Prop 8 - The Musical -- starring Jack Black, Allison Janney, John C. Reilly, Marc Shaiman, and many more...
I enjoyed this Funny or Die video about Prop. 8. (Thanks, Shawn!)
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Now that's a star-studded cast. I just wish I could get a clear look at everyone in there. A list of the cast would be welcome.
Pure, unadulterated win!
Awesome. And just an observation from someone in Cali: If the anti-8 organizers had made real use of the support from the creative community (in addition to labor and other natural allies), Prop 8 wouldn't have passed in the first place.
Love it.
sniff, sniffff. just. plain. BEAUTIFUL!! snifffff!
Standing ovation!
For those who'd like to post it around: http://tinyurl.com/prop8musical
according to Playbill
piano: Marc Shaiman
capitalist: Neil Patrick Harris
Jesus: Jack Black
Gay rights group:
blond girl in white top: Jordan Ballard
asian girl in red tank top: Margaret Cho
guy in orange shirt and glasses: Barrett Foa
guy in yellow shirt with headband: J.B. Ghuman
guy in blue shirt and green shorts: John Hill
guy in yellow zebra top: Andy Richter
girl in purple top: Maya Rudolph
the token black guy: Rashad Naylor
girl in yellow top and cap: Nicole Parker
Proposition 8'ers:
Prop 8 Leader: John C. Reilly
Prop 8 Leader's #1 Wife: Allison Janney
Prop 8 Leader's #2 Wife: Kathy Najimy
Riffing Prop 8'er: Jenifer Lewis
black Preacher: Craig Robinson
Catholic school girls:
girl with glasses: Rashida Jones
blond girl: Sarah Chalke
plain girl: Lake Bell
I made a comic about that EXACT thing a few weeks ago.
Here it is!
I appreciate the sentiment a lot but, critically, it's not good. And I loved Guffman.
That Jesus is an imposter. Everyone knows Jesus eats fish, not shrimp.
fantastic . surprised that NPH was not in the headline for this ... yeah Barney !!!!
That was SO AWESOME. I want Jack Black to play me in the movie of my life. Or Doogie Howser.
This was fab-u-lous!
As another CA resident, I agree with #3: the No-On-8 people didn't seem to have any sort of message whatsoever. I'm sure it didn't help that they were outspend to the tune of something like 500 million to 1, but even when you did see a No ad it didn't really convey the sense that there was a central message, a compelling reason to vote No.
Compare with the Yes people who effectively communicated a message -- however disgusting -- that focused primarily on what our children would be learning in school. Throw in a some hints at the liberal gay agenda and a touch of "everything you know about the world is going to change" and now you have constitutional bigotry!
=(
Critically, I still think it's awesomesauce. Jack Black is perfect as Jesus. After all, he was Jeepers Creepers. =D
See ya later, sinners!
Cute.
But the "shellfish is an abomination" counter-argument that Jack Black/Jesus trots out is a tired fallacy.
There are two very different words in the Hebrew bible. One (shequets) is used for shellfish in Leviticus 11, and a totally different one ('eba) is used in Leviticus 18. The King James version didn't distinguish them, but more modern translations and scholarship do. The ESV, for example, consistently uses "abomination" in Lev 18 to refer to sexual and idolatrous practices that are forbidden and "detestable" for unclean foods (Lev 11).
Even just thinking of the context, the unclean animal laws of Lev 11 are not "moral" in nature, and define Jews from everyone else. They are about cleanness. If you touch a dead pig (say, by accident), you have to WASH.
Lev 18 deals with moral rules for Jew and alien sojourner alike. It includes not sleeping with uncles and not burning infants alive to Molech. You commit those sins and there are criminal penalties.
Plus Christianity has a 2000 year tradition of making the argument that the uncleanness code of Leviticus 11-14 is overturned by Jesus' work, while the moral rules of Leviticus and elsewhere endure. Its found in "obscure" places like Romans 1.
When a concern troll has to cite Leviticus, you know he's hard up.
If it isn't what goes into a man's mouth that makes him unclean, but what comes out of it...doesn't that include dick?
Um, Black brought up Leviticus first?
Pduggie: Um, so that takes care of burning infants. What's the deal with the shellfish then, are you saying that Jews who avoid them are ignorant? It's kind of hard to tell.
