maryhelena

http://www.timminchin.com/



Lyrics can be found here: http://reedbraden.com/2011/12/22/pra...-jesus-lyrics/

The new No.1 Christmas song......nearly 240.000 hits on Youtube in 24 hours.........and over 2000 comments..

AdamWho

It sounds like a win-win situation.

The guy who cut it doesn't have to worry about religious nuts and Michen gets positive press and exposure.

maryhelena

I like that - a win-win situation...

I'm always in two minds re this sort of approach to the Jesus 'problem'. However, the 'problem' is there - and if someone feels able to take an unconventional approach to it then good for them! Who knows but that satire might have a far wider audience than all the detailed intellectual analysis that goes on here at FRDB....

Turning xmas into a freewheeling party might well enable the skeptics and atheists to enjoy the season of great joy and good will - but JC is still there underneath all the fancy intellectual rationalism. Perhaps it's this that motivated Tim Minchin to pen his lyrics: new lyrics which expose the irrationality of the JC story - as opposed to his earlier "White wine in the sun" Christmas lyrics where he speaks of really liking Christmas. However wonderful the xmas party can be - JC is still there and has to be, for rational minds anyway, accounted for.

Video now running at over 300.000 youtube hits since it went up yesterday.

James Brown

The producer reportedly replied to criticisms, saying that most episodes are edited in some way, and Minchin's song was perhaps too spicy for the theme of the show. Some might call that wiffle-waffle, others not.

I imagine myself the producer of a show with a particular type of audience. I know what the audience likes and expects, and in the past when we deviated from that formula there were complaints from audience members, rumblings from advertisers, pressure from upper management, etc.

So now I imagine a day when a guy with funny hair is invited to sing a song on my show, and as soon as its done, I know it ain't gonna fly with the folks at home. Now what? Perhaps I didn't have time to 'screen' his song before the show started--that's easy to imagine in producing a show that runs five days a week.

So here's the dilemma--if I run the clip, then I know I make the senior citizens who expect niceties on Christmas to be furious. If I don't run the clip, then I expect fury from the fans of Minchin. Either way, I'm in the crossfire. It would have been better if Minchin had never been invited on the show.

So after I've run through that little imaginary scenario, I find myself retreating to silence. I enjoyed the song, and agreed with the sentiment, but then I'm not the producer of a mainstream television show with audiences and advertisers and managers breathing on my neck. I was about to blog about this whole kerfuffle when I saw it on Pharyngula in a feeble attempt to 'spread the word,' but then I reconsidered.

After all, what right do I have to criticize the business decisions of a man producing a television show that, until this morning, I had never heard of?

AdamWho

Jesus is not the reason for the season though... solstice is.

maryhelena

So it's a northern hemisphere xmas season then? And that leaves us southern hemisphere folk off the hook for xmas.....

Seriously though - whatever the history/tradition re the 25th December - Christianity has linked it to JC. Sure, skeptics and atheists, living in the northern hemisphere, can do their winter solstice partying! It's for the mainstream christian believers, who might take offense, that the Tim Minchin video has been dropped from the TV show. i.e. JC is very relevant to what is politically correct for 25th December.

AdamWho

There is both a summer and winter solstice.

maryhelena

Jonathan Ross has said, via twitter:

“Really gutted that the brilliant Tim Minchin song has been cut from my show. Decision was out of my hands,”

http://www.tvtonight.com.au/2011/12/...ross-show.html

Actually - Jonathan Ross must have been very aware, when he asked Tim Machin to write a song for his xmas show, what kind of song Tim might well write. So, he, the host of the show, seemingly, was game for some controversy.

A correct business decision for ITV - time will tell......

sotto voce

Spot the deliberate errors.

maryhelena

Yep, June 20 to 23. And some people do like their turkey in the colder weather - but I'm sorry to report JC in June just has not made any headway - and minus JC the southern hemisphere winter solstice is a non-event.....