Watch this clip from MSNBC and tell me which participant in this converation makes you laugh the most… unless they make you cry.
To start with: How many times does the reporter call it Talladega Fights?
It feels like watching a preview for a film called: Dumb, Dumber, and Dumbest.
Remember this: They look for the people who are most outrageous to face off with each other. They’re not interested in including anyone with an intelligent point of view.
dr. baehr’s right, though. Jesus shouldn’t be mocked. but he’s not being mocked in “talledega fights” (might as well have ron burgundy host the show. what a dweeb).
ted baehr, on the other hand, is a complete moron.
and you’re right. there’s absolutely no insight here. just a bunch of morons – if i may use that term about white males without sounding racist or sexist – comparing TN:TBoRB to the DVC?
and did he just call him, “E-lla”? it’s a good thing nobody watches msnbc.
I’m not a big Dr. Baehr fan but I thought he did just fine in this. If I were to think that msn was trying to make one side look stupid it would have been those who enjoy the movie. The sex kitten spokesman sounded like a complete moron to me. The other gentleman was at least smart enough to not take a side other than to say the movie is making a lot of money. I know that I will be having to deal with the fall out from this movie all year and I’m not excited about that.
There is a difference between a film that is blasphemous and a film that provokes us to laugh at the absurdity of people who talk about Jesus the way that these characters do. I laugh at those scenes when Ricky Bobby is calling out to “Baby Jesus,” the “Jewish God,” and “Tom Cruise.” It’s funny. It’s not mocking Jesus… we’re laughing at the character and his lunacy, not at the Lord. Just because a joke references Jesus doesn’t mean Jesus is the butt of the joke. Blasphemy is a different issue altogether.
And just because the Nazis used sarcasm doesn’t mean sarcasm is bad. Baehr is always reaching for the Nazis as a tool for demonizing certain things. But the Nazis ate sandwiches too… and that doesn’t make sandwiches evil.
There’s sarcasm in the Bible too, employed at the expense of the enemies of God. Sarcasm is not always a bad thing.
oh yeah, the nazi-sarcasm thing.
well, as a white Christian male with roots in the south, i’ll be watching out for public showers.
although i agree with you on the other correspondants, mark, i must ask, what fall-out from this movie are you expecting? i’m sorry, i don’t understand.
Okay…I finally got to watch this. Wow. Ted Behr is a “Dr.” and yet he clearly has zero understanding of what blasphemy actually is.
Plus, I think the “Wouldn’t say this about Allah” has become the new “nazi”…it’s the new Godwin’s law. The minute you say “You would never do that with Islam” you lose the argument.
Ted has a Juris Doctor — a legal degree. It’s not the same thing as a doctorate, and most lawyers actually think it’s unethical to misrepresent a J.D. as a doctorate. But that’s Ted for you — he’ll do things that even lawyers won’t!
Mark’s right: Ted did do “just fine” by MSNBC shouting-match standards, which aren’t exceptionally high. Apparently in order to give Ted a fighting chance, you have to pit him against a bimbo who thinks blasphemy is OK as long as it’s just “entertainment.” (Not that — as Thom observes — the film really is blasphemous, but the bimbo appears just as unaware of that as Ted is.)
jasdye, the fall out I’m referring to isn’t anything I would call horrific of nature. It is just my student’s inappropriateness of time place and method in mimicking what will undoubtedly be the adolescent cult film of the year. Some movies, such as “Napoleon Dynamite” or “Joe Dirt” cause a dull tooth ache of an experience discipline wise.
I couldn’t tell you if the movie is blasphemous, I won’t be seeing it and I choose to use words like blasphemous and heresy very carefully, but from experience and the clip I saw, it seems to me that the movie is mocking people who really don’t deserve to be mocked. On those grounds I will avoid it.