20: EH:
No, I'm saying that Christians who eat shellfish eat it for different reasons than they have for retaining opposition to homosexual acts as sinful.
The implication of that would be that Jews who avoid shellfish are doing it for different reasons than they avoid gay sex. But I'm not Jewish. But the words are still different in Hebrew, and have different connotations.
I'm surprised: why doesn't Black come out as Thomas Jefferson and just say that you have to have a wall of separation between church and state in the US.
Pduggie wrote:
There are two very different words in the Hebrew bible. One (shequets) is used for shellfish in Leviticus 11, and a totally different one ('eba) is used in Leviticus 18. The King James version didn't distinguish them, but more modern translations and scholarship do. The ESV, for example, consistently uses "abomination" in Lev 18 to refer to sexual and idolatrous practices that are forbidden and "detestable" for unclean foods (Lev 11).
What you're saying doesn't quite match up with the extended discussion of the language used in Leviticus here (from an author who does believe homosexuality is a sin). This page says that the word to'eba, which is used to refer to homosexuality, can mean *either* ritual impurity or immorality in different contexts. this page says that the same word, to'eba, is also used in Leviticus to refer to dietary practices:
In Leviticus we have the clearest prohibitions against sex between men. "Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable [to'eba]." (Leviticus 18:22) "If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable [to'eba]." (Leviticus 20:13) The King James, or Authorized, Version (KJV) renders the Hebrew word to'eba as 'abomination.' There can be no doubt in terms of what these verses say: same-sex intercourse between males is forbidden. For many Christians, it is as simple as that - if the Bible says homosexual acts are prohibited, then homosexuality must be wrong, a sin. However, as Seow points out, to'eba is widely used throughout the Old Testament to describe anything unacceptable in the Israelite faith and culture. [10] This included unclean food, idolatry and occult practices, the remarriage of divorced women and many other instances of improper or inappropriate behaviour. Therein lies the problem. Why should one stipulation be considered or upheld today while another is not? "Why should this prohibition (against male-male homoerotic acts) be applicable but not others in the same Holiness Code, like the crossbreeding of animals, the mixing of grain or fiber, various dietary regulations, and so forth?" Seow rightly asks. [11]
If both homosexual acts and dietary laws use the same word to'eba, Jack Black's joke in the skit seems entirely on-point.
the bible doesn't specifically forbid using IEDs to kill people. Look it up.
why doesn't Black come out as Thomas Jefferson and just say that you have to have a wall of separation between church and state in the US.
Because Prop 8 supporters are driven by what they think God and Jesus are telling them to do, not Thomas Jefferson. And even if he did come out as Thomas Jefferson and talk about the separation of church and state, it's entirely predictable that someone would show up in comments to give some bullsh*t about how America is actually a Judeo-Christian nation, and the church/state wall was intended to keep the state out of the church, but not the church out of the state.
pduggie: If we allow for translations that are newer and gentler, we run into new problems. Now we are admitting that things in the bible can be misinterpreted. And you brought up the point that not everything in the bible still applies. And ultimately, those both support the point that Black's Jesus is trying to make - the bible is a starting point for religious (christian anyway) rules, but by no means the end all be all list of rules, and it is subject to changing interpretation as time goes on.
If the people citing leviticus as reason to hate on gays were just as quick to legislate the death penalty for cursing your parents, adultery (both parties are due for death), and
(continued where i left off) ...anything else leviticus demands the death penalty for, i wouldn't be so suspicious that really, they just think gays are icky.
The best part of the entire video was the Navy pop-up ad at the end. Just a smidgen of irony.
Reminds me again what a charismatic fella Jack Black can be when he sets his mind to it. Is it just me, or does your heart break a little bit when he leaves the stage? A far cry from his movie work as of late.
Bloody brilliant. This makes a little rainbow tear come to my eye.
whoops, in comment #22 I wrote "this page says that the same word, to'eba, is also used in Leviticus to refer to dietary practices", but my link for "this page" was wrong--I meant to link here.
