JS:TO returns to its birthplace
Jerry Springer: The Opera is due to be shown at the theatre where it debuted back in 2002: Endinburgh’s Festival Theatre. According to The Scotsman, the move “has brought delight to theatre bosses and critics who believe it deserves to be performed.”
Inevitably, local clergymen are expressing their concern. The Rev Andrew Anderson of Greenside Parish Church starts badly:
Although I am against censorship, I believe we live in a free world and therefore I am entitled to say what I think about this.
Eh?
I watched a bit of it on television and I can understand that they are trying to satirise Jerry Springer’s programme, which sounds pretty awful. But we live in an age where we want to be tolerant and respectful of all the major faiths, so to give such gross offence to Christians was really very hurtful.
It is very upsetting and I find it both unnecessary and unacceptable
Continued the irredeemably confused Reverend.
Furthermore, I am sure it would not be allowed with other faith figures.
Ah, that old refrain…
And on that old canard – not only did “Monkey Dust” regularly feature comedy Islamic terrorists in the last couple of series, but “Goodness Gracious Me” used to take the piss out of Hinduism something rotten. I’m almost certain I remember one sketch in the latter where the Hindu deity Ganesh ate a beefburger (it was a year or two after the business with the milk-drinking Ganesh statues), which I think is probably a much more serious blasphemy than anything in JS:TO.
What is it with the churches round here? First London Road Church (the second nearest church to my house), then Greenside (the nearest). It makes me wonder what the water board have put in the holy water.
Perhaps it behoves us all to be tolerant of someone’s belief (provided it’s not hurting anyone), but respect and tolerance are two different things. I can tolerate the Rev. Whatsisname, but why should that mean I respect his silly beliefs?
I do not understand where in JS: The Opera they delibratly set out to offend Christians.
Once again, the fashion fallacy. A refrain may be old and true, old and untrue, new and true, new and untrue. Four possibilities.
Where then is the sense in seeing the refrain as being beyond redemption merely by virtue of being old?
Offence, as Ive often mentioned, is not the issue. Historically inaccurate representations of historical figures, for the delectation of those who wouldnt recognise an historically accurate portrayal if it bit them on the nose (and who thereby ‘find’ their own uninformed stereotypes ‘confirmed’) is the issue.
And, has been pointed out to you a million times, it is a clearly fictional portrayal, that even the thickest person on Earth could establish.
You’ve still never explained how anyone could mistake these characters for the historical versions, especially given THEY MET JERRY SPRINGER. Y’know, the one born 2000 years after they died.
Do you really think that if someone made a play that portrayed Margaret Thatcher as a man and meeting Thomas Jefferson, someone would actually walk out of the performance thinking either of those things ever happened?
Don’t you get the entire principle of fiction?
Good to see you back with your usual quality of comment Christopher!
After all this time away from the site, I was hoping that maybe you could have come up with an argument that hasn’t already been discredited. Obviously too much to hope for.
Hi Andy-
A few points:
(1) It is an extremely difficult task to get back to the Jesus of history in the first place – even when we have a fair number of documents. The chances of the wo/man in the street being aware of the results of this scholarly enquiry are not high. What s/he will generally be aware of are caricatures or Sunday School versions.
In order to know what aspects of a portrayal of Jesus are fictional, you’ll admit that one has first to know what would be factual. And you’ll also admit that very few are aware of scholarly conclusions on what would be factual. Consequently, you must agree that, when it comes to Jesus, very few are equipped to sift fact from fiction.
(2) Fictional portrayals of Jesus are not random. This one, for example, is guaranteed to maximise shallow laughter and to confirm unthinking stereotypes. The fact that we live in a society where a lot of people seem to think that one person’s view of an historical character is as good as another’s doesn’t help.
Hi Andrew-
Discredited? Great – all you need to do is explain how it is discredited.
Your comment reminds me of the Molesworth books by Willans and Searle. Instead of giving a direct answer to an exam question, Molesworth responds ‘Larfably easy’ – hoping that no-one will notice that he has actually failed to address the question at all.
It is discredited because this portrayal of “historical” characters is clearly fictional. Only a complete idiot would think otherwise.
If anyone comes away from JSTO thinking it is an accurate depiction of anyone, they need their head examining. It is barely even an accurate depiction of Jerry Springer.
I challenge you to find anyone who actually thinks JSTO contains an accurate portryal of Jesus or any other historical person.
I think you’re right: few if any would think that. But
(1) Why are the viewers more interested in laughing at a fictional portrayal than learning more about the facts? It is only ‘fictional’ in relation to their own stereotyped or Sunday School views of Jesus, which are themselves more or less fictional in many cases.
(2) Are you saying there is no connection to the sort of pillorying that went on in programmes like ‘The Word’ where the object was to put holy figures and graphic sexual material/language in close juxtaposition? Surely the success of ‘The News of the World’ etc proves that this is exactly what people want to see.
Now, JSTO is, like the News of the World, a money-making enterprise. You surely can’t be so naive as not to realise that JSTO is doing no more nor less than The News of the World: namely, giving the people what they want. And what they want – for reasons I could elaborate upon – is for holy figures to be dragged into the same mire they sometimes inhabit themselves – so that they don’t feel so ‘judged’ by those holy figures.
Why are they more interested in laughing at a fictional version?
Could be two reasons.
