There are a bunch of times when religious groups have
cried "blasphemy!" in reaction to a plot point on your favorite television series.
Why? Here are just a few TV shows that angered religious groups.
"Lucifer" is a fun police procedural about the
devil himself taking a break from hell for a vacation in Los Angeles.
Naturally, since it's a show about the devil, the religious group One Million
Moms got up in arms over it. Right from the start of Season 1, it demanded that FOX drop the show,
saying that the show, quote, "glorifies Satan as a caring, likable person in human flesh."
"You know I'm here for you, right?"
"And I, you, detective."
It took offense to how "cool" the show made Lucifer seem,
with the devil portrayed as a suave and smooth-talking nightclub owner.
Aside from its problems with the portrayal of the titular character, it also wasn't a
fan of the violence, or the presence of scantily clad women in an LA nightclub.
But that didn't do much, and in March of 2021, Neil Gaiman — the original creator of the comic
book character upon which the show is based — tweeted One Million Moms, thanking the group
for its boycott, which he said was, quote, "like a magical guarantee that will blossom and grow."
AMC's comic book-based show "Preacher" has definitely got all the makings of a show
that would turn the heads of religious groups. It has a good dose of gore,
a vampire with a taste for drugs as well as blood, an uninspired ex-outlaw of a
preacher who ends up with magic powers of persuasion — you get the picture. Oh,
and God literally goes missing at one point. Not metaphorically. Literally.
So, yeah, doesn't seem like it would gain a lot of points with the religious crowd.
"He's missing! God is missing!!"
The Christian League decided to step onto the scene, taking issue with a, quote,
"grotesque sex scene" that was a, quote, "assault on the sensibilities of all Christians."
Said scene came from the episode "Dirty Little Secret," which begins with some
old testament fornication involving one Jesus Christ.
It was exactly the kind of sex scene you'd expect from a show with a mature rating, but it
somehow still had the capacity to shock - which is exactly what the show's producers were going for.
The six-episode series "Good Omens" — an adaptation of the 1990 novel of the same name,
written by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchet — was released on Amazon Prime in 2019,
and revolves around an angel and a demon teaming up to save the world and prevent an apocalypse.
Some religious viewers weren't enthralled with the story, with thousands signing a
petition by the Return to Order campaign, which was outraged because God was a woman,
the antichrist was a seemingly normal human, and the basic fact that angels
and demons were friends. The petition demanded that Netflix cancel the show.
If you've paid attention, maybe you've noticed something funny. Maybe you're wondering,
"Hey, wasn't this released by Amazon? Not Netflix?"
And you'd be right! The group pointed fingers at the wrong company. Gaiman was amused, tweeting,
"I love that they are going to write to Netflix to try and get
#GoodOmens cancelled. Says it all, really."
Netflix also got in on it, tweeting, quote,
"we promise not to make any more." That brought Amazon into the fun, tweeting that
they'd cancel the Netflix series "Stranger Things" if Netflix cancelled "Good Omens."
Petitioning the wrong network?! All we can say is…
"Jesus Christ!!"
Just based on the title of this TV show, it's probably not all that hard
to imagine why "Black Jesus" would end up ticking off some religious audiences.
According to a description by the New York Daily News, this Adult Swim show centers
around an African American Jesus in the city of Compton, who, quote, "tries to spread love and
kindness [...] but ends up getting shot at, carjacked and punched in the face."
The show also features plenty of violence, drugs, alcohol, and swearing.
The response from some Christian groups, including One Million Moms, is what you'd expect.
They called the show a mockery of their faith and generally lashed out against the inclusion of
drugs and alcohol. They wanted the show dropped immediately, calling for a public apology in
response to what they saw as blasphemy. According to USA Today, some pastors and bishops have also
spoken out against the show, pointing to it as a sign of moral decline in younger generations.
But supporters of the show explain that the show is satirical and not meant to be taken
literally - even by people for whom literal thinking is literally a religious imperative.
"That's some dumbass shit, man!"
NBC's 2006 show "The Book of Daniel" was pretty short lived and fraught with issues. The show,
in a broad sense, dealt with an Episcopal minister who was questioning his faith,
and it aired to somewhat mixed reviews and audience numbers that left a lot to be desired.
A number of Christian groups called the depiction of Jesus blasphemous,
and several NBC affiliate channels actually refused to air the show. The Catholic league
also moaned about the fact that the series showed LGBTQ characters in a positive light,
and called the writing, quote, "moronic." So they counted the show's cancellation as a big win.
Sometimes, religious groups go after TV shows that
are made with the obvious intent to poke fun at religion, but other times,
they'll even get incensed by shows that simply don't glorify religion quite enough.
That seemed to be the case with the short-lived 1990s show "Nothing Sacred,"
which gave insight into the realities of working in an urban parish. Created by a Jesuit priest,
the show worked to make its characters feel like real people — not perfect just
because of their belief, but flawed and struggling in their own ways, whether that
be trying to reconcile tradition with change, or dealing with resurfaced abuse allegations.
Sounds good, but of course the chronically infuriated Catholic League claimed the show
"[...] denigrated the official teachings of the church by unfavorably contrasting them
to the trendy positions of dissenting Catholics."
