Censoring Sketch Comedy
I’ve watched the first two episodes of Studio 60 on the Sunset strip, which is a drama about the production of a sketch comedy show. The show begins with a scene intended to pay homage to the 1970’s movie the Network when the current producer bursts on to a live sketch to denounce censorship that has caused both his show and television programming in general to be bland and homogeneous. When the producer attributes television’s stodginess to TV execs kowtowing to fundamental Christians the writer of Studio 60 reveals his political colors.
For the creator and writer of Studio 60, Aaron Sorkin, I have one question: in what alternate universe are you talking about? Does he seriously wants me to believe that in current American culture Christians are a great threat to sketch comedy because they are successful at getting ‘good’ sketches censored because they poke fun at the Christian faith. I’m trying to think of the last time a comedy show in this country was prevented from airing something critical of Christians. South Park? Nope they have Jesus do all sorts of sacrilegious things. Daily show? Nope last time I checked they have a segment that makes fun of televangelists. How about Family Guy? Seen episodes making fun of Christians. How about the Simpsons, hmmm, no actually the Flanders faith was a constant source of mockery. How about Saturday night live? One should think an actual sketch comedy show might have had suffered censorship serving as the basis for Aaron’s first story arc. I have not seen SNL for quite some time, but when I did, they seemed to have no problem airing sketches of the church lady.
One must scratch their head when his story arc includes censorship due to Christian advocacy. I simply fail to see any evidence of Christians having any substantial clout to force the censorship of sketches that aim to mock their religion.
What makes this more frustrating is the fact that there are recent examples of a religion forcing a comedy shows to be censored. I talk of Comedy Central choosing to censor Southpark because they decided to show an image of Muhammad. During that same controversy, newspapers all over this country refused to show the cartoon images that caused the initial uproar throughout the Middle East. It goes further than that though, as we see anytime anyone is critical of the Muslim faith many of the faithful erupt in a fit of rage usually killing people and destroying property, and are assuaged only by apologies and vows to never speak critically of their faith again. If there is a religion forcing the American media into censorship it’s Islamic fundamentalism.
And so Aaron writes brave smart characters willing to endure the controversy and criticism that his fictional Christians will levy against them. Yet, extremely ironically, we find that Aaron himself lacks the courage he so valiantly places in his own characters. For in the real world the religion that has the force of censorship is the Islamic fundamentalist, and yet Aaron lacks the basic courage he has given his writers, to place them in the world of Studio 60 as the agent of censorship.
See Aaron this is what censorship looks like in this country.
September 28th, 2006 at 5:35 am
First of all, there’s a very big difference between a 10:00 animated show on cable than a prime-time high-profile sketch show on a major network.
Second of all, crazy christians don’t protest south park too much anymore because they stoppe watching it. Christian groups organize boycotts and protests and such all the time; check out the AFA (americna family association):
http://www.afa.net/Petitions/IssueDetail.asp?id=215
Still, it is quite annoying that Comedy Central decided to censor the image of Mohammed (although they are a BUSINESS, and it’s not their job to be courageous while scaring away advertisers). If you want to prove your courage, I’ll send you a .jpg I made awhile ago that struck me as funny, adn you can post it if you like it.
September 28th, 2006 at 6:22 am
This has happened a few times of the top of my head. Affiliates all around the country would not air the Ellen show when she said she was Gay
Affiliates would also not air saving private ryan becuase of the language and violence.
Now this is just in certain markets and Aaron actually referenced that in the show when THe President said they only lost like 5 markets becuase of the sketch.
September 28th, 2006 at 6:29 am
Im sure Chrisitans arrange boycotts. My point was not that christians dont arrange boycotts, its that networks hardly cave in, thank god, no matter how negative the show is towards that faith.
So if Aaron is actually interested in being relevant from a contemporary perspective he has selected the wrong religious faith. Networks are censoring themeselves on behalf of Islam and not Christianity. The fact that he chooses the ’safe’ religion, to pick on, in lieu of the dangerous religion that actually caues censorship we see that he lacks the courage he eagerly ascribes to the protagonists of his fictional drama.
September 28th, 2006 at 6:32 am
To be fair, the concept was that the sketch was written 4 years ago and the network would not allow it to be aired then, but was eventaully persuaded to show it now. Which may be more in line with how you think things work. At any rate writing a sketch about Mohammed 4 years ago wouldn’t have made as much sense (and definitely would have been out of character for the writer in the show, especially since Sorkin was trying to create tension between the writer and his Christian ex-girlfriend).
September 28th, 2006 at 7:24 am
Darwin-
Are you intentionaly trying to miss my point?
September 28th, 2006 at 7:28 am
Diatribe-
I take your point. But i think the force of my argument still holds since the Islam censorship has actually affected a current comedy show and did so network wide as opposed to some markets.
But you do bring up good example of chrisitan censorship that i had not considered.