1) The “facts” are actually incredibly dull, and the majority of people aren’t overly interested in learning about what happened 2000 years ago.
2) The Jesus story depicted in the Bible is also laughable in part, but laughing at religion is taboo for many, so they prefer to laugh at the fiction presented in JSTO rather than the fiction presented in the Bible.
Neither scholarly enquiry nor a degree in maths are necessary to note that if there was a Jesus and Mary, they were dead some 1900 years before Jerry Springer was born, and consequently the meeting could not have happened and is fictional.
No you wouldn’t. That a logical failacy. For example, I know nothing about the inventor of the wheel. He may not have had a name, and if he (or, indeed, she) had one no one on Earth is aware of it. And yet any story in which the inventor of the wheel, having being dead for thousands and thousands of years, was interviewed by Trevor MacDonald and saved the world by an invasion from the Marians from Bugs Bunny would, to any observer, be clearly fictional.
If anything, the show pointed out holes in the unthinking stereotypes utilised by people such as yourself that portrays Jesus as a shallow, two dimensional cutout of ill-defined “goodness”.
When? How?
Christopher, I don’t recall ever seeing any holy figures on the word.
I used to watch it every week when it was on (well, for the first few series at least), and don’t recall anything like that.
Anyway, JSTO is not like the word because the word was a zoo-format tv entertainment show, and jsto is a musical, and a damn fine one at that
Oh, and Christopher, from point 5 – you’re right that the fact it’s an old refrain is not reason for it being wrong. I reckon the monitor was trying to be polite by not saying ‘ah, that load of old bollocks again’.
As, Joe pointed out in comment #1, both islam and hinduism have had the mickey taken out of them on telly before, thus giving the lie to the retardverend’s statement
Actually, I dont necessarily believe the statement myself – I can remember all religions being made fun of, though it’s highly unlikely that they would all get equal shrift.
The Word: The complaints I recall involved: (a) ministers etc being invited on and being shown pornography; (b) a Mother Superior being asked to comment on the assets of various naked men in the studio. However, I have an idea that the latter was broadcast on April 1st, and she may not have been a MS at all. None of which takes away from the fact that this particular feature was chosen for broadcast rather than any other. Why? Because there is an urge to juxtapose supposedly holy ppl with debauched/depraved material, as proven by the perennial success of The News of the World etc.. As I mentioned, I can hypothesise (can’t we all?) about the reasons for this urge.
Hi Andy-
I think you make some good points. Spoiled by the fact that you hypothesise on no basis about my own views of Jesus. Any NT student’s views will be some distance from the views of a typical churchgoer.
The reasons for wanting to juxtapose religious figures with what you call “debauched/depraved” material? Because like any other alleged authority figure, we like to make fun of them.
And, to be frank, as these religious figures believe that clearly fictional stories are fact, they deserve to have the piss taken out of them.
Wow Andrew, sledgehammer should be your middle name. Not for you the nuances and intricacies of detailed investigation.
I sometimes feel we should be more self-critical about our societal tendency to criticise anyone in authority.
There is, of course, a conceptual link between selfishness (wanting to be in charge of everything ourselves) and criticism of authority. TW3 etc marked a sea-change here from around 1963 on – and since then we have witnessed a lot of the sort of adolescent behaviour that might be expected of ppl who refuse to be told what to do, and always think that they know best. I should say that a fixation with criticising authority is liable to be a sign of an adolescent society, since all will agree that that is the precise age-group for which the shortcomings of authority are a big issue.
Plenty of authority figures (not all) work very hard for us. They got put there because (in many cases) they were public-spirited and outstanding. How about us?
Of course, all authority figures should be accountable. And we dont want to become the sort of state where criticism of authority leads to arrest. But one can go too far. Remember that many of those (e.g. journalists) who want public figures to be accountable would never agree to be accountable themselves. Just as many of those who expect high standards of Christians would never think of living up to those standards themselves.
errr….. no.
I criticise my local councillers over several things. But I don’t think I should run the refuse collection service, or set my council tax rate. I criticise Tony Blair for supporting faith schools, but I don’t think I should be running the education system myself.
Criticism of authority is an essential part of any free society. If we aren’t allowed to do it, we live under a dictatorship, not a democracy.
In the past (and the present day in some parts of the world) people have been killed for disagreeing with authority. A Christian should be well aware of that……
Unless you think that Jesus was someone who actually made mistakes, did evil things, and was occassionally stupid and incorrect about things (and I’m thinking I’m on fairly safe ground with the assumption that you don’t), then what I said was a completely accurate statement of your belief.
By the way, haven’t you just basically admitted that your entire argument against JS:TO is completely wrong?
Hi Andrew-
Yes, I already made those points. I was referring to something else: namely, the spirit which has been abroad in the last 40 years which makes it ‘acceptable’ for practically 100% of many people’s comments on politicians & other authority figures to be negative.
Andy-
Blimey, even I have known some good people who hardly ever do anything particularly bad. So how can I possibly judge from the distance of 2000 years whether Jesus did or did not? I dont know – and nor do you and nor does anyone.
The key note there being “hardly ever” (which I doubt it true. The best anyone can say is that they know people who’ve not been very bad to the best of their knowledge). Every human throughout history has done things wrong and being failable – and Jesus does some pretty scummy things in the Bible too.