I NetFlixed this out of curiosity and am totally hooked. Can’t wait for Season 2 (set for release on DVD Nov. 28)!
Joan of Arcadia is just what it sounds like: god appears to a 15 year old, Joan, on a regular basis. Instead of being in France in the early 15th century, we’re in California, early 21st century. She hasn’t been burned yet, but maybe that was a story arc that would’ve been in season 3…Joan is, in all respects other than having visions of god on a regular basis, a normal teenage, high school, girl: school isn’t just hard because of classes but because of the students.
God appears to Joan but His denomination is never revealed: her parents were brought up Catholic and one gets the feeling that the kids were baptized, but no one goes to church. Joan admits that, until He started appearing to her, she didn’t believe He existed. God’s guises are many and varied but occasionally repeat: my favorite is Goth God, but there’s also Little Kid God, Old Lady God, and Chess God. In order to establish Who He is when appearing in a new guise, God will tell Joan something that only He would know: when she’s alone, the Celine Dion song from Titanic makes her cry, for example.
God’s dramatic purpose is to drive the story line by creating conflict. God sends Joan on errands. From the mythic (build a boat), to the teenage weird (ask Ramsey to the dance), to the profound (get a gift for her friend). She frequently misunderstands the purpose behind the request (she thinks there’s going to be a flood, an obvious conclusion when she’s asked to build a boat, but really, its presence in the garage serves as a way for her oldest brother and her father to re-connect), or simply thinks she’s failed (had she not taken Ramsey to the dance, he would’ve gone alone and, ultimately, pulled a Columbine; but he didn’t since she did and since the next day at school is normal, it seems as though her actions didn’t do anything). She also often thinks that the request is for something completely different than what it is (the “gift” she thinks she’s supposed to give her friend is her virginity; it turns out to be faith in himself). One is often left to wonder if God is being intentionally misleading or if His wishes are simply too ineffable for our language.
Joan’s interactions with God are, obviously, a metaphor for humanity’s interactions. How often has God told us to do something and we get it wrong? How often do we think that He has really told us something entirely different? It’s also a question put to the audience: if God appeared to you today, what would you do? Joan asks a lot of questions (most often, “Why?”) but God rarely answers. When He does, it’s in an ineffable way that aggravates her. She frequently gets angry at him: for not letting her in on The Secret, for being mysterious, and for asking things that are too hard for her (like taking AP Chem).
I think that there is a great value in having a (almost) child interacting with God in this manner. As a teenager, she can be moody and emotional with him in a way that, in an adult would be less believable, though in no way less sincere. How often have we been angry at God, not understanding The Plan? How often would we have liked to swear and cry at Him? Joan gets to on a regular basis. I think that might be the trade off: she gets to speak to Him directly but then she has to do His tasks.
My favorite part is all the different guises God appears in. Very frequently, it’s someone that Joan (and probably me, too) would ignore: the trash collector, a homeless guy. There’s a (pantheist/namaste) meditation that I do: “I worship the god/dess in [insert person here]“. It’s often difficult for me to recognize the divine in those close to me. I will admit that I’ve never tried it with strangers. In any case, I like thinking that God is in everyone (or could be anyone) we meet every day. Et in Arcadia.
