AFA Says TVLand, Zappa, Sir Mix-A-Lot All Blasphemers
Posted by Fred on February 14, 2008
Hello, and welcome to another edition of Shooting the American “Family” Association Fish in the Oh-My-God-Do-They-Need-To-Get-A-Life Barrel. In today’s episode, the AFA gets their panties in a bunch over TVLand’s use of “Ohmigod” in a commercial to promote the netlet’s That’s So 80s Weekend:
The TV Land network has a new feature starting this Saturday (Feb. 16) called “OHMIGOD, That’s so 80’s weekend.” The series features movies from the 1980’s. “OHMIGOD” is an irreverent exclamation for “Oh, my God!”
The promotional ad is playing on the television broadcast and on their website at www.tvland.com. (WARNING: If you visit their website, the ad plays automatically.)
I can’t tell you in words how offensive it is to listen to the advertisement for this new show as they must say “OHMIGOD” five times in 30 seconds.
Disrespect for Christians and God have gone on for some time with this phrase, but now we have a network that feels it appropriate to name an entire program series with this phrase.
It’s not a “feature” and it’s name does not include the word “God”. It’s a bunch of movies from the 1980s over the course of the weekend, specifically Footloose, Flashdance, Say Anything, Sixteen Candles, and The Breakfast Club. One hopes no one at the AFA decides to actually watch the movies, as there’s a whole lot more there to offend uppity moralists than in a harmless 80s catchphrase, especially in Footloose, the satire of which is well beyond troglodytes like Don Wildmon.
More to the point, however, we stopped stoning people for blasphemy a long time ago (though the AFA probably wishes we didn’t), and use of the phrase Ohmigod! stopped being blasphemous a long time ago. The AFA must really be hard up for things to be offended about if this is the best they can do. I for one am going to use the phrase as much as I can today, just to make a statement that moralists like Don Wildmon don’t own the English language. Courtesy of Sir Mix-A-Lot, here’s the single greatest use of the phrase from the 90s:
February 15, 2008 at 6:08 am
I saw that craziness this morning as well (I’m on AFA’s Action Alert mailing list). I think they’re just jealous because they’re not getting to execute a witch like their Islamic zealot counterparts in Saudi Arabia. They had to find something to do this weekend…