I personally derive my views on homosexuality from the Bible (and would be just fine with gay marriage), but I've always wondered why irreligious people never draw a moral conclusion against it just on pragmatic grounds. I know Ayn Rand and (I think) Shaw, et al, disapproved just because, from the species' point of view, homosexuality was futile. Being gay meant you were a failure of evolution. And, from what I've read, LGBTs are way overrepresented if you take a sample of various people who have made significant contributions to society--you'd want these people to have kids! Is biological pragmatism a discarded philosophy?
Sorry for the bluntness, but like I said, I've always wondered why this is never discussed...
hoo boy...
Being gay meant you were a failure of evolution.
If self-strangulation by overpopulation is your goal.
And if you seriously want to know, current research suggests that there's no such thing as gay men and straight women. There's 'likes men'. The gene is carried by women. It's expressed in men by attraction to men and expressed in women by increased fertility. Thus, our survival is ensured.
@14: It seemed like 500 million to one.
Wikipedia: The campaigns for and against Proposition 8 raised $35.8 million and $37.6 million, respectively.
If you don't count free advertising from non-taxed pulpits.
heh, been polishing my missionary traps...
#35: And Gavin.
@JesseO
As another CA resident, I agree with #3: the No-On-8 people didn't seem to have any sort of message whatsoever. I'm sure it didn't help that they were outspend to the tune of something like 500 million to 1, but even when you did see a No ad it didn't really convey the sense that there was a central message, a compelling reason to vote No.
Actually, according to wikipedia more money was raised against prop 8 than was for it.
hello. Human rights are not negotiable. There is no "for" or "against" cases to be made here.
Anyone who wanted to pass a law forbidding people who wish to marry to do so are in violation of basic human rights. It doesn't matter how much money was raised or how many each side raised.
There is nothing to "discuss". Or do you also wish to raise the issue of whether people with more or less melanin in their skin are in fact "human"?
The courts may decide just that.
However, if it takes another vote, I'm reminded how curious this Prop 8 advertising was. In an issue affecting a community of people, none of these people were shown - unless I'm wrong. The Yes side didn't show footage of them krazy Folsom St Fair folks and the No side didn't show happy couples emerging from SF City Hall. (Maybe one couple in that Mormon 'home invasion' spot.) In any other advertising about something important to people's lives - you would see the people. That's where the emotion is.
In this goofball video above, a lot of effort was spent ragging on religion, etc. Okay, it blows off steam but down the road when real communication will be needed, mocking religion is a waste of time. The key to winning is to find an honest, human way to reach people on a positive emotional level. You can't just yell This is Wrong. You have to present the issue in a way people say to themselves: This is Right.
If Hollywood wants to help, and they do, ixnay on letting any more actors write stuff. Get the gd screenwriters on it.
"ragging on religion"? Does anyone care about hurt feelings of the self deluded when innocent people are being beat to death for fun - under the blessings of the "ragged upon"? I don't.
I'm talking about future commercials. Nothing bigger than that. I think the "No on 8" effort needs a better strategy for winning if it comes to a vote again. In that context, I think ragging on religion is a waste of time - the wrong direction. It may satisfy one's distaste for religion, but it's a fool's errand as a tactic. And I cite this video because there's a lot of creative juice in H-wood and I've not seen one compelling piece of work, ever, that gives gay marriage the positive emotional power it needs to persuade a Yes to a No.
Teller@40: Sorry its brilliance was lost on you.
The best material has always come from comedians, not screenwriters, imho, from the Marx Bros. to Ben Stiller.
The power of clever satire to fuel change should never be underestimated. If questioning ingrained behavior which no longer serves us is off the list in order to cater to the narrow-minded, then what is on the list that is still worth having? If evolution waits for the hold-outs we will never achieve anything close to our potential as a species.
"gives the positive emotional power it needs to persuade "
There is no need to persuade. Truth is. Rights are.
When someone tries to take your rights, you fight. Not plead or argue. This is not an issue of salesmanship. When you feel secure in your rights as you are in your skin or in the air you breathe, then and only then do you have them. Rights are not granted or withheld at the power of another.
Do non-gay people require specific law permitting them to marry?
@33:
I personally derive my views on homosexuality from the Bible (and would be just fine with gay marriage), but I've always wondered why irreligious people never draw a moral conclusion against it just on pragmatic grounds. I know Ayn Rand and (I think) Shaw, et al, disapproved just because, from the species' point of view, homosexuality was futile. Being gay meant you were a failure of evolution.
