Your Hypocrisy Is Showing II: Comedy Central
Last night Comedy Central’s newest show, The Sarah Silverman Program, featured its title character having relations with “God”. I won’t go into it all here — the idea is so offensive and maddening — but afterwards Sarah (fresh from her Jesus is Magic program success) rejects “God” and eventually ends up kneeing him in the groin. This whole thing is not only talked about, but shown, with “God” being represented by black actor Tucker Smallwood.
Now, I’m not shocked by Comedy Central doing this. They are, after all, the channel that we owe South Park to. But that brings me to an interesting point.
Just one year ago, March 2006, Comedy Central pulled an episode of South Park because of its references to Scientology and Tom Cruise. They didn’t want to “offend” Scientologists (Uh… right. Both of them would have been really mad.)
A month after that, April 2006, Comedy Central refused to air another South Park episode that showed the likeness of the Prophet Muhammad after the Danish cartoon dust-up. Again, not wanting to offend anyone.
Hypocrisy in media is certainly nothing new, but this is a new low. Think about this. Can you IMAGINE anyone showing Muhammad or Buddha having sex with someone, being rejected in an embarrassing and humiliating way after, and then being kneed in the groin? There would literally be a small war in the Islamic world over it. But because we’re supposed to be a bunch of “turn the other cheek” Christians, these shows feel the freedom to mistreat our beliefs.
I defer further comments to this article written by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-Connor, Archbishop of Westminster:
I am becoming tired of the mockery of those who seem to regard faith communities, especially Christian ones, as intrusive and contrary to the common good. I label them Christophobic. They wish to close off every voice and contribution other than their own. Their inability to see the Christian seed in what is noble and good in Western culture chills the possibility of a true pluralism. Sometimes it spills over into the kind of anti-Christian bigotry that has appeared on some university campuses.
The great majority of people in our country do not want the erosion of a culture that is ultimately rooted in Christianity and its values. The presence in Britain of Muslims and other faith communities is leading to a renewed interest in Christian identity, boiled down if you like to the simple proposition that if a Muslim woman may wear a headscarf, a Christian woman should be able to wear a cross.
What is lacking in the new secular aggressiveness is the very Christian virtue of doubt. Only secularists such as Professor Dawkins seem to have no doubt when it comes to faith. We cannot build a truly human society on such narrow and rigid foundations.
5 Responses to “Your Hypocrisy Is Showing II: Comedy Central”
By Jon on Mar 8, 2007 | Reply
The Scientology episode wasn’t pulled to refrain from offending, it was pulled because Paramount didn’t want it showing the same week that MI3 came out. They didn’t withhold the showing of Mohamed because they didn’t want to “offend” Muslims, they did it because they didn’t want to risk being sued for inciting a riot.
By Wes Comer on Mar 8, 2007 | Reply
It’s a matter of semantics, I guess.
You say “they didn’t want to risk being sued for inciting a riot.” Okay. Well, why would showing Muhammad incite a riot? Because Muslims would be offended.
I simply cut out the details and posted the bottom line. Thanks for the added clarity, though.
By Jon on Mar 8, 2007 | Reply
“Hypocrisy” implies that they *care* whether they offended Muslims. They don’t. They would have gladly done so. In fact they’ve done plenty of other things that Muslims would find offensive.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t be offended. I’m just saying there’s no hypocrisy here.