The Judge
RAVES!
Date: 22/12/11
Out From The Trees
This is just...beautiful:
(Big tip of the wig to P Z Myers)
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One Out Of His Tree
As if by a miracle (and why don't religionists ever talk about what I call 'negative miracles' - you know, where someone falls out of an eighth-floor hotel window, but whose fall is broken by the awning over the entrance...which then crumples up and catapults him into the road, where he's run over by a bus?), here's a song that you wouldn't be hearing this season but for the censorship-evading miracle of technology.
I've praised Tim Minchin for his work before - most notably here and here - and what follows is in much the same vein.
And herein lies the story. Minchin was invited onto Jonathan Ross' Christmas TV show, and did a new song about Jesus.
All went swimmingly - the host, the producer and the audience enjoyed it - and it was set to air tomorrow evening (23rd). Until some weasel at ITV sent a copy of the show to the Director Of Television (I suppose ITV had to have one of those, it being - allegedly - a broadcaster). Peter Fincham (for it was he) nixed the song, and ordered it cut from the show for transmission. So, if you were so deluded or desperate to be watching ITV - at all - then you won't see or hear it.
So how outrageous was the song? Judge for yourself; Tim already managed to secure the 'offending' footage:
Oh look! The sky has just fallen in!
To quote Minchin's own comments:
"He [Fincham] did this because he's scared of the ranty, shit-stirring, right-wing press, and of the small minority of Brits who believe they have a right to go through life protected from anything that challenges them in any way.
"It's 2011. The appropriate reaction to people who think Jesus is a supernatural being is mild embarrassment, sighing tolerance and patient education.
And anger when they're being bigots."
Peter Fincham's censorship is an act of ethical and artistic cowardice, and illustrates in miniature the mindset which has turned ITV from the broadcasting giant it once was - in the days of Lew Grade, the Bernsteins, et al - into the anodyne, tabloid crap that it is today. Let's face it, when was the last time ITV produced a programme which was genuinely entertaining, funny and intelligent?
Another reason why I'm glad I don't have a television.
(Tip of the ould wig to Mediawatchwatch for the news)
