Pat Boone, one of the stars of the insufferable Christian agitprop movie God's Not Dead II: He's Pining For The Fjords, is very displeased with those anti-God ruffians at Saturday Night Live for mocking his movie. Mind you, it's not on his own behalf that he's upset. No, he is Butthurt for God, who you'd think could take care of Himself, seeing as how He is so incomprehensibly Large and Vast. But apparently His servants on earth need to keep late-night sketch comedy shows in line, if only to warn their writers and actors that they'd better get right with God. Plus, it's not only God that Boone is looking out for; it's Christians, the most oppressed, discriminated against group in America.
So here's the offending spoof trailer. Warning: May cause eternal damnation:
For all the over the top stuff, the trailer really does capture the feel of the actual movie, from the obvious evil of the bad guys to the EVERYBODY CHEERS! triumphant ending. It's blasphemously on target, says Boone. And the problem isn't that God doesn't appreciate a good laugh, no, not at all:
“God has a sense of humor. Why else would he invent the porcupine and the giraffe?” Boone told The Hollywood Reporter on Monday.
That's true! those are some funny-looking animals! Also, why would He invent crib death? We also heard a Depeche Mode song about God's sense of humor once, and it was pretty impressive. In any case, it's not that there's anything wrong with a good clean laugh, but some things you don't laugh about, like a Pat Boone movie about God:
Something can be devilishly funny, but this skit is diabolical. God has only one real enemy -- Satan. Satan ridicules faith, and they’re taking Satan’s side. They’re also ridiculing me and the film, telling impressionable young people not to see it because it's ridiculous. Then they throw in that the lawyer is Jewish to make the Christian look even worse, but it’s just anti-Semitic.
OK, so maybe he's a little butthurt for himself. And his movie, which will suffer because of this ad parody. Or perhaps it will suffer because it's a mawkish bunch of straw-man arguments that have nothing to do with the realities of church/state cases, and it's got a built-in limit to its audience: those who already agree with it, and a few going to see it for the sake of making fun of it. Still, it's nice of Boone to throw in the claim that the Jewish lawyer is "anti-Semitic," because pretending to be offended for the sake of Jews is always a mitzvah.
As much as I’ve enjoyed SNL,” said Boone, "they went over the line, and believers in God deserve an apology.”
Nevertheless, he says he’s not calling on NBC, SNL or executive producer Lorne Michaels to apologize, nor does he expect them to respond to complaints from him or any other Christian who might object to the skit. “I won’t waste my breath demanding an apology,” he said. “They don’t answer to me. They answer to the one they defame, and there are consequences.”
And really, isn't sanctimony its own reward? Still, there was one more trope Boone had to pull out: the good ol' "Hollywood liberals would never say that about any OTHER religion" card:
“This skit was outright sacrilege. They know if they did this to Muslims they’d have to be put into the witness protection program,” he said. “There’s nothing sacred at SNL -- except maybe the words ‘Mohammad’ or ‘Allah.’ They’d never take those names in vain, but when they called God a ‘boob man,’ they took his name in vain.”
....Aaaand scene! Beautiful take, Pat, we'll call you when the shooting script for God's Not Dead III is ready. Keep May open, OK?
Pshhh. The very idea that SNL would ever make fun of Islamic terrorism. They're such wimps.
[ Hollywood Reporter via Joe.My.God ]
Technically, God created evil.
Of course it did! It has teeth!