Strangers with Candy and Stephen Colbert
Over the weekend, I saw Strangers with Candy, the movie based on the cult tv series of the same name. It was written by Stephen Colbert, Amy Sedaris, and Paul Dinello. It was crude, rude –and I have to say, very funny. Two things:
1. I once thought that conservative Catholic apologists (e.g., Amy Welborn) would be reasonable in thinking Stephen Colbert thinks like them. I no longer think that is the case. Here’s the NCCB review of the movie ,which it rated “O” for morally offensive. Personally, I think the review misses the “spoof” element of the movie.
2. You know you’re middle-aged when the entertainment industry starts making reference to, and making fun of, things that you experienced as a child . Here’s what the Wikipedia article says about the series:
“The series was first envisioned by Dinello and Colbert, both of whom had seen a public service “Scared Straight”-type film called The Trip Back, in which motivational speaker Florrie Fisher recalled her days as a New York street whore to a group of high school students. Seeing that Fisher strongly resembled their friend Amy Sedaris, they showed her a copy of the tape, and suitably impressed with Sedaris’ imitation of Fisher, began developing a series based around the idea of Fisher going back to high school herself. The three, along with Mitch Rouse, combined this concept with lampooning the after school specials they had all been subjected to in high school along with the short-lived mid-nineties teen series “My So-Called Life.”"
So the proper way of interpreting Strangers with Candy is getting back at all those people who subjected us to moralizing after-school specials that interrupted our daily mindless routine of television. I expect that thirty years from now, the corresponding generation of middle aged people will be making fun of something else.
I don’t mean to snipe, but what is it that makes Amy Welborn a “conservative”? How does she deserve this label? She never discusses politics. Is her Catholicism ideological? She seems to me a model Catholic on virtually every point of current contention. Am I not picking up on something?
The term “conservative” is obviously rough-and-ready; see the discussion on the blog below. I’m talking about the relationship of the church to the culture; in this context I mean something like an adherent of the current of identity that I described in my article “The Perfect Storm” in America.
By conservative, here, I mean stresssing the importance of affirming the integrity of Church teaching as a bulwark against modern culture ‘s excesses. People who get all worked up about the Da Vinci Code and Madonna probably won’t find Strangers With Candy funny. Like the reviewer for the NCCB.
What is it that makes Ms. Welborn a “conservative?”
Reminds me of the old saw that “I may not be able to define it, but I know it when I see it.”
On this note, I shall move on………..:)
The Da Vinci Code has sold 60 million copies and is fascinating cultural moment. A lot of people have had their suspicions about the untrustworthiness of the Christian story confirmed by it – I’ve talked to them. It makes sense that educators would respond to those questions. It’s caused a lot of confusion. I work in a parish, and I’ve heard it first hand from teens and adults, and have done a couple of adult ed sessions on it over the years, with great success – lots of attendees, who were glad to learn some church history and get the tools to be able to answer questions from their friends.
To ignore it would have been irresponsible, something that apprently even the USCCB discerned from what pastors were telling them, fi they went to all the trouble to formulate their website on the topic, right?