Posted on 09/18/2006 12:38:10 PM PDT by bruinbirdman
That's the central plot twist in the premiere of the new NBC drama "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," created by "West Wing" producer-writer Aaron Sorkin. The show goes behind the scenes of a fictional sketch-comedy program resembling "Saturday Night Live" at a fictional network called UBS. The censors at UBS have scratched a skit titled "Crazy Christians," and now all hell will break loose. We're never shown the skit, but we're told repeatedly that it's demonstrably hilarious.
Sorkin uses his first script to throw sharp knives and rusty razors at the Americans who've lobbied for less filthy television. The show begins with an improbable "standards and practices" censor telling the producer of the fictional "SNL" that he can't run "Crazy Christians" because "what do you want me to say to the 50 million people who are gonna go out of their minds as soon as it airs?" The producer cracks wise: "Well, first of all, you can tell 'em we average 9 million households, so at least 41 million of them are full of crap. Second, you can tell 'em that living where there's free speech means sometimes you're gonna get offended."
But Hollywood writers know that in a free-speech society, people are free to denounce Hollywood's shows when they are vile and disgusting. There's also a remarkable double standard at work here. While denouncing the free-speech rights of "crazy Christians," Hollywood exercises its own restrictions, zealously avoiding on camera the many social taboos -- smoking cigarettes, say -- to which it subscribes.
What Hollywood likes is having the almighty power to offend -- to "challenge" society, as they like to describe it -- freely. But only some people are sought out for offending. For every supposedly crazy parent who worries about sex, violence and smutty talk on TV, perhaps there's another supposedly crazy parent who worries about different offenses, such as Twinkie commercials or scenes with cool, beautiful people smoking cigarettes. But those parents don't get mocked by scriptwriters. It is those with religious objections who get singled out.
But Sorkin wasn't done lecturing. When his skit is axed, the outraged fictional "SNL" producer bounds onto the stage and unleashes a lecture on live television. It's what Sorkin has probably wanted to say about network executives (and their alleged overreaction to those crazy Christians) many times: "The two things that make them scared gutless are the FCC and every psycho religious cult that gets positively horny at the very mention of a boycott." Sorkin was so impressed with his own insult that it reruns later in the show in fictional news clips.
Two major characters fight over how their romance broke up when the woman sang hymns on "The 700 Club." Again, Sorkin aims low, insisting Pat Robertson is a vicious racist. "You put on a dress and sang for a bigot." When the woman replies that the faithful audience of the show inspires her, he cracks, "Throw in the Halloween costumes and you got yourself a Klan rally."
Sorkin actually pushed a similar plot for the first episode of "The West Wing," in which lovable liberal President Josiah Bartlet instructed a clueless, caricatured Christian evangelist who didn't know the order of the Ten Commandments and then unloaded a long sermon on vicious Christian pro-lifers threatening his 12-year-old granddaughter. He told the conservative Christians to get their fat (bottoms) out of his White House.
Maybe cursing out the Christians is his show-opening good luck charm.
While Sorkin has an obvious problem with Christianity, it's actually broader than that. He thinks religion in general is bunk. In 2002, he told a crowd at the Sinai Temple in Los Angeles that "I was turned off on religion." The rabbi interviewing him asked him if he believed in God. He said he viewed the wide array of religions as "many fairytales" that "seem hardly to be doing what they intended." For Sorkin, spirituality was "a meditative thing that has to do with helping others and not waiting for it to come from a divine source."
What this means is Sorkin -- and all the Sorkins in Hollywood -- are probably never going to write a daring, potentially offensive script with the concept of mocking "crazy atheists." Instead, in our upside-down popular culture, the unbeliever is the sacred cow.
Can't wait to miss that one.
So when are they going to be "daring" and do a skit offending Muslims?
I give the show three weeks, tops.
Too bad he doesn't have the courage of a Matt Stone or Trey Parker (South Park). Those guys did roughly the same plot already, only it was spineless TV executives afraid of offending "crazy Muslims."
More NBC drivel I won't be wasting time on.
As we all know, the biggest censorship story of the year has been the successful attempts by a small cadre of committed Fundamentalist Christians to get ABC to edit major portions of a docudrama days before it was to air.
That was a damn good episode.
Oh Let them do it. Obviously NBC still believes that Christians are not a financial powerhouse...They should ask rosie,Rosanne, Dan Rather, etc.
Liberalism IS a religion.
And you can be damn sure he'll never take on the "crazy Muslims"!
Color me impressed (*NOT*!!)
the infowarrior
He's come a long way from the episode of "Sports Night" where Felicity Huffman's character wanders into a church one day, and comes back telling everyone what a life changing experience it was, or the Christmas episode of that same show where a Jewish character decides to go to Midnight Mass because "they're going to sing songs and tell stories" and feels that is a worthwhile experience.
Cowards! Like to see them do a "Crazy Muslims" skit.
You know what? Sorkin is right. Bozell reminds me of these Islamic fanatics, ready to go ape over the smallest perceived slight. As a Christian, Sorkin's critique rolls off my back - or it even rings true.
I was hoping that "Studio 60" would be another "Sports Night," because I really enjoyed that show and wish it was never cancelled. Now I am not so sure.
Are you nuts? This POS will be hyped up, trumped up and held up by NBC as long as it takes to "find its audience". Meanwhile, you can guarantee that Tony Shaloub has won his last "Best Actor in a Comedy" Emmy for a while, as the Holly-weird-o's will continue to trip all over themselves telling us how great a show this is.
He forgot to mention that, while you're meditating, you're supposed to snort coke.
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