God’s Not Dead 2 was every bit as divisive and disingenuous as you might expect of a sequel to a film that was essentially based on the Marine Todd meme. The film was rightly, lightly mocked on SNL, by way of the sketch “God Is A Boob Man.” Pat Boone, who like the rest of the GND2 cast, should’ve been embarrassed to have been part of such fear-mongering hack work, instead went after SNL, calling the sketch anti-Semitic, and going back to that old fundamentalist defense, a false equivalency with Islam: “There’s nothing sacred at SNL — except maybe the words ‘Mohammad’ or ‘Allah.’ They’d never take those names in vain,” Boone said.
But, it turns out Pat Boone wasn’t done. He went on Glenn Beck this week (of course) to make an even worse analogy. Jeez, Pat Boone usually doesn’t have this much to say unless a black guy said it first.
“I’d like to ask Lorne Michaels: if somebody did a funny sketch and portrayed his mother as a diseased whore, would he find that funny, or would there be some limit to what he and the show can ridicule?”
Michaels had no comment, but on Thursday Boone got some solidarity from former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee, who also is in God’s Not Dead 2
“I’m not surprised about the backlash against Pat. Any time you defend anything from a Christian perspective, there’s extraordinary pushback. I’ve experienced it, and now Pat has, too,” Huckabee told The Hollywood Reporter. [Hollywood Reporter]
Nor should anyone be surprised by Huckabee/Boone line of attack against SNL. It follows the God’s Not Dead 2 blueprint perfectly: Do something a-holey, and if anyone calls you out on it, call it persecution.
But wait! Do we have any pull quotes in the way of an “I’m not a humorless prude, but…”
“I’ve been on SNL. I get it. It’s parody. Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s not,” Huckabee said. “But in essence, what SNL says is that you’re free to express an opinion if you’re in agreement with the left, and with those who run the networks and film studios, but if you disagree with them it’s hate speech that should be shut down.”
You mean those same studios that put out God’s Not Dead 2, and made product placement deals with Toyota? What about the Jewish son of Communists who produced Heaven Is For Real, and got it released through that plucky little faith-based distributor, Sony? Are they being muzzled by the evil left-wing media too?
“I’m not calling for a boycott of SNL,” Huckabee continued, “I’m calling for a ‘buycott’ of the movie. Buy a ticket, see it for yourself, then see if the SNL parody is fair or mean-spirited.” [Hollywood Reporter]
Yes, by all means, everyone go out and see God’s Not Dead 2. I’d love to compare notes. God’s Not Dead 2 may be culturally toxic, but it’s also so dull it’d make a Catholic mass in Latin look like Mad Max by comparison.
Really, the part of this response I most take exception to is the part where jokes about someone’s diseased whore of a mother supposedly can’t be funny. Look here, Hitler, if I can’t make “your mom” jokes I might as well give up pork and start wearing a burqa.