The Australian Christian Lobby and other conservative Christian groups calling for a boycott of the trashy recently-debuted Channel 10 series Californication have scored a victory, with the Holden and Holeproof companies pulling their ads from the show in response to complaints about its sexual content.
While, of course, they have the right to express themselves, righteous would-be moral despots like the ACL have no right to impose their values on the entertainment choices of the rest of the community – it is irksome that they think they do, and would if they could. Thankfully, there are brakes on their power and influence. There’s my contribution to stating the bleeding obvious for today.
Pam Casellas, journo for The West Australian, makes her contribution in her online blog post, Christiafornication.
Provocative title, what? Nothing like announcing your position with a middle-finger salute to those Christian fanatics. Pam is obviously anxious to align herself with the PC brigade from the outset. You know – the ones who think it’s still brave and free-thinking to send up Christianity, but who shrink back in cowering respect for the values of all other religious groups.
As a pro writer, Pam needs to grab attention with her title and locate herself on the “correct” side – two big ticks there. But she also needs to feign fairness and objectivity. So she acknowledges the right to free expression of the ACL and like-minded groups, and the right of Holden and Holeproof to pull their ads from Californication if they consider such action appropriate. OK, but where’s the angle? Every story needs an angle – wait for it…
“Isn’t death more offensive than sex?” Okaaay.
Actually, no Pam. Neither is offensive in themselves – it’s all about context.
OK, I’m being mischievous, but as will become apparent, so is she. What she is contending, as is subsequently made clear, is that gore and violence in tv dramas is morally more offensive than “some good-natured nooky”. She queries the appropriateness of the Christian moral campaigners’ obsession with censoring sex in tv dramas, rather than violence.
YAWN. Talk about bleeding obvious. This is one of those circular debates that keeps turning up, regular as wooden gee-gees on a merry-go-round. But if original takes on topical issues were an essential element in journalism, most current media scribes would be out of a job. No, novelty of thought is not my concern here – mischievous writing is.
In her quest for an angle, Ms Casellas is bending the arguments of the Christian moralists to suit herself. Sex itself is not their target. Rather, they object to the depiction and context of sex as it occurs in Californication – specifically, to use the words of the Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney quoted by Ms Casellas, where it “presents distorted ideas about love and sex.”
I’m no Bible-basher, but is it such a stretch for Ms Casellas to contemplate that that nun fellatio fantasy in the first episode might have been just a little offensive to the Christian faithful? Or is she so very liberated from their staid values that she really just can’t understand what the sillies are going on about?
I’m all for freedom of artistic expression, but donning a critic’s hat for a moment, Californication strikes me as try-hard and gratuitous, with the nun fantasy being a prime example – and a very safe brand of outrage, I’d suggest. What if the show had demonstrated some real imagination and guts and replaced the nun’s habit with a hajib? In the blizzard of moral indignation that a scene like that would set off in Islamic circles, would Ms C and the PC army be quite so ready to fly the flag of artistic freedom and bleat on in cliched protest about violence being an issue of greater concern? I don’t think so.
Let’s move on from all that and have a quick look at the show itself. Ms Casellas allows that some might find Californication’s treatment of sex “a bit rugged”, but balances this with the declaration that it is “very funny”. Hmm. I’m a bit over giggling at stuff that is so crudely calculated to stretch an envelope that’s worn and ragged with previous multiple stretchings – let’s face it, class acts like Almodovar have done it all way better, long ago.
I didn’t even raise a smirk from the first episode. In fact, I began sneering soon into it. Duchovny is as believable a sex symbol as my fat arse. His acting is self-conscious, and he strikes me as being an awkward fit for his role; in fact, he seems faintly embarrassed. As well he should be.
Californication is a stinker. Unfunny, poorly written, badly cast. Some nice eye candy, but even the perve factor isn’t enough to get me tuning back in. Which is a dire indictment indeed.
Maybe the Christian morality cranks won’t need to worry about Californication for too long. My bet is that this mangy dog is headed for the battered trashcan of discarded tv drama offal, and soon.
Methinks you’ve argued against yourself here a bit.
“While, of course, they have the right to express themselves, righteous would-be moral despots like the ACL have no right to impose their values on the entertainment choices of the rest of the community – it is irksome that they think they do, and would if they could.”
Hmmm. Okay. So it seems you’re anti-censorship and the critics of this show don’t know what they’re talking about, or at least should exercise their finger on the remote button.
“Californication is a stinker. Unfunny, poorly written, badly cast. Some nice eye candy, but even the perve factor isn’t enough to get me tuning back in. Which is a dire indictment indeed.
Maybe the Christian morality cranks won’t need to worry about Californication for too long. My bet is that this mangy dog is headed for the battered trashcan of discarded tv drama offal, and soon.”
Hmmm. Okay. So we seem to have done a 180 here. It seems yo unow seem to concede that the critics of the show may have a point because it is a stinker! However, my read of it is that whereas the critics of the show are just – how do you put it – “Christian morality cranks”, your conclusion [which is precisely the same as I see it] has more intellectual rigour and substance because you rationalised it through and waffled on, whereas they simply saw excrement and said so!
I have to go now and check up on my Wikipedia meanings on Left Wing Intellectual Wanker – but I think I have the correct expression……
Hiya Harv.
