[Mb-civic] Should one be able to joke about The Crucifixion?

Tue May 9 08:11:24 PDT 2006

Thanks for that, Ian. I think you are absolutely right.

AJCH
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Ian <ialterman at nyc.rr.com>
> To: mb-civic at islandlists.com
> Subject: Re: [Mb-civic] Should one be able to joke about The Crucifixion?
> Date: Mon, 8 May 2006 17:10:31 -0400
> 
> 
> Alex et al:
> 
> As the resident minister (LOL), I can state unequivocally that any Christian
> who considers any aspect of Christianity "taboo" re humor does not
> understand the faith.  Certainly humor that denigrates a person's faith - or
> their strongest-held belief system - is, or at least can be, more hurtful
> than other types of humor.  This would seem to suggest that such humor be
> kept to a minimum, and not be used in a malicious, spiteful or deliberately
> hurtful manner.  I think there is a line between satiric or irreverent on
> the one hand, and insulting and profane on the other.
> 
> But satire is what satire is, and any Christian who gets his/her back up
> over the satirization of any aspect of Christianity, including the
> crucifixion, is one whose has more "doubt in faith" than strength.
> "Humility" alone would preclude a "back up" response.  Add in forgiveness
> and patience, and this would preclude resentment or anger as well.
> 
> All of that said, this does not mean that a Christian would not have the
> right to forego any particular comedian's act if the Christian felt that
> such comedian's humor was insulting or profane.
> 
> Peace.
> 
> P.S.  I loved Life of Brian.
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alexander Harper" <harperalexander at mail.com>
> To: <MB-Civic at islandlists.com>
> Sent: Monday, May 08, 2006 8:39 AM
> Subject: [Mb-civic] Should one be able to joke about The Crucifixion?
> 
> 
> 
> Miles Kington: The Crucifixion Considered as a Subject for Humour
> 
> If anyone said there was one thing that should never be joked about, it was
> a clear sign that they had secret fears in that particular area
> 
> Published: 08 May 2006
> 
> The humorous writer George Mikes once wrote a book about humour in which at
> one point he dared to approach the topic that people seem to find so
> alluring without ever being able to solve: are there any subjects which
> should never be joked about? Are there things which are so taboo or so holy
> or so sacrosanct that they are beyond humour?
> 
> George was clear in his own mind about this. He said unequivocally that
> nothing is sacred, nothing taboo. Nothing should ever be placed in
> quarantine from satire. He went further and said that if anyone ever said to
> you that there was one thing that should never be joked about, it was a
> clear sign that the person who said it had secret fears in that particular
> area.
> 
> (Later in the book George Mikes unwittingly and rather unexpectedly breaks
> his own rule, or at least gives himself away, when he says that there is one
> thing you should never joke about: physical deformity. Did that mean that
> George himself had secret fears about his body? He certainly was quite
> small, and slightly hunched, but it never occurred to me on a slight
> acquaintance that there was anything particularly odd about him. Or worth
> being fearful about. But who knows the truth, when it comes to other
> people's secret fears?)
> 
> This is by way of a return to a subject I raised last week, which was the
> suitability or otherwise of the Crucifixion as a subject for irreverence.
> (Interesting, by the way, that we always say "the Crucifixion" and not
> "Jesus's Crucifixion", as if nobody else had ever been crucified, just as
> people always say "the Holocaust" and not "the Jewish Holocaust" or "Nazi
> Holocaust", as if there had never been any other holocaust. Yet even on the
> same day as he died, Jesus was not the only victim of this horrible method
> of execution...)
> 
> Enough shilly-shallying. Let us face the question squarely. Can you be
> irreverent, or even humorous about the Crucifixion?
> 
> And of course the question has already been answered for me by Monty Python,
> in the closing sequence of Life of Brian, where Eric Idle and other
> assembled biblical people on crosses sing the jolly yet utterly banal little
> song, "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life". This is so incongruous and
> so far from the normal austere, pain-ridden image of the Crucifixion that
> you cannot help laughing at the sheer pointlessness of it.
> 
> Monty Python was not the first to take the Passion lightly, however. Billy
> Connolly had already aroused controversy years before with a routine about
> Christ's last days on earth, retelling the story as a mighty three-day
> piss-up in Glasgow, with Jesus being portrayed as a local hard man called
> the Big Yin.
> 
> And over a hundred years ago the French enfant terrible Alfred Jarry had
> retold the story as a sporting event in: "The Crucifixion Considered as an
> Uphill Bicycle Race", with the opening line: "Barabbas, one of the
> favourites, had scratched from the race just before the start". It's a
> vigorous though muddled tale, because there are in truth not many parallels
> between the Crucifixion and a bicycle race, but it struck J G Ballard enough
> for him to write a pastiche of it called "The Assassination of John
> Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race", which I think is
> actually funnier.
> 
> Nor can I get out of my memory a true story which appeared years ago in the
> satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné. They reported that rehearsals had
> been taking place in front of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris for a Passion
> play. Apparently, according to the Canard, the main rehearsal was well under
> way, with the actor playing Jesus already fastened to the Cross, when a
> sudden fierce rainstorm swept across the open ground and sent all the actors
> scurrying for cover. All, of course, except for Jesus, who was trapped on
> the cross in near-nakedness, and could do nothing except shout after them:
> "You bastards! You bastards!"
> 
> What an awe-inspiring image.
> 
> I hope to return to this subject tomorrow, unless I am struck down by a
> thunderbolt before then. Still, it never happened to Jarry, Connolly or the
> editor of the Canard, so I live in hope.
> 
> 
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