Amerikkalaisissa henkilökuvajutuissa tartutaan aina ihmisten uskonnolliseen taustaan. Otetaan nyt esimerkiksi New Yorkerin juttu Whatever It Takes, joka varsinaisesti kertoo 24:n vaikutuksesta kidutuksen imagoon (!), mutta joka sisältää myös pätkän tuottaja Joel Surnow’n henkilöhistoriaa:

Surnow’s parents were F.D.R. Democrats. He recalled, ”It was just assumed, especially in the Jewish community”–to which his family belonged. ”But when you grow up you start to challenge your parents’ assumptions. ’Am I Jewish? Am I a Democrat?’ ” Many of his peers at the University of California at Berkeley, where he attended college, were liberals or radicals. ”They were all socialists and Marxists, but living off their family money,” he recalled. ”It seemed to me there was some obvious hypocrisy here. It was absurd.” Although he wasn’t consciously political, he said, ”I felt like I wasn’t like these people.” In 1985, he divorced his wife, a medical student, who was Jewish, and with whom he has two daughters. (His relationships with them are strained.) Four years later, he remarried. His wife, who used to work in film development, is Catholic; they have three daughters, whom they send to Catholic schools. He likes to bring his girls to the set and rushes home for his wife’s pork-chop dinners. ”I got to know who I was and who I wasn’t,” he said. ”I wasn’t the perfect Jewish kid who is married, with a Jewish family.” Instead, he said, ”I decided I like Catholics. They’re so grounded. I sort of reoriented myself.”

En ole oikein varma, mitä mieltä olen tällaisesta psykologisoinnista. Siitä olen varma, että suomalaisista jutuista moiset palaset yleensä puuttuvat.

Päivän kysymys, Unto Hämäläistä lainatakseni, kuuluu: miksi?