I think you’re missing an important distinction here, which is that I’m taking on two different points that have nothing to do with each other.
1. The Christian moralists want the show ditched because they disapprove of the values being exemplified by the lead character and his bed partners, and fear the possible corruptive influence of such behaviour on impressionable folk out there in society. I’m arguing that while groups like the ACL have every right to criticise the show on moral grounds, they do not have the right to go further and call for it to be taken off the air on the basis of their moral objections. That amounts to moral despotism.
2. My last two paragraphs are a brief criticism of the show not from any moral perspective, but in terms of its dramatic flaws and failures (as I see them).
No 180 there! If I am contradicting myself, I can’t see how.
All I try to do in any of my posts is express myself as clearly as possible and to justify the positions I take with expansive reasoning where necessary. How does that make me a left wing intellectual wanker?
In fact, I regard with contempt and irritation the left wing identikit pains-in-the-arse whose every opinion is entirely predictable and who speak platitudinous, facile crap plucked straight out of their leftie manuals and not thought out at all. Those types are the ones I would regard as leftie wankers.
It seems your charge of me being a “left wing intellectual wanker” is based on your contention that my conclusion “has more intellectual rigour and substance because you rationalised it through and waffled on”. Firstly, intellectual rigour is surely a positive and one of the key elements that is missing from “intellectual wank”. Secondly, I don’t know how I could have given a shorter dramatic criticism, other than simply saying “I don’t rate this show”. So where’s the “waffle” you speak of?
Sure you weren’t just a little piqued by my dismissal of the Christian cranks as the righteous despots they would be if given half a chance?
Don’t you have some church to go to at this time on a Sunday eve, rather than wasting the time the good Lord gave you making confused criticisms and resorting to unsupported namecalling? Twit.
Hi Rolan aka whatever
“Don’t you have some church to go to at this time on a Sunday eve, rather than wasting the time the good Lord gave you making confused criticisms and resorting to unsupported namecalling? Twit.’
Hey buddy, I am not religious, but never let facts get in the way of a good rant! I see you date back to the punk days so I guess there is a pharmacological influence there which accounts for your rancour. Anyone who enjoyed punk had to be off their brain – right?
”
1. The Christian moralists want the show ditched because they disapprove of the values being exemplified by the lead character and his bed partners, and fear the possible corruptive influence of such behaviour on impressionable folk out there in society. I’m arguing that while groups like the ACL have every right to criticise the show on moral grounds, they do not have the right to go further and call for it to be taken off the air on the basis of their moral objections. That amounts to moral despotism.
2. My last two paragraphs are a brief criticism of the show not from any moral perspective, but in terms of its dramatic flaws and failures (as I see them). ”
D’oh – proved my point! Correct?
Anyway, I read your response and – D’oh – if you re-write it in English I’ll have a go at responding. Happy to engage you in intellectual banter buddy – but not if you’re totally unarmed as seems apparent. My non-Christian ethics wouldn’t allow me to be so cruel.
BTW – pray tell – how do you get your jollies writing this stuff on this website? Left hand on the keyboard and right hand on your weiner?
Poor old Harv.
Church finished early? Rubber doll punctured and nothing else to do?
The only point proven here, bozo, is that your capacity to follow a reasoned argument is sadly limited. If you really can’t comprehend the difference between 1) critically commenting on values-based censorship and 2) criticising a tv drama in terms of its merits or otherwise as a dramatic art form, then I guess you’re out of your intellectual depth. I can only suggest you re-read my previous comments (slowly), concentrate very hard and hope the light comes on this time. If that doesn’t work, you might consider adult literacy classes as an urgent priority.
Your notion of the nature of the early punk sub-culture is evidently based on some crudely sketched mainstream media stereotype. Get yourself halfway informed before you make an even bigger fool of yourself.
Doesn’t the term “left-wing intellectual wanker” as a derogatory endearment imply the utterer to be an “impotent right-wing retard”?
LMAO! “Californication is a stinker. Unfunny, poorly written, badly cast. Some nice eye candy, but even the perve factor isn’t enough to get me tuning back in. Which is a dire indictment indeed.”
And then the show went on for SEVEN fantastic seasons. Stay salty, biblethumpers… keep believing in that skywizard.
Hey Johnny, you’re welcome to your opinion, but mine is equally valid – actually, more so, until you provide some backup as I have. You appear to be a little confused, attributing my view to some “biblethumper” agenda. Wrong, as I make abundantly clear in my post. My assessment is as a critic, pure and simple, and completely unpolluted by any religious/morality static. Next time, read a bit more closely before you go off half-cocked with your comment.
And for the record, repeat seasons of a TV drama are not necessarily any proof of quality (eg: Lost). I watched a few more episodes of Californication after my post above then gave it up as a bore. As far as I’m concerned, my initial impressions were on the money. But hey – maybe it picked up as time went on. I cut programs quickly if they look suspect – too much great stuff out there to waste time on hoping something improves. Sometimes ya win, sometimes ya lose. The stakes are too low to worry about.
Whatever, tastes vary. As do belief systems. Bear that in mind, perhaps. A little less arrogance, a little more measure in your comments might make you look less shrill and pedestrian in your terribly firm and readily expressed convictions.
Cheers
rolanstein