{"id":15206,"date":"2014-03-18T23:30:52","date_gmt":"2014-03-19T06:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/?p=15206"},"modified":"2014-03-18T23:30:52","modified_gmt":"2014-03-19T06:30:52","slug":"two-very-different-jesus-shows-heading-for-television","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/03\/two-very-different-jesus-shows-heading-for-television.html","title":{"rendered":"Two very different Jesus shows heading for television"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>Remember Bill O\u2019Reilly\u2019s Killing Jesus<\/a><\/i>?<\/p>\n

Last year, the National Geographic Channel teamed up<\/a> with Ridley Scott\u2019s production company to turn O\u2019Reilly\u2019s book into a TV-movie, just as they had done with his earlier books Killing Lincoln<\/i> and Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Now comes word that they\u2019re going to make their third project a little longer, and turn it into a four-hour mini-series<\/a> that will begin production this summer and premiere sometime in 2015.<\/p>\n

Hmm. You don\u2019t suppose the enormous success of the mini-series The Bible<\/a><\/i> last year \u2014 which led to this year\u2019s Son of God<\/a><\/i> on the big screen and next year\u2019s A.D.<\/a><\/i> on the NBC network \u2014 had anything to do with Killing Jesus<\/i> getting more airtime, do you?<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a very different<\/i> sort of TV show is set to premiere this year. The Hollywood Reporter<\/a><\/i> says Aaron McGruder, creator of the animated comedy The Boondocks<\/i> (2005-2010), is working on a live-action series called Black Jesus<\/a><\/i> for the Adult Swim network, and the trade paper describes the premise thusly:
\n<\/p>\n

The new half-hour live-action scripted comedy finds Jesus living in present-day Compton, Calif., on a daily mission to spread love and kindness throughout the neighborhood with the help of his small but loyal group of downtrodden followers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Deadline<\/a> notes that this series is already in production, but the network had been keeping it fairly quiet until now, \u201cpossibly because of its subject matter\u201d.<\/p>\n

This wouldn\u2019t be the first production to revolve around a Jesus figure of African descent.<\/p>\n

On a symbolic or metaphorical level, films like Black Jesus<\/a><\/i> (1968) and Son of Man<\/a><\/i> (2006) have either retold the story of Jesus in a modern African setting or portrayed modern African political prisoners as Christ-figures of a sort.<\/p>\n

The American film Color of the Cross<\/a><\/i> (2006) went even further and depicted the historical Jesus himself, and members of his family, as \u201cblack Jews\u201d.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never seen The Boondocks<\/i>, so I have no idea what sort of humour to expect from this new show. But I do think \u201cspreading love and kindness\u201d is an\u2026 incomplete\u2026 description of what the biblical Jesus and his followers were all about.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The TV adaptation of Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Jesus<\/i> is expanded into a mini-series, while the comedy Black Jesus<\/i> takes place in present-day California.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1987,888,1986,1985,549,345,887,27,236],"class_list":["post-15206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-aaron-mcgruder","tag-bill-oreilly","tag-black-jesus-1968","tag-black-jesus-2014","tag-color-of-the-cross","tag-jesus","tag-killing-jesus","tag-ridley-scott","tag-son-of-man-2006"],"yoast_head":"\nTwo very different Jesus shows heading for television<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The TV adaptation of Bill O'Reilly's Killing Jesus is expanded into a mini-series, while the comedy Black Jesus takes place in present-day California.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/03\/two-very-different-jesus-shows-heading-for-television.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Two very different Jesus shows heading for television\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The TV adaptation of Bill O'Reilly's Killing Jesus is expanded into a mini-series, while the comedy Black Jesus takes place in present-day California.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/2014\/03\/two-very-different-jesus-shows-heading-for-television.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"FilmChat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-03-19T06:30:52+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs\/filmchat\/files\/2014\/03\/killingjesus-224x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Peter T. 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