Hmmm...
Anyway, I don't think many irreligious people believe morality derives from evolutionary advantage--if they did contraception would be equally immoral, for example. (and would Rand and Shaw say it was OK to be gay as long as you were also a sperm/egg donor?) And from an evolutionary perspective, it's naive to think that gay genes would automatically be a selective disadvantage--there's some evidence that genes that increase the likelihood of homosexuality in men also increase the number of children a woman with these genes is likely to have.
@ #31 Shelby Davis
"I personally derive my views on homosexuality from the Bible"
Are you sure you don't just happen to interpret the bible in a way that justifies your own actual opinion on homosexuality?
I really don't trust people who subscribe to given morals rather than have their own sense of values from which to work things out for themselves. The best-case scenario is that they are deluding themselves with self-justification.
Sorry, that just isn't true. While I think there is no valid excuse to prohibit gay marriage, the fact is that there is no universal agreement on the totality of what constitutes "human rights" because "human rights" are a subjective, collective agreement by people/cultures/government based on our built in social instincts, empathy and culture, not a scientifically provable fixed set of rights.
Skep@47: Try these on for size.
Takuan: I think if there is another vote, it is a matter of salesmanship. That's me. That's my take.
Side note: "Truth is" was my very first bumper sticker on my very first car. Had to piece it together then. Hang on...having a moment.
Phikus: Hey, theatre is a matter of taste. You say brilliant, I say corny. Doesn't mean I don't love you.
Teller: Fair enough, but actually I say "brilliantly, deliberately corny with an awesome point." Can you feel the love now?
Like a Santa Ana, bro.
"...from the species' point of view, homosexuality was futile. Being gay meant you were a failure of evolution...."
Not only has this point been discussed to death in anthropology, evolutionary studies and sociobiology, but the answer should be obvious.
If being homosexual was 'a failure of evolution', then how come it's relatively prevalent in a very successful species? Only one answer: because it represents an advantage to the population. Having children yourself is only one way of ensuring propagation of your genes. If you contribute to the success of a population which includes your genetic relatives (siblings, nieces/nephews, cousins, parents), then your genes will be passed on. Having members of society who do not invest resources solely in their own brats but across a wider spread of community issues is an important factor in success of that population.
Shelby Davis and Tordelback, I respect your argument, but I think it's the wrong direction. More importantly, why should it matter whether a trait is adaptive or not in terms of whether bearers of the trait should have full civil rights?
It would be horrible for a society to decide that, say, asthmatics should be able to marry. Having a high IQ is associated with having fewer children - so should we deny civil rights to people with high IQ - or maybe force them to breed more? Come on.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=uiy09DIsZFU
Nice touch, T.
Teller's got a point. (Teller, you could have been clearer about it.) It's a lovely little musical, but it's preaching to the choir.
In any campaign like this, there are people who are going to be committed to one side or the other no matter what you do. Success is getting the people in the middle to vote for your side.
Some of you are falling (again!) for that far-right quasi-Christians' propaganda about how they speak for all Christians. Not true, seriously. So, not only should you think twice before taking aim at all Christians, so you can make sure you don't have potential allies in your sights, but you should avoid implicitly agreeing with the far right wing, for pete's sake, that all Christians think Gays are an abomination.
If you don't tell people that they think you're an abomination, some of them won't think of it on their own, either.
The biggest single shift in public opinion about gays I've seen in my entire lifetime was when the first gay wedding photos started coming out of San Francisco. What the rest of the country was seeing was one radiantly happy couple after another, often with their friends and families standing around them. They were beautiful.
They were also bulletproof. Anti-gay forces couldn't point to these photos, most of which were as hopelessly cute as a basket of puppies, and say "These are creepy evil gays who want to molest straight decent straight people and put subversive ideas into YOUR CHILD'S BRAIN. Anyone who looked at them knew otherwise.
Another attack they put out of commission was the idea that allowing gay marriage would somehow contaminate or devalue straight marriage. These people were as happy as anyone else who got married (maybe happier, in some cases), and obviously had the same high opinion of the married state.
