Posted by Flashman at client-151-197-126-232.bellatlantic.net on October 27, 1999 at 23:37:06:
As reported today in the Red Hook Gazette, George Jefferson Bush, founder and spokesperson of the Black Anglo-Saxon Protestant Coalition, spoke out against the film "Dogma" on Monday in front of the Red Hook Post Office in Red Hook, New York.
Mistakenly believing that Red Hook, NY was to be the site of a special screening of "Dogma" monday evening, Mr. Bush, and what he claimed amounted to one million of his supporters, arrived in the little town on the Hudson in a church van. Despite the mix-up, Mr. Bush and company proceeded with their protest, attracting a small group of onlookers.
Mr. Bush began by critizing "Dogma" as "[y]et another Hollywood production depicting Jesus as a white man when Jesus was, in fact, black." No sooner had these words left his lips than a mysterious figure with an eye-patch yelled out,"Jesus is supposed to be black in 'Dogma'!!! And Chris Rock plays an apostle!!! A black one!!! You didn't even see the movie!!!"
Not to be outdone by the forces of evil, the intrepid Mr. Bush switched gears, "I don't have to see the film to know that it is a comedy depicting prophets, angels and Our Lord. I don't have to see the film to know that its director achieves the effect of the ridiculous by mixing base wit and theology. I don't have to see the film to know that this approach is clearly meant to have instructive value, telling the viewer things differently from the way they are, as if the content of the film were all absurd lies, which actually obliges the viewer to examine reality more closely, and makes them say : Ah, this is just how things are, and I didn't know it. This film will elevate blasphemy to an art, the doors of the world of the learned will open to this film,in a way they were never opened to 'Clerks' or 'Mallrats' or 'Chasing Amy', films achieving the effect of the ridiculous by showing the defects and vices of ordinary men. 'Dogma' however, will become the object of philosophy, of perfidious theology, not simple heresy. This film, this "Dogma", replaces the patient construction of the images of redemption with the impatient dismantling of every holy and venerable image. This film summons the dark powers of corporal matter, those dark powers that are affirmed in "dick and fart" jokes and allow the "dick" and the "fart" to claim the rights of the spirit. It isn't "just a film" to us. It will leave us with nothing to combat blashphemy and it will sweep away our faith and our souls! Chris Rock is pretty funny, though. You said he was in it, right?"
But the mysterious figure with the black eye-patch was gone.
When asked how the Black Anglo-Saxon Protestants plan to continue their campaign against "Dogma," Mr. Bush replied, "Well, we've got a couple of things in the works. First, when and if the movie opens, we're going to buy as many of the tickets as we can and burn them. We'd also like to get the support of some B.A.S.P. celebrities like that butler on 'Fresh Prince of Bel Air' or whatever that show is called. But the important thing is that B.A.S.P.s everywhere pull together as a team to work against this film. It's like I always say to our new members: There is no 'I' in 'Group Sex',...err...I mean, 'team'. No 'I' in 'team'."
More on this as it develops.