here are some quotes:

"Every character is longing to find a place where they’ll be accepted, where they’ll be taken in without being judged and loved unconditionally. But at the same time, not a one of these characters trusts that space because who does, really? The second you realize you’re loved is also the second that you start doubting that love and start wondering when things are going to fall apart." 

"At some point, you have to move from being someone who’s alone in the world, a person out on your own, to someone who is capable of being loved. And I’m not saying this is about becoming a better person. No. This is about knowing that you exist in a space where someone could love you no matter what you did, that you can exist in a space where forgiveness is always possible with enough time and healing."

The whole review is HERE, and is written by Todd VanDerWerff, to give credit where credit's due.  What do you think of those quotes?  Isn't it true that we desperately want unconditional love, but when we are faced with something that looks like it, we are immediately suspicious?  Isn't it because we know that WE'RE not capable of unconditional love, and therefore suspect that no other human is, either?  Aren't we suspicious of people who have appeared to become a better person?

Jesus, of course, breaks through all this doubt and suspicion.  Unconditionality is only possible through a perfect man who died for us.  That we'll believe.  A death in our place, too, is what makes forgiveness possible, not personal improvement or "time and healing."  The trend continues...messianic themes always break apart in the absence of the actual Messiah.