February 02, 2006
Will & Grace VS Christianity?
A conservative group is upset about an upcoming Will & Grace episode in which Britney Spears guest stars as a Christian television co-host.
AFA pointed to wire reports saying that Britney Spears will make a guest appearance on the April 13 "Will and Grace," playing a conservative Christian sidekick to Sean Hayes' homosexual character, Jack.
When Jack's fictional TV network, Out TV, is bought by a Christian TV network, Spears hosts a cooking segment called "Cruci-fixin's."
How to combat this outrage? Flag burnings? Fatwahs? Armed gunmen storming the NBC headquarters? Er, no.
"Call your local NBC affiliate and ask them not to air the April 13 episode of "Will and Grace," AFA said in a message to supporters.
The group also wants concerned Christians to send a letter of complaint to NBC Chairman Bob Wright, and to spread the word about NBC's latest insult in church bulletins and newsletters.
Many progressive thinkers will pooh-pooh those who are upset about this and other television shows that openly mock Christianity. They will say (correctly) that such shows are protected under the First Amendment. Please take note, however, that in a democratic society we have the right to boycott and protest using peaceful means. Protesting the offensiveness of something is not the same thing as proposing an official ban.
Perhaps the Muslims who are upset about cartoons depicting Muhammed would do well to keep the above protest tactics in mind.
Oh, and do you think that Bill Clinton will be coming to the aid of offended Christians the way he came to the aid of offended Muslims?
"None of us are totally free of stereotypes about people of different races, different ethnic groups, and different religions ... there was this appalling example in northern Europe, in Denmark ... these totally outrageous cartoons against Islam," [Clinton] said.
I wouldn't bet the ranch.
Show Comments »
Christians will always lose in this game. If we protest, the networks will get attention and many more people will watch. If we do nothing, then the networks will get more brazen.
I suppose the best way to protest is to boycott, as you suggest. Imagine if every Christian household stopped watching those networks. Too bad Christians seem to need their "fix" too.
Posted by: Jonathan at February 2, 2006 11:04 PMYou're right. The best way to get one's message across in instances like these is through the boycott of the product. Money usually wins out over principle in the entertainment world, as much as they'd like us to think they're so high-minded.
Posted by: Pam at February 2, 2006 11:24 PMwhat's with the big stick christians have up their asses?
great movie quote:
"you know what i'm going to get you next christmas? a big wooden cross, so that everytime you feel unappreciated for your sacrifices, you can climb on up and nail yourself to it."
haha.
Posted by: steve at February 3, 2006 12:39 PMsteve;
Thanks for your insightful input.
Pam's post highlighted the reactions of offended Christians and Jews vs. the reactions of offended Muslims.
Another blogger noted that Kanye West didn't have the courage to appear on Rolling Stone as Mohammed. Wonder why?
Of course there are occasional religious figures that draw satire by their excesses, but some of this goes beyond satire focused on human frailties.
Posted by: joe-6-pack at February 3, 2006 02:11 PMkanye didn't appear on the cover of rolling stone as mohammed because his album wasn't entitled "mohammed walks" it was entitled "JESUS walks."
he appeared as jesus on the cover because the lyric to his song is "they said i could rap about anything except for JESUS."
make more sense now?
Posted by: steve at February 3, 2006 02:41 PMThat may be so; regardless, you fail to get the point of my post. I don't care if you think Christians are lame for being offended. My point was to compare the way they are expressing their displeasure versus how the Muslims are expressing their displeasure over cartoons of Muhammed.
Also, please refrain from profanity or I'll block you. Disagree all you'd like, but keep it clean.
Posted by: Pam at February 3, 2006 02:56 PM
