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Tyranny of the yellow-bellies Thursday, Jan 19, 2006 By John Brummett A certain cowardly Little Rock television station - that would be KARK-TV, a deserving and chronic cellar-dweller in local news ratings - put out a statement the other day that was so unintentionally revealing as to be laughable. It said: "After careful consideration, watching the program and, most importantly, listening to our viewers and engaging them in dialogue, we have decided not to air the NBC program, 'The Book of Daniel,' this Friday night. We appreciate hearing from so many of our viewers, who expressed their heartfelt opinions on both sides of the issue. You can watch 'The Book of Daniel' on KWBF-TV, WB 42, right here in Central Arkansas. It will air Friday, January 6th, at 8 p.m." Notice that KARK-TV did not object to the program. Notice that, quite the contrary, it actually touted the program. Notice that it so heartily recommended the program that it actually advertised for a direct competitor, a practice previously unheard of in local media. Notice that the station merely took the program off its own air because it got scared by disapproving viewers. There was a guy in the Bible who washed his hands of responsibility. What was his name? Pilate, I think. We have much less to fear from the forces of oppression than from the yellow-bellies who respond to them. KARK's action is much more offensive than that of its sister Nexstar stations in Fort Smith and Northwest Arkansas, KNWA and KFTA, which pulled the program 10 days later and didn't tout its broadcast anywhere else. Actually, I can partially appreciate one of the Christian Right's points in organizing mass complaints that led to the pulling of this program in more than a dozen markets. "The Book of Daniel" has as its main character an Episcopalian priest who encounters daily problems and talks them out with a physical Jesus who is kind of a regular guy inclined to shrug and say that kids will be kids, such as when the priest's 15-year-son is having sex. One Christian Right critic was quoted by Fox News as saying that NBC would never dare unveil a program with a kind of bumbling character supposedly representing the essential beliefs, practices and icons of Muslims or Buddhists. They'd never be that insensitive, he said. Yet he complained that NBC clings to the right of free expression, and cites the power of the marketplace simply to switch channels, when it comes to poking fun at Christianity. It is true that when America is at its best, it is a place where it is much easier and more acceptable to poke fun at the ruling majority than the meek minority. The Frenchman de Tocqueville challenged us in this regard when, in "Democracy in America," he wrote that the nature of democracies was for the majority opinion to devalue, even oppress, minority opinion. He called it the tyranny of the majority. Beyond a little discomfort or even natural resentment, how, exactly, is America's dominant Christian religion devalued or oppressed by a television show featuring a goofy Jesus? Many of the complaints in Northwest Arkansas, I'm told, came out of the First Baptist Church of Springdale. Does anyone seriously think that megachurch was threatened in any remote way by this television show? But a show making fun of Muslims would present an entirely different dynamic, meaner, more oppressive and more dangerous. Actually, I hear that "The Book of Daniel" is likely to die soon under the weight of its own lameness. The chief villains in this little episode have been those washing their hands so they can pass the buck. ------- John Brummett is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau in Little Rock. His e-mail address is jbrummett@arkansasnews.com; his telephone number is (501) 374-0699. |
