The point is not whether there is an embedded moral message to be found beneath all the snark and snideness in this show or any other. The point lies in the surprises that jostle us out of our smug little certainties and invite us to weigh what we value, whatever our faith tradition.
I'm reminded of the furor over kids' reading Harry Potter, which some conservative Christian parents rejected because the books dealt with magic and witches and wizards. I never understood why J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis' witches and wizards got a free pass just because the authors wore their missions on their sleeves. (You see it in the Twilight saga too; we're O.K. with vampires and werewolves as long as they're fighting it out to protect a girl's virginity.)
If, to some parents, J.K. Rowling's subtlety makes her lessons suspect, I think it makes them powerful. Kids, like adults, resist force-feeding. When a whole generation obsessed about Harry, parents everywhere were given a rich new repertoire of characters and plotlines with which to teach about loyalty, courage, humility and, Rowling's central message, the notion that love has ultimate power, even over death. Amen! Good fodder for my secular parenting group, methinks.
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