Posted on 05/15/2015 6:58:44 AM PDT by NYer
For years the film industry has loved to use the richness of Catholicism to enhance story lines in movies and television shows. They love using our church architecture, confessionals, Rosaries, cassocks, habits, schools, prayers, and traditions because they offer so much visual recognition, drama, and beauty. These are the same reasons Catholics are so ripe for slapstick, which I admit can be funny. However, as America rapidly moves into an era of declining Christianity, we increasingly see our pop culture presence reduced nearly exclusively to cheap laughs and even cruel bigotry.
ABC has decided to double-down on this anti-Christian narrative by working with the often vulgar and always hostile-to-the-Church LGBT “activist” Dan Savage. The show ABC and Mr. Savage have created is called The Real O’Neals which features a Catholic family of five who, along with their priest, is active in their local parish. Judging by the show’s trailer, everyone from the priest all the way to the little girl of the family are selfish hypocrites. Citing hypocrisy among some Catholics isn’t that big of a problem–it exists and is indeed ripe for humor. The issue is that it portrays the problem to be with Catholicism rather than flawed individual characters.
The priest gets called out for driving a Lexus instead of donating to charity. The little girl running the charity is stealing the money. The mom is overly-pious and shallow. The father is a doofus cop that openly refuses to talk about important issues with his family. One child is secretly anorexic and the main character–supposedly Mr. Savage as a teen–just came out as gay while his girlfriend is pressuring him to pressure her to have sex with her using her 48-pack of condoms. Of course the backwards-thinking, conservative parents are more shocked by their son being gay than the other two children’s problems. There’s also a prostitute and a statue of The Virgin Mary in the bathroom to remind the kids to keep the toilet seat down! Just your typical wacky Catholic family, right!?
I think most shows should be fair game for entertainment. However, there’s a difference between shows that are appropriate for HBO and Netflix and shows that are on free, prime-time television, and packaged as a family-friendly, quirky comedy. Prime-time network television should have a higher standard for what subject matter it airs considering their large and impressionable demographic. Shame on ABC.
Contact ABC with your thoughts here.
Fun Fact: Only family that still goes to church regularly is the Simpson’s! Funny how that used to be the edgy and “inappropriate” show for kids.
Come listen to a story ’bout a man named Ahmed
Poor Camel driver barely kept his family fed.
Then one day- he was shootin’ at some Jews
When up through the ground comes a bubblin’ ooze
Oil that is… Saudi soda.... Persian Perrier
Now the first thing ya know, Ahmed’s a millionaire
Kin folk said: Ahmed, Move away from there!
said: Californy is the place that you’d do fair
So the loaded up their camel and they moved to BelAir
swimmin pools…movie stars…...Jews....
The Bel Airabs!
IDK...would the Mob actually do this? IIRC, they are rather anticlerical....
They tried this before with Nothing Sacred - a show that lasted 16 whole episodes.
Unfortunately, this is not the first, nor will it be the last of this kind of junk. I have contacted ABC before regarding their “family” channel show The Fosters. Never received a reply. I suspect this show will go the way of others of it’s kind - eventual cancellation from lack of ratings.
Dan Savage? That pig? Not big on boycotts, but in the case I’ll make an exception. If someone posts a list of the sponsors I’ll call every single one of them whether I use their products or not.
And, I agree, let Danny Boy try this with a Muslim family, he probably wouldn’t last a week.
He’s just despicable, and truly I hate him.
You’d think the network who had to cancel “GCB” might have taken the lesson that just because they’d like to watch a show making fun of Christians doesn’t mean that many others do, instead of “Well, let’s try Catholics instead of Protestants.” I think this thing’s going to be extremely lucky to make it to 13 episodes.
Of course and it applies across the board. It is the exception, not the rule. Instead of making the family Catholic, why not have an Evangelical family and focus on this guy?
Megachurch minister asks for $60 million to buy a jet
ABC is stereotyping all Catholics in this representation. This is being done with one purpose only, to denigrate the Catholic Church.
They must not know that the more a religious group is persecuted, abused, killed — the more that religious group grows.
Bless them.
It didn't take long for someone to turn this an anti-Protestant thread.
On the whole, they were loony paranoiacs.
Now, if you choose to see criticism of that fringe crowd as "anti-Protestant," that may be in the eye of the beholder . . .
Not a new phenomenon and certainly not new to those outside the Catholic church (Baptists, Evangelical Christians, Protestants, AG, etc..)
We are all human after all. I think if this is made a big deal of, the "show" will last longer than it otherwise might because at the end of the day, NO ONE likes their faith being mocked in a sitcom.
Prediction: shows like this are just going to add more fuel to the fire when the backlash against the extremist left-wingers/progressives ruining America get their come uppance.
A masterful response to the left. Why of course they'll deserve it. They knew (or should have..) the risks of offending one of the world's biggest religions. Of course the standard they apply to others should be applied to them!
Brilliant post.
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