Today's installment of the Decline and Fall of Western Civilization
comes from Hollywood - as if that's a surprise. Tinseltown is demeaning
Christianity again - as if that's a surprise, too. But this time, it's
not some gutter-mouthed punk. This time it's a network doing it,
formally. ABC has approved a pilot with the title "Good Christian
Bitches."
Is this what Christian women - especially the good ones - deserve?
The first credit for this decision to offer offensive titles actually
goes to CBS, which began this stupid trend with its awful sitcom "$#8!
My Dad Says." Now one of Discovery's cable channels has a show titled
"Who the [Bleep] Did I Marry?" It chronicles women who have married
vicious criminals.
But Disney-owned ABC (oh, the irony) has not one, but two B-word
pilots in its outhouse of a production department. They're also
considering a show titled "Don't Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23."
Mickey Mouse should have his hands over his ears.
This titling trend matches Tinseltown's concerted effort to add
profanity "seasoning" to spice nearly every script on network TV shows.
On prime time broadcast TV, use of the B-word alone increased from 431
instances in 1998 to 1,277 in 2007.
If this show wasn't marketed directly at a female audience, the
same ones who watch those witch-versus-witch reality shows like the
"Real Housewives" shows on Bravo, the B-word would sound more sexist
and demeaning. So it's okay to say it because it's become a word women
can call each other. Now, if it's used by an angry male, it's a hanging
crime. We're talking about something verging on domestic violence.
Might ABC bow to any sense of decency and change the titles before
it picks these shows up for the fall? Fagetaboutit. "GCB" is based on a
novel by Kim Gatlin, who unsurprisingly stole her own concept from ABC.
A divorced mother of two returns to her hometown in the Dallas suburbs,
and as Gatlin describes it, "In an 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents,'
'Desperate Housewives'-on-steroids style, her old friends are already
out to destroy her reputation."
So that makes them good Christian bitches.
If
this were a CBS pilot, they could just call it "Desperate Housewives:
Dallas." (That seems to work for "CSI" and "NCIS.") Gatlin claims the
title isn't mocking God, that it just refers to people who fall more
than a little short of good Christian behavior. But she is so fond of
the scandalous sound of her sleazy title that her website (using those
same words) sells a pile of merchandise [1]
with the initials "GCB" and a cross on it, from shirts, caps, and tote
bags all the way down to overpriced "party packs" of peppermint gum and
styrofoam cups.
Playing on religion - and these churchgoing female hypocrites - is
all part of the sale. Gatlin also promotes the book this way: "In the
whirling midst of salacious gossip, Botox, and fraud, Amanda turns to
those who love her and the faith she's always known. Will the [GCBs]
get the best of her, or will everyone see that these GCBs are as
counterfeit as their travel jewelry?" Then, in big bold letters,
Gatlin's slogan says it all: "For Heaven's sake, don't let God get in
the way of a good story!"
No one should doubt that it's this author and the "Desperate" TV network which win the gold medal for abusing a religion.
ABC feels free to pick on Christianity - after all, what faith
would your fictional churchgoing hypocrites stereotypically follow in
Dallas, Texas? No one in Hollywood would consider swapping the
"Christian" in the title for "Muslim" - that would be oafishly cruel
and discriminatory and hate-filled, not to mention potentially
life-threatening.
How about moving the setting to Beverly Hills and calling it "Good Jewish Bitches"?
Regardless of trashy titles, real faith-filled people don't relish
and wallow in the sins and hypocrisies of others. Gatlin's premise
cashes in on the gossipy failures of the people in the pews, but for
her and her TV partners, this is all a gold mine to exploit. They don't
despair about it. They revel in it, like kids in a candy store.
If ABC picks up this pilot, it's very likely that the sour message
that will be resonate is that everyone who goes
to church, including priests and ministers, can be exposed as a fraud
and a counterfeit. That is consistent with Hollywood's long-standing
hostility to the faith of its own audience.
