If I described to you a hit television show with deep Christian underpinnings and hidden meanings about a bunch of people being stranded on a strange island which had some audience speculating that the characters were in “Hell,” what show would you say we were discussing?
Gilligan’s Island, of course.
Sherwood Schwartz, the creator of Gilligan’s Island, said he patterned the ’seven stranded castaways’ after the seven deadly sins but he didn’t admit it until years later in his book about the show.
I’m sure you can attribute the sins to the proper characters but here they are:
The Professor – Pride
Thurston Howell III – Greed
Ginger – Lust
Mary Ann – Envy (of Ginger’s looks)
Mrs. Lovey Howell – Gluttony
The Skipper – Anger or wrath
Gilligan – Sloth
Take that LOST!
Some have even speculated that the castaways were in Hell and Gilligan (who always wore red!!!!!) did everything he could to ensure they stayed there making Gilligan “Satan.”
And you thought it was just a silly show!
June 30, 2010 at 4:04 pm
Insightful and creative. Pure genius.
June 30, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Wow! Who knew? I once participated in a hostage situation exercise that was led by one of the former American hostages in Iran.
He told us that for 444 days the only "treat" they got was to watch T.V. for an hour a day. The ONLY show that they were allowed to see? You guessed it? Gilligan's island! He said that it was absolutely torture after a while.
Imagine if those Islamic revolutionaries knew that they were feeding their captives Christianity!
June 30, 2010 at 4:23 pm
Even worse, you can sing Gilligan's Island theme song to the tune of Amazing Grace and vise or should I say vice versa.
June 30, 2010 at 4:24 pm
It makes sense now that in Hell one can build a coconut radio yet still be unable to fix his boat to paddle down the Styx.
June 30, 2010 at 4:35 pm
SherryTex: HA!!! If you mash them you can get "I once was lost but now am found – on a 3 hour tour…a 3 hour tour." try it. LOL!
June 30, 2010 at 4:55 pm
Hate to disagree and please pardon my pride, but having seen every episode at least a dozen times, it strikes me that…
1) Skipper did not get that portly by watching other people eat. The first thing he wants to do when he gets back to civilization is to eat a 2-inch thick steak. So gluttony perhaps is assigned incorrectly.
2) What constructive thing did Mrs Howell ever do? Name one thing she did to help herself in terms of survival let alone help anyone else on the island? Did she cook? Did she sew? Did she clean? Sloth too seems to be assigned to the wrong person.
3) Ginger might be the *object* of lust, but not of committing the sin of lust. Likewise, the Howells would be *object* of envy but not necessarily guilty of envy itself. If Ginger was the representative of lust, then we would have seen her hopping from hammock to hammock with sundry other castaways. Her immodesty is more pride oriented than lust oriented.
4) The Professor is more prideful than Mr Howell? Please!
5) Gilligan as Satan? Was Gilligan more an incompetent buffoon or the malicious prince of darkness?
I could go on, but I won't. it seems to me that seeing the cast of GI in terms of the Seven Deadly Sins is more than a bit forced.
June 30, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Well done!
June 30, 2010 at 5:32 pm
Hmmm… very interesting! But in defense of LOST- at least that show has themes of purgatory and forgiveness and good triumphing over evil. Sure there's all that other weird polar bear stuff- but all those other theological goodies are in there!
June 30, 2010 at 6:16 pm
Seamus, come on, everyone remembers the catchphrase of "GILLIGAN!!!" more than "STEAK!!!"
Why would Ginger dress that way on an island unless to invite lust? Sure, she wasn't jumping from bed to bed, but that was because it was a cheery sitcom, not a gritty, survivalist drama.
Gluttony is more than just food, it can be having too much in general. And Mrs. Howell brought enough clothes to have a different outfit every day for a three hour tour. That's just crazy!
And the archetype is always the capitalist's greed and the scientist's pride.
So you can at least defend all the selections pretty easily.
June 30, 2010 at 6:37 pm
Gilligan backwards is Nagillig, the dreaded demon minion of stupid blog commentor remarks.
June 30, 2010 at 7:12 pm
William,
You are forgetting the premise of the show. They are shipwrecked. Ginger presumably has only one outfit since they went out for a three-hour tour, a three-hour tour. It is not like she can go and buy or borrow another outfit. Irrespective of what she is wearing, lust lies in the one who lusts.
Likewise, gluttony is overindulgence in food or drink. You are confusing materialism with gluttony. Gluttony is rooted in the violation of the 5th commandment while materialism stems from violation of the 7th and the 10th commandments. Motivation is also different: gluttony seeks pleasure while materialism seeks possession. Likewise, St Thomas lists six ways to sin by gluttony (eating at the wrong time, eating too daintily, over eating, eating too eagerly, spending too much on a meal, eating riotously) all of which involve the consumption of foodstuffs.
June 30, 2010 at 8:29 pm
oy vey! all this over a three-hour tour?!
June 30, 2010 at 8:30 pm
oy vey, y'all (yeah. southern yiddish) all this over a three-hour tour?!
June 30, 2010 at 9:48 pm
When I was a kid, I thought Mary Ann was way hotter than Ginger. This changes everything!
(By the way, how'd they ever get off that island?)
July 1, 2010 at 1:13 am
As I recall, they did get off the island (can't remember how–probably some contraption that Gilligan built), but then they set out to sea, another storm came up and…you guessed it! One can't go to Hell twice (as far as I know), so maybe they are bumping around in one of the levels of purgatory. I hope so as I'd like to meet them all some day and shake their hands.
July 1, 2010 at 1:49 am
But you see, Seamus, you're assuming the head writer was putting together a Catholic tv bible based on Aquinas teachings, and not a Protestant tv bible based off of… heh. I can't go on.
But you do raise an honest question. I'll be happy to accept that materialism is not gluttony, but does that mean it falls under greed, or is it outside of the seven sins altogether? Cause looking around my American life, I'm pretty sure it's deadly.
July 1, 2010 at 2:07 am
I don't even know why we're HAVING this discussion. Once you establish that Mary Ann was hotter than Ginger (and there's polling data from the time of the show to back this up), all bets are off!
July 1, 2010 at 2:38 am
Everyone knows Mary Ann was hotter than Ginger!
July 1, 2010 at 6:59 am
I think a few of you might be taking "patterned after" a little differently from how you should.
The Supreme Court stripped prayer from public schools around 1955. Also, when NASA allowed 3 astronauts to read from Genesis on Apollo 8, someone sued them over it and won.
Suffice to say, the studio and Mr. Schwartz would've been VERY cautious about presenting anything distinctly Catholic, or even Christian.
Most likely, "patterned after" means that Mr. Schwartz had the idea of using the 7 deadly sins as the very basic idea for each character, then developed each character into something acceptable for a sitcom.
Being theologically precise would not be a serious concern.
July 1, 2010 at 1:39 pm
OK, so now I wonder…if the seven deadly sins could be matched to a character on "Lost," who would be assigned which sin? Or is "Lost" too complicated for that?