Apologies to anyone who may have suffered through a few minutes of Idols in the expectation of the Sax Appeal story being featured on Carte Blanche. Plus, of course, the suffering involved in watching the (mostly) silly stories they did feature. I spoke with the director of the show on Friday, and everything seemed on track and ready for broadcast. I’ll call him tomorrow, and provide any updates in comments to this post.
So what happened? They could simply have thought that the story wasn’t interesting enough for a national audience, which would be unfortunate – and probably wrong – but at least not sinister. The possibilities that worry one, of course, are producers pulling the show for fear of offending some part of the market, and even worse, pressure being applied by an interested party (UCT, for example) in order to not fan the flames any further.
Either way, it’s a pity that this story may need to be kept alive, rather than staying alive simply because a broader range of people care to discuss it.
There was very little acutely topical stuff in there tonight, so it seems very odd that “your” story wasn’t on. However, given the gravity of some of the stories which CB has previously reported, I can’t believe that they would pull it for the reasons you suggest.
But what do I know?
Very intrigued to hear what the director says when you call.
Promos were still flighting last night, including shots of Zapiro (for the same story). So whatever happened, happened very late in the day.
Well, with Shaik and Tsvangirai waiting in the wings (as DW suggested), they’ve every excuse not to show it again next week either.
Very Interesting. I agree with 6000, the show was pretty bland for CB. I don’t think they pulled it because they wanted to, CB has shown Dawkins on there and tons of other stuff not always fitting with mainstream religious thought.
My “sources” inform me that it will be broadcast next week. Nothing sinister happened. Sorry, but I can’t say more, as I got plenty of off-the-record comment.
I posted this reference on the CB website as well, and speaking as a Christian as well as a believer in freedom of expression, I am glad to hear the story will go out this weekend.
http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/imonk-101-why-do-they-hate-us
This excellent essay from Michael Spencer gets to the issue of Evangelicals playing the victim in culture wars (“they only hate us because our message rebukes them”) while generally acting in ways guaranteed to upset and annoy people, or even on occasion hurt them quite badly. It should be required reading for those in the bible-punching business.
No one should buy this victimhood argument. There are good reasons why *anyone* becomes a target of satire (the quality of the satire is, of course, another subject altogether). And, to quote Bono, Christians really don’t need to help God across the road as if God were a little old lady.
A good hard look at how we actually treat other people as self-asserted Christians, would probably do a lot more good for the Gospel than yet another public rant about homosexuality or “liberalism”.
Thanks for the sensible comment, Sally – I look forward to reading the Spencer article. And let’s hope that the CB story airs as expected…
Religion is a choice and must not be given preference above any other racial, sexual or whatever group. If you can’t take the heat, don’t jump in the fire……….unless you plan to join all the non-religious in hell!!! Religious groups have ALWAYS had the last say and I say, no more! They should not be singled out for special treatment! I don’t care who your god of choice is, freedom of speech and freedom of choice and freedom of religion and freedom of sexuality is what we cherish about our new constitution and should, as such, be embraced. Let whoever the almighty may be, deal with us in the afterlife or whatever,wherever, it may be. However, at this time, you are , unfortunately, only CAST in his image, you ARE not him …..