If I were doing anti-Prop. 8 communications, I'd put out one poster after another of those radiantly happy wedding photos, with a headline saying something like "YOU WANT TO TELL THEM THEY'RE GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE IT BACK?" Go straight for the vitals: You, personally, are going to break the hearts of all these happy people.
You might even get some straights thinking about what it would be like to have their own marriages declared invalid. That could be a radicalizing moment, because most of them have never questioned their own right to be married.
...
PDuggie @17, are you trying to sell us on the idea that Christians are mindful of these fine distinctions? I'm telling you, most Christians couldn't give you a short summary of the plot of the Old Testament, much less distinguish different kinds of abominations in it. I haven't heard their ministers making such distinctions either.
I've been a member of two different major Christian denominations, and this is the first time I've (1.) heard that stated as a general rule, and (2.) heard it credited to Romans 1. I just now re-read that chapter in three different translations, and I'm really not seeing where you get that interpretation.PDuggie @19:
And you brought it up second.Jesse @22: You rock! So it is the same word? I have to wonder who told PDuggie it isn't. At the very least, PDuggie should know to stop listening to that information source.
Grimc @24:
If someone ever tries to pitch that line here, I hope it's during one of those spells when the moderation staff needs to work off some tension. The original documentation could hardly be clearer on that issue.Anonymous @27: Ever seen Japanese Navy recruitment ads?
Shelby Davis @31:
How can you possibly derive Ayn Rand's opinions about reproduction? She wrote books in which good guys who have sex neither beget nor conceive children. To say this is an issue with which she didn't engage is putting it mildly.As for the argument from species continuation: are you saying that Rand would have wanted people to deny the truth of their individual natures, those things to which they unthinkingly say "Yes!", in order to live their lives in servitude to the needs of the Collective Other? Not possible.
Because we all want to get our advice on the proper conduct of our sex lives from a man who was seduced once at the age of 29, and was so horrified by the experience that he never consummated his later marriage, remaining celibate (and so of course childless) for the rest of his life.From the occasional remarks I've heard from gay friends, they don't find gay sex futile in the least. In fact, they seem to quite like it. Do you think the only point of your own sex life is having children?They were writers, not scientists. Trust me on this one: half the stupid things that have gotten said about sex in this century, and a great many stupid things in the last one, started with someone invoking Evolution. It's what we've substituted for invoking Natural Law when we want to bolster an unsupportable argument.LGBTs are overrepresented in that category for the same reason that people with affluent backgrounds are: they're not spending all their time supporting and caring for children.In the sense you mean it, yes, it is.By the way, I respect your opinions, and I don't think you're stupid.
Teller @34: I was under the impression that a lot of the anti-Prop. 8 money came in late, and thus couldn't be used to best effect.
Takuan @39: Rights are a social construct. Or if they're not negotiable, then historically the non-negotiable state of affairs that's most often obtained was that gays got ground underfoot. I'm for negotiable, myself.
you just wait for the Gay Jihad
Bi-la kaifa
Teller: A warm wind can be rather soothing when you're out in the cold.
rights as a social construct: no more so than my own sense of self is a "construct".
So jesse0 , you opined...
"As another CA resident, I agree with #3: the No-On-8 people didn't seem to have any sort of message whatsoever. I'm sure it didn't help that they were outspend to the tune of something like 500 million to 1, but even when you did see a No ad it didn't really convey the sense that there was a central message, a compelling reason to vote No."
Does this mean that you just take everything on TV @ face valued. Oh my God...don't engaged that 3 Billion-year-old brain you have and draw your OWN conclusions! Don't make me think! The COMPELLING reason for most Californians (extremely obvious) is that it reduces a large class of people to second class citizens and forces the practice of odious CHRISTIAN bigotry now imprinted into our CA Constitution. Sucks...totally sucks!
This skit was played in its entirety on Keith Olbermann yesterday. =D
Being gay meant you were a failure of evolution. And, from what I've read, LGBTs are way overrepresented if you take a sample of various people who have made significant contributions to society--you'd want these people to have kids!
Well, gay geniuses of the current era, you are now required to pass your genes on. Somehow. It's morally repugnant not to do so! Have sex that repels or does not interest you, for the good of the motherland!
Tcha! I forgot to mention the other group that's overrepresented in class of persons who made significant contributions: Men.
Raising children takes a lot of work.