Monday, January 30, 2006

The Book of Daniel...


I’m a fan of Ellen Burstyn and Aidan Quinn and because of this decided to check out “The Book of Daniel” when it premiered several weeks ago and was instantly hooked. In a nutshell The Book of Daniel is basically a soap opera revolving around a pill popping Episcopalian priest named Daniel (Aidan Quinn) who talks to and sees the religious icon Jesus on a daily basis. Unlike other shows where the dad is a servant of God this family is not “Leave It To Beaver” perfect, far from it. They’ve got some serious drama going on; there’s a daughter who was selling weed, a gay son, a promiscuous adopted son, an Alzheimer afflicted grandma, a pot smoking (she’s ill) housekeeper and to top it off Daniel’s dad an over critical Episcopalian bishop is having an affair with Daniel’s superior (Burstyn). Daniel is also doing business with the mob as a result of his deceased brother-in-law stealing three million dollars in church funds. With his Italian Catholic priest friend acting as the middle man Daniel turned to the mob in an attempt to find his brother- in- law and the stolen money. After the guy is found dead and the money is recovered Daniel is forced to hire a gay (in the closet) mafia affiliated contractor to build a school as a condition to getting the money back.

Of course any show/movie/song that remotely touches on the subject of religion in a less than divine way is bound to stir up some controversy with the religious sector of this country. War parties were set up over the fact that Daniel had heart to heart chats with the religious icon Jesus. The thing is these people started protesting the show sight unseen. don’t see what the big deal was it wasn’t as if Jesus was rolling up a blunt getting high, chillin’ at the local “gentleman’s club” spending church donations on lap dances, or surfing the net for kiddie porn. The role of Jesus on the show was in my opinion a way of giving a physical voice to Daniel’s subconscious. I had heard that the show was having trouble lining up sponsors because of its’ so called controversial nature. Still I was really surprised when I turned on my television this past Friday expecting to see the show and instead heard that “The Book of Daniel can now be seen in its entirety on mnbc.com” and an episode of Law and Order was shown instead. I was livid, not so much over the show but because of the reason that the show was not on, it smacked of “Big Brother”. It had nothing to do with ratings but everything to do with the financial pressure exercised by the religious fanatics of this country against potential sponsors of the show.

Ever since Janet Jackson’s boob made it’s debut at the Super Bowl a couple of years ago this country has been losing it’s mother hubbing mind. The conservatives of this country have been flexing their censorship muscles in the media with considerable success. They’ve been foisting religious beliefs on the political process of this country, witness the arguments against gay marriages and the never ending battle to preserve women’s “right to choose”. One of the wonderful things about being an American is the privilege of the many freedoms were have and often take for granted; freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom to get my ass up off the sofa and change the television if I find a program offensive. However it seems to me that the “Praise Be Jesus” population of this country is slowly taking over, if you doubt it take a look at who is in the White House and who’s being appointed to the Supreme Court these days and that my friends scares me even more than the thought of Paris Hilton doing Shakespeare.

A couple of semesters ago I did a project for photography class on my interpretation of freedom and it was an eye opener. One of my favorite shots (shown at the beginning of this post) was of a guy wearing a t-shirt promoting a band named, “Jesus is a Cunt”. When I presented the photo in class I was pounced upon like a Christian in a den full of lions. If my classmates could have gotten away with tarring and feathering me I’m sure a few would have tried. What they failed to realize was that the photo was about freedom, the freedom of the band to choose the offensive name, the freedom of the guy to wear it and my freedom to shoot and present the photo. This photo was a visual record of the result of American freedom in its many wonderful forms. While I don’t want to take away the freedom of “The Praise Be Jesus” sector of this country I do wish they’d lay off The Big Brother mode and let us make up our own minds. They raise holy hell over The Book of Daniel while making drivel like Desperate Housewives a huge hit. The thing is that in discussing this show with other people I found that it was basically drawing people back to the church specifically because of the conversations between Jesus and Daniel as a well as Daniel’s sermons. When the boom lowered on the show this past Friday it reminded those very same people of why they stopped going to church in the first place. I found the whole thing rather ironic.



Posted by @ 6:04 PM
3 comment from:  Emory Mayne,  Aisha,  Mia,