Would that producers and directors had the kahonies to portray a Muslim decapitating a Christian, something that actually happens, and with plenty of "theological" precedents. No worries, however: your local jihadi website will have authentic ones for your viewing. “Bonekickers drama blasted for showing gruesome decapitation scene,” from the Daily Mail, July 12 (thanks to BJ McDoc):
A BBC drama has triggered a barrage of complaints after it showed gruesome images of a Muslim being beheaded.Bonekickers, about a group of archeological sleuths, depicted an extremist Christian decapitating a man with a sword.
The bloody scene has prompted 100 complaints since it was broadcast on BBC1 on Tuesday evening.
The BBC drama Bonekickers has upset many viewers after showing a mulim [Muslim] beheaded by an extremist Christian.
Yesterday the corporation admitted 'regret' that viewers had found the scene 'inappropriate', but defended its decision to show it.
Some viewers were taken aback when former EastEnders actor Paul Nicholls was seen in the drama hacking off a moderate Muslim's head in an unprovoked attack.
He plays a member of the fictional White Wings Alliance, a group of far-Right evangelical Christians inspired by the Crusades.
The show, watched 6.8million, also sparked new claims of anti-Christian bias in BBC programmes.
One viewer wrote on the corporation's website: 'If it had been another religion portrayed in that manner, the PC police would have been up in arms about the nastiness and their rights not to have their religion ridiculed - as it was Christians, it was apparently OK.’
Amen to that—oops: hope I didn’t offend anyone.
It's called "substitution" in psychological realm, where you are deathly afraid to say or show the truth (SEE: Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, ad nauseam), so you depict its opposite and assume that people are clever enough to infer the reverse.
Although, with the BBC, it might just be kneejerk anti-Christian propaganda for its own sake, and they may be completely unconscious of the ludicrousness of their fiction.
To make amends, they should show the video of Nick Berg's reality to their viewers and let them decide what the greater threat is: actual Islamic militant jihadists following the example of their warlord "prophet", or fantasized "extremist Christians" who haven't behaved this way since The Thirty Years War
In either case, shameless and suicidal stupidity.
[1618-1648].
You bet. You are not going to see Christians go on a violent rampage world wide, like what you always see with the Muslims. The Islamic barbarians will flood the streets with protests and death threats. Moreover, fire bombing cars, vandalizing shops etc, very typical behavior of the religion of peace. I mean after all we want to portray that all religions behave like the Islamic one but in reality none others would go off like a ragged bull as the Muslims do especially every Friday.
"had the kahonies..."
--- from the comment on the article above
Call me an old fogy and a traditionalist, but why not "cojones"?
Profitsbeard has is right, on both counts. This is what I wrote about this story last month:
I think we can forget the conspiracy theories that suggest that these plotlines are part of a deep-laid BBC plan to demonise Christianity. That's not how the commissioning of TV drama operates. Nevertheless, there is something at work here. As producer Rhonda Smith said, it "comes very much from the storyline". The whole thing is a fantasy, of course - allow the possibility of discovering the "True Cross" and you might as well throw in a bunch of latter-day Crusaders. But even a fantasy is a product of the reigning obsessions of its age. And the film's story of the discovery of an ancient relic leading to violent convulsions in the present day tells us a lot about the neuroses of the early 21st century.
For a start, there's the underlying idea that modern-day troubles have their roots in medieval or even ancient conflicts. That something as arcane as a relic might have the power to spark inter-religious violence in the UK would have seemed ridiculous a few years ago, before the combustible politics of the Middle East began leaking through to the West. Now, however, the power of religion to inspire war and murder has become relevant in a way that it has not been for more than three hundred years. It so happens that religiously-sanctioned terrorism is at present an almost exclusively Islamic phenomenon (though one should not overlook the violence that was a striking feature of Hindu nationalism in India during the early 1990s). It may be the case that violent Islamists can with greater plausibility look to the Koran or the example of Mohammed than the Christian Crusaders or Inquisitors could look to Jesus who, after all, never wielded a sword. But history shows that the potential was there. Religious fervour, however pacific the religion, can incite violence. Religions that claim to possess "the Truth" or the ultimate Revelation are especially dangerous.
That the series' writers can imagine the possibility of hardline Christians killing Muslims in modern Britain doesn't necessarily reveal them as full of hatred for the country's historic religion. Rather it reveals a reductionist approach to religion as a whole. Seeing that religion historically did, and in one particular manifestation still does, issue forth in violence, these unreflective secularists (as I guess they are) assume that the ingredients for a Christian "counter-Jihad" are still there. Oddly, they overestimate the strength of Christianity, and of religion generally. And they forget that while the Islamists' quarrel with the West may be based (at least formally) on religion, the West's response - even the response of avowed Christians like Bush and Blair - is entirely secular.
Which leads to the paradox. BBC-bashers may accuse the Corporation of bending over backwards to appease Islam and of treating Christianity with unmerited revulsion. But the lesson of the plot - that religion can inspire violence - serves only to remind the viewer of who it is, in the real world, who is actually beheading hostages in the name of God. The (Neo-)Crusader in this film stands proxy for the Jihadist.
Having watched the episode, all I want to add is that it was dire, some of the worst TV drama I've seen in a long, long time. The dialogue was as creaky as the plot was absurd - even without the beheading scene. I can only think they added it to generate some publicity for a terrible show.
Hilarious. Maybe it was sarcasm?
