Family and Religious Values in the World of Supernatural TV Series

Abstract

The article considers the concept of “supernatural" in the cult television series of the same name, which is a representative example of modern mass culture. The authors consider its structural characteristics and analyze in detail the two closely related value-practical structures: the concept of the family and the relationship with the supernatural. They find in the series an archaic concept of the family as a blood brotherhood opposing the outside world. The supernatural is revealed as a concrete form of circumstances hostile to the family and is rationalized within the framework of a flat ontology, reducing all kinds of “otherworldly" to a common denominator - the method of destruction. As a result, the line between “super" and “natural" is erased. Any forms of ontological dualism that distinguish between the “sacred" and the “worldly" become impossible. But the destruction of the way of life of “monsters" turns into an empirical procedure of checking the existence of any form of the supernatural through its falsification (destruction). The authors characterize the position of the heroes of the series as non-religious multi-theism and find in the world of the Supernatual a peculiar form of the anthropic principle: “monsters" are needed for the family's existence and the promotion of family values, and only due to the hunters'family the supernatural is discovered and reaches a “natural” existence.