{"id":1079,"date":"2012-04-12T00:22:57","date_gmt":"2012-04-12T00:22:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/irreverin.com\/?p=1079"},"modified":"2012-04-12T00:22:57","modified_gmt":"2012-04-12T00:22:57","slug":"gcb-the-good-the-gag-me-and-the-gospel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/irreverin\/2012\/04\/gcb-the-good-the-gag-me-and-the-gospel\/","title":{"rendered":"GCB: The Good, the Gag-me, and the Gospel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I love the GCB. And it bugs me. And I love to let it bug me.<\/p>\n

Lots of people don\u2019t love it, and\u00a0I kind of get why. For one thing, it is not super well-written. The main character is sort of flat. I don\u2019t think she\u2019s a bad actress, really\u2026they just aren\u2019t writing her very good lines. Also, if you are a Christian, it feels (ALOT) like the show is making fun. Because it is.<\/p>\n

However, if you are a Christian who does not take yourself too seriously, it is pretty spot-on funny. Or if you are what we might call a progressive Christian<\/a>, and view the show through the lens of truth-telling-about-all-that-is-wrong-with-the-church, it is challenging. And also spot-on funny.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the poorly-written Amanda serves as a foil for some pretty great, more developed characters. If you are not familiar, a quick synopsis\u2013Amanda was your textbook \u2018mean girl\u2019 in high school; homecoming queen, etc, made other girls miserable for the crime of not being her\u2026 Now, she is grown, mother of teenagers, and recently widowed. Her philandering husband was skipping town with her bff and millions in ill-gotten investor money, and he dies in a car crash (in a compromising position). Penniless and humiliated, Amanda moves back to the oil-rich epicenter of her Dallas childhood. She is a changed woman since her high school days\u2013kind, broken, and seeking a simple life for she and her children. But that doesn\u2019t stop her high school femeses (female nemesis, plural) from taking advantage of her recent, public downfall.<\/p>\n

Her story\u00a0alone could be told in a single episode\u2013hell, i just told it in a single paragraph\u2013but the stories evolving around her have potential. Her mother is played by the ever fabulous Annie Potts.\u00a0 In case you were wondering, she is still a designing woman<\/em>, through and through. Everything that was fabulous about the Sugarbakers comes through in Annie\u2019s character, Gigi. It\u2019s just been moved from Atlanta to Dallas. Gigi and Amanda have a very Lorelei and Emily Gilmore dynamic\u00a0at times. But whereas the elder Gilmore and her daughter might have a cathartic\/healing\/bonding moment once every season or 2, Gigi and Amanda seem to have one\u2026oh, about once an episode. This is one of the reasons the show, ultimately, is just ok, and may die young. These fictional relationships need to build to points of deeper tension so that they can by-God evolve.<\/em> Not spin themselves into a Hallmark card every single episode.<\/p>\n

The easy resolution bugs me.\u00a0So do\u00a0the red paraments hanging\u00a0in the sanctuary when it is clearly\u2013clearly<\/em>\u2013not Pentecost. Just one of many little signs\u00a0that the writers are half-assing it in all the ways that make the difference between an ok show and a really great one. The congregation\u2013the church itself\u2013should be a character in its own right. Kind of\u00a0like the town in Gilmore Girls<\/em>, or the van in Little Miss Sunshine<\/em>. \u00a0Instead, it is just a building. And an improperly clothed one, at that.<\/p>\n

So I guess what I\u2019d like to tell the writers is this: if you\u2019re going to make fun of the Church, you should\u00a0get to know it first.<\/p>\n

It would be like you writing a comedy about my crazy aunt Delilah* based on a glance through a family photo album, without ever actually meeting her in person. Without hearing her stories of riding in a clown car with ferrets or telling how she cured her arthritis by eating sauerkraut and grape jelly during a hurricane. If you REALLY wanted a crazy Aunt Delilah story, you\u2019d spend the day with her. You\u2019d at the very least have a member of my family on the writing staff.<\/p>\n

Why do I care? After all, it\u2019s only a show. Well, a couple reasons: I care because, on the one hand, the show is working to reinforce every negative stereotype of Christianity in the post-modern world.\u00a0The Church is my crazy aunt, and i love her dearly. If you\u2019re going to laugh at her, at least know why you\u2019re laughing.<\/p>\n

I also care because, just beneath the surface,\u00a0I think there is a freakin fabulous\u2013and strangely prophetic\u2013\u00a0show waiting to break through, and I don\u2019t want to see it get cancelled because of half-assed writing and set-design.<\/p>\n

I want to see more of what life is like\u00a0with Kristin Chenoweth\u00a0as\u00a0lead soprano in the church choir. I want more of Annie Potts looking fifty-something-fabulous, plowing crazy-rich and gun-wielding\u00a0 through the church lady forest. I want more of the great episode titles reflected on the church\u2019s old-school letter sign out front. I want more Cricket and Blake<\/em>: the beautiful, wealthy power couple whose only little <\/em>secret is that Blake likes men on the DL, and their \u2018arrangement\u2019 has been working for years to make them the most happily-married couple on the show.<\/p>\n

And yes, I\u2019d like to see more from\u00a0Pastor Tudor. He is a great deal too pretty for my taste. In fact, the phrase \u201ccarved out of cream cheese\u201d comes to mind. But I\u2019m impressed with his adept handling of meddlesome, toxic church ladies, and his refusal to become a silent, sexless entity in the background of their scheming.\u00a0If they let him out of the box a little bit, he might become a real boy.<\/p>\n

Like the church itself\u2013which, by the way, is painfully, ho-hum\u00a0non-denominational\u2013this fictional pastor has some great narrative potential. Let him skip a few shaves, take the bambi-fied look off his face, and maybe let him get laid once in awhile\u2026now THAT is prime-time television.\u00a0And, for the Pastor and the church alike\u2013do some research\u00a0on the liturgical\u00a0wardrobe already! It cannot be Easter on the clergy robes, Pentecost in the narthex, and Common Time in the sanctuary. I mean, I know it is pretend. Fiction. But, as we say in the world of biblical literacy: Just because it didn\u2019t happen, doesn\u2019t mean it isn\u2019t\u00a0true.<\/p>\n

This show, after all, does have a significant truth to reveal: that the Body of Christ, for all it\u00a0may be\u00a0broken, backward, and stuck in 1950\u2019s Texas, has the power to break through all the\u00a0saddest\u2013and most hilarious\u2013\u00a0charicatures of itself and transform communities for good. Here\u2019s hoping the series lives long enough to tell that story. And here\u2019s hoping that, if they decide it might behoove them to have\u00a0clergy on the writing team, someone\u00a0will give\u00a0them my number.<\/p>\n

As Cricket would say: \u201cI\u2019m not sure of the exact verse, but the Bible is just FULL of that kind of whoopass!\u201d<\/p>\n

*aunt Delilah is purely hypothetical<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I love the GCB. And it bugs me. And I love to let it bug me. Lots of people don\u2019t love it, and\u00a0I kind of get why. For one thing, it is not super well-written. The main character is sort of flat. I don\u2019t think she\u2019s a bad actress, really\u2026they just aren\u2019t writing her very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1154,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[669,670,671,672,673,674,9,675],"class_list":["post-1079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spirituality-in-culture","tag-abc","tag-annie-potts","tag-dallas","tag-gcb","tag-kristin-chenoweth","tag-primetime-television","tag-progressive-christianity","tag-texas"],"yoast_head":"\nGCB: The Good, the Gag-me, and the Gospel<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I love the GCB. And it bugs me. And I love to let it bug me. 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