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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Jerry Springer - The Opera |
| 2005-08-14 |
| The writers of profanity-laden "Jerry Springer - The Opera" are angry. The creators of the show that caused a record number of complaints when aired on British television say religious censorship is in danger of strangling the arts. "The arts" being a subjective term. "I am angry that 60,000 people made a judgment without even bothering to see it," said composer Richard Thomas. Comedian Stewart Lee, who wrote the script, is also fuming because a British provincial stage tour was postponed after a third of the venues pulled out due to fears about protests. The musical is based on Jerry Springer's brash American talk show whose lurid topics include "Honey I'm a Call Girl" and "Bring on the Bisexuals." I say, old chap, do bring on the bisexuals. Then, we shall retire for tea. In the show which was garlanded with theater awards, viewers could watch a diaper fetishist confess all to his true love, catch a tap dance routine by the Ku Klux Klan and see Jesus and the Devil launch into a swearing tirade against each other. As Christian protesters set fire to their television licenses outside the BBC, the publicly funded broadcaster defended its right to air the show on television earlier this year despite being inundated with complaints. "Television licenses". Brits get taxed to watch TV, don't you know. Sucks to be them. Lee, at the Edinburgh Fringe to do a show with Thomas about the trials and tribulations of staging the opera, said: "At the time the Christian right were feeling a bit left out as the Sikhs had managed to get a play banned. "They wanted a political football to kick around." The censorship row came less than a month after hundreds of angry Sikhs stormed a theater in the central England city of Birmingham and forced it to scrap a play depicting sexual abuse in a Sikh temple. British Christian pressure groups have less political clout than their counterparts in the American Christian right, but Lee and Thomas think the chances of the opera now making it to Broadway are slim. "The Americans are more nervous than before," Thomas said, adding: "When the Right in America protest, it ends in a global conflict with thousands of civilian deaths. Yup, I remember all those protest marches in 2002 declaring that there just wasn't enough killing of innocent civilians, and whammo! Iraq war one year later. Nothing like a good, right-wing protest. "I am going to write a show about the Taliban called The Taliban Can Can." Oh, that dry, British humor! Hilarious! But their bitterness is not confined to the religious right. The British government is trying to pass through parliament legislation to stamp out religious hatred with a bill that gives all faiths equal protection. Muslims welcomed it as long overdue but critics saw it as a threat to civil liberties. Comedians say it smacks of political correctness and will stop them making religious jokes. "I think it is unenforceable," Lee said. "And if you say to comedians you can't do something, they go ahead and do it." Guffaw! Yuk yuk yuk. British Indian comedian Paul Chowdhry, also performing in Edinburgh, complained: "That means I would get locked up with hardened criminals just for making a joke." Lee argued that such legislation could even end up discouraging funding for stage or film projects with religious themes. At the Fringe, the world's largest arts festival, comedians have not shied away from talking about last month's London bomb attacks by four British Muslim suicide bombers that killed 52 people. "A lot of the young Muslim comedians are discussing it," Lee said. "That is really great because they have an interesting perspective as a result of the fact that anywhere they go in London, people are now frightened of them." Everybody Loves Al-Raymond - coming soon to CBS! |
| Posted by:Chris W. |
| #1 This is pure xenophobia, plain an simple. Anyone with control of that sector of the domestic market wants no competition. The Americans have their Springer and the Brits have their Royal Family. Now bugger off. |
| Posted by: Elmavirong Greating7173 2005-08-14 20:38 |