Ultimately their boycott convinced ABC not to air at least one episode,
and despite being nominated for numerous awards,
the Disney-owned network cancelled the series before the first season had finished airing.
If you're looking for some pretty bizarre humor then "Miracle Workers" might be for
you. The anthology series gives its cast some really quirky comedy to play with,
set in different historical settings each season. Season 1, for instance,
takes place in Heaven Inc. with a lazy (but strangely genuine) God and his
overworked staff of angels, who don't care much for the corporate machine.
Lo and behold, One Million Moms had something to say about it, starting up yet another petition.
Calling the show a, quote, "blasphemous spoof," One Million Moms argued that
the show on the whole was just a poor representation of the Christian faith,
accusing it of being misleading and just generally in bad taste.
"Why does everything have to be a sin with you? Can't it just be fun?"
Here's the funny part, though. The petition reads like it was meant for television network TBS,
demanding that the show be pulled from the air, but it was actually called "Urge
Subaru to No Longer Sponsor 'Miracle Workers'" — it wasn't a call to cancel the show,
but a request that automotive company Subaru pull its financial support instead.
The 1970s ABC show "Soap" had a pretty storied run, to put it lightly.
The show opened immediately to controversy, with an article written before the actual premiere
falsely claiming that it included a scene of a priest being seduced in a confessional. That
didn't happen, but it was just the start of the controversy. "Soap" wasn't afraid to dig its hands
into some touchy topics. Gender-reassignment, racism, adultery, sex — that's just the tip
of the iceberg. And all of that on top of having a gay man as a protagonist.
In a completely expected turn of events, conservative Christian
organizations didn't like the show and its themes. According to the New York Times,
various groups took the unusually mild approach of urging their fellow Christians to write in
to their local stations to express displeasure with the show's content.
There's no telling how many letters local stations actually received,
but we do know that "Soap" went on to be a pretty big hit,
running for four seasons and winning several Emmys while turning Billy Crystal into a household name.
Disney has started to make the move toward more LGBTQ representation on screen.
The show "Star vs. The Forces of Evil" has the distinction of being
the first animated show on the Disney Channel to feature a same-sex kiss,
a small moment among a montage of other kisses, but a nice little moment of representation.
Or not, if you're the watchdog group One Million Moms, which apparently takes pride in parsing
every single frame of every show in search of rage triggers. They claimed in a screed that Disney is,
quote, "the last place parents expect their children to be confronted with content regarding
sexual orientation." They essentially just argued that any LGBTQ characters on screen
are inherently too confusing for children to understand, which seems to both sell
children short while also misrepresenting the reality of the world we all actually live in.
This whole ordeal also happened around the same time that Disney announced a gay character in
the live-action "Beauty and the Beast," and One Million Moms was incensed enough by everything
that it ended up doing more than just writing petitions. Instead, it made its own animated show
called "Ryan Defrates: Secret Agent," which Pink News called a, quote, "very heterosexual” TV show.
The show wasn't picked up by any network and went straight to DVD.
When you think of sacrilege and blasphemy,
one thing immediately springs to mind: the Muppet Babies.
Truth be told, it feels kind of inevitable that there would be religious backlash
to gender identity on television. The outrage machine needs to keep turning,
so one recent target of that criticism is Disney Junior's "Muppet Babies" series,
and specifically an episode where Gonzo wants to dress as a princess for a party,
despite being told that the male characters had to dress as knights.
"I really wish I could wear one of those princess dresses to the ball."
Gonzo wears the dress and becomes Gonzorella, and the episode ends with a message of love
and acceptance, leading to a lot of positive responses from transgender rights activists.
But some, including the Catholic League, had a whole lot to say in disagreement,
and, frankly, if you've heard of any of the arguments against transgender rights,
then you're probably pretty familiar with a lot of their spew. Suffice it to say that there's
an underlying implication that transitioning or gender nonconformity of any kind is problematic.
Which fits with their agenda: after all,
the entire point of dogma is to prevent nonconformance.
"Steven Universe" broke ground in a lot of ways. Seriously, there's a lot of stuff about
this show that's worth looking into, but you'll just have to make do with the basics for now.
As noted by The Los Angeles Times, the animated fantasy show addresses a bunch of themes that
hadn't been in childrens' TV before and includes tons of recognizably queer-coded characters. For
example, many characters are biologically sexless, despite being coded as female — nonbinary women,
in other words. It also featured an "interracial, queer-coded relationship" that culminated in the
first same-sex proposal and wedding for Cartoon Network, providing representation to queer kids.
"Take Pink back to the tower."
"She prefers to be called Steven."
And of course, One Million Moms took issue with all of that,
sending a petition to Cartoon Network to protest the network's support of LGBTQ Pride Month.
"Steven Universe" was actually just one of the things that the group was angry about,
also citing a kiss between two women in "Adventure Time," as well as a lesbian couple in "My Little
Pony: Friendship is Magic" - the latter of which didn't even air on Cartoon Network.
According to them, Cartoon Network was pushing the, quote, "LGBTQ agenda" through its ads,
tweets, and shows, giving voice to a population that One Million Moms wants to keep voiceless.
Let's just hope that none of those million moms happen to have queer kids of their own.
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