On Fri, Dec 23, 2011 at 7:23 AM, Bob in Jersey <[email protected]>wrote:
> A piece in which Jeeeezus (Jason Sudeikis) visits the NFL quarterback > (Taran Killam) and teammates in the Denver locker room after an > overtime win the other week drew the ire of the CBN icon, saying had > this been about a Muslim player, the usual terrible things would > ensue... rightie Bob Beckel also griped about it over at Fixed > Noise... > > http://goo.gl/zpZO8 > Robertson has become such an absurd caricature of a Christian himself (he has basically written a sketch for SNL when they come back) that nothing he says really matters to most Christians or non-Christians. But the "they shouldn't make fun of Christians because if they made fun of Muslims they would kill people" argument is appealing enough to many Americans that it needs to be disputed whenever it gets much light. First of all, SNL and other US comedy shows have made fun of Muslims plenty in recent years. Second, depictions of the prophet are strictly forbidden by, and offensive to, the Muslim religion in a way that depictions of Jesus obviously (to anyone who has ever been in a church) is not to the Christian religion. Third, when Muslims try to forbid, let alone retaliate for, jokes about their religion and their prophet, Westerners in the Christian tradition tend to criticize them for it; so we can not really use them as an argument for censoring comic treatment of Christianity. If Robertson wanted to be merely a dick instead of the insane asshole that he is, he would have said something like "I didn't care for the sketch myself, but unlike those crybaby Muslims, we can take a joke. I thought the Tebow sketch on SNL was pretty funny (I give it about a B) and very courageous (I give it about an A-). It was not particularly mean-spirited towards Tebow, and was not mean spirited towards Jesus at all, who is shown to have his head on pretty straight. As Jon Stewart is prone to point out, the claim that Christians are some kind of persecuted group in this country is one of the most common and ridiculous of our Big Lies. The large majority of Americans identify themselves as Christian, and say they believe in the Christian God. It does not take courage to publicly identify with this religion, it takes courage to publicly disassociate from the religion, and even more to poke fun at it. My only criticism of the sketch was that it was a little unfair in implying that Tebow himself claims that God helps his teams win games. As Bob Costas pointed out so nicely in his SNF commentary a few weeks ago, Tebow has several times specifically acknowledged that he does not think this. Rather, it is many (many, many) of his by now extremely obnoxious followers (the "he" here referring to Tebow, not Jesus) who claim that God intervenes in the outcome of football games. Probably the most spot on part of the sketch is when Jesus says he prays to the field goal kicker, who says he did not know that, and Jesus says its because he is not in everybody's face about it (then looks at Tebow). Tebow is "guilty" of histrionic and gratuitous displays of his religiosity, but not of the spiritucal narcissism implied by the sketch, thinking that who wins an NFL game is important enough to earn divine intervention, (while preventing earthquakes or hurricanes that kill thousands of people somehow is not important enough to get God off the couch). The sketch is making fun of the Tebow-ites, not so much Tebow himself. If Tebow were any other third string rookie quarterback who had come off the bench to win 6 NFL games it would be a pretty good story. Instead his supporters have so over-hyped him, and made themselves so obnoxious, that many rational football fans have to spend most of their time when the topic comes up arguing that no, he is the MVP or no, he should be put in the Hall of Fame already (indeed, it is not clear that the Broncos have actually found their permanent starting quarterback for the next few seasons) instead of just enjoying what should be a nice little feel-good story. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