"It's called "substitution" in psychological realm, where you are deathly afraid to say or show the truth (SEE: Daniel Pearl, Nick Berg, ad nauseam), so you depict its opposite and assume that people are clever enough to infer the reverse." --from above
I'm not sure I agree. Although one shouldn't attribute anything to malevolence that can't be attributed to stupidity, it's hard to attribute such a flagrant reversal of roles to simple stupidity. A television production is a coordinated effort involving many people. Are they all blind? Are they all so deep in denial that they no longer ask questions? When does denial become complicity? When does ignorance become collaboration?
I now worry that there will be those, articularly Moslems but perhaps others as well, who either are not at all clever enough or honest enough to infer the reverse from thise production, who may take advantage of the situation and describe this television production as yet another example of Christian intolerance, of Moslem suffering at the hands of the infidel, despite the fact that it is wholly fictitious, in fact and spirit. And for that reason I am glad to see the calls coming into BBC. Now that's the place where heads should role, if only they could get K. Jones to do it.
"Religions that claim to possess "the Truth" or the ultimate Revelation are especially dangerous.
Posted by: The Heresiarch
I'm with you here, one hundred percent. Aside from the obvious problems outside such religions, as they relate to other faiths, there is damage done to those inside, especially children. To this day, I feel I may one day be punished for leaving my childhood religion for something that made more sense to my adult self. My rational mind knows this is unlikely, but...
"Oddly, they overestimate the strength of Christianity, and of religion generally."
Here, I differ with you. Depending on the sect, Christianity's strength is often considered to be the ability of its followers to be peaceful, patient, and in some cases, downright passive, even as they are being abused.
While there is plenty of fire and brimstone to go around, this is what gets the press. How often do we read about Menonites, Amish, Quakers, etc? Not often, because they mind their own business, and leave the damnation to others.
Great post, by the way :)
Maybe Im the one who is demented, cause this makes no sense.People with money and posistion must be more together than I.
@ Abscedere,
Thanks. There's plenty more where that came from.
Come on guys, this BBC program was intended to be a fictional drama. If they portrayed a Muslim beheading somebody, it would be a reality show.
Did anybody posting here actually see it? Because I did and I write about it here
It was total tosh, wanting to be Raiders of the Lost Ark but more like plunderers of the lost plot.
The only interesting thing, which might have been food for thought for anyone still capable of thought after enduring 35 minutes of drivel were that the words used by the man with the sword to the young Muslim he killed were almost exactly the phrases used by Abu Izzadeen when heckling John Reid “You have come to a Muslim area” only he said “You have come to a Christian country” and used in the suicide video from one for the London bombers when he spoke of “my people are suffering”.
Otherwise the whole thing was completely bonkers.
Those extremist Christians did it again.
A day doesn't go by without uhs reading that, somewhere in on the plannet, a group of Christians beheaded someone.
Thank you BBC for portraying reality as it really happens! (In the fairy land, that is)
Man Bites Dog; Dog Sues.
BBC executives’ pay rises 17% to nearly £5m despite scandals.
Those insensitive BBC b@st@rds have no problem offending MY religious sensibilities, now, do they?
Wonder why not? Ohhh, let's try a wild guess: no Christians in the history of the world have rioted and murdered to show their displeasure at being called a violent religion.
These guys wanted to do something provocative, to get eyes on the screen and shocked word-of-mouth. (But they didn't want to risk any fatwas on THEIR heads, didn't want to make themselves or their families or their workplace into targets for the barbarian hordes; so "let's pick on somebody we know won't fight back".) These cowardly ratings-chasers have chosen a "safe" target for their "raw", "edgy", "taken-from-the-streets" piece of theater.
Feh.
Jimmy the Dhimmi
Absolutely brilliant post! I would like to see that on the BBC notice board.
So they got the moderate Muslim.
Now what are we going to do?
Wow. Only 100 called to complain. It must have been a smashing success, then.
Ian,
We radicalize the rest of them, of course!
Esmerelda Weatherwax said
But you omitted the bit about the Christian striking at the necks of the Muslims, just as it says in the Bible in verse, umm, ahhh, well, I'm sure it's in there somewhere since all religions are alike.
I agree with george_rem; have the Christian shout "Allahu Akbar" as he strikes at the necks of the peace-loving Muslims with his scimitar. Have the Christian marry a 6 year old girl, and have him justify it because "Jesus did it in the Bible". Have the Christian honor-kill his daughter for going out uncovered by her burqa. Have the Christian strap on a bomb-vest and detonate it in a pizzeria, after explaining to his friends that he's going to Paradise, since any Christians killed while killing non-Christians are automatically blessed by Alla.., oops, I mean God. They won't censor it if it's showing Christians in a bad light; if you're showing exact Muslim behavior, and behavior that is obviously contrary to every mainstream interpretation of Christianity, it'll confuse the h*ll out of the PC censors.
Yep, we are living in "Bizarro World".
"So they got the moderate Muslim.
Now what are we going to do?"
Posted by: Ian at July 12, 2008 5:48
Rest assured Ian, CITES has stored its DNA.
This kind of story may well be a self fulfilling prophecy. As we are pushed ever more we are eventually going to have no place to go except foreward. And as we have seen many times cornered people can be quite viscious; something about not being killed. I guess I am a far-Right evangelical Christian as I am indeed inspired by the first two Crusades. The rest of them did not do well but the first two did. I have always felt the Crusades to Jeruselem were at least as justified as the Crusade for Europe in 1944/5.
Historians tell us they were brutal. Yes wars are brutal. The fall of Jeruselem was no bloodier than the fall of Constantinople to the Turks. Hell, I think we should do it again.
But TV Land has been trash from the start.