The minds behind the Adult Swim comedy Black Jesus may have been quietly hoping for some controversy surrounding their new project.
The show features Jesus Christ as a foul-mouthed figure with a predilection for pot.
The Hollywood Reporter says the series debut drew solid ratings, but so far the outrage meter is hardly hitting red.
The inaugural outing for Boondocks creator AaronMcGruder’s (co-created by Mike Clattenburg) latest late-night comedy averaged a solid 0.9 rating among adults 18 to 49 at 11 p.m. That live-plus-same-day showing tops all original competition on cable for the day — not to mention broadcast series The Quest(ABC), Rookie Blue (ABC) and Gang Related (Fox), as well as NBC comedies Welcome to Sweden andWorking the Engels.
Several groups, including One Million Moms, want the Cartoon Network to yank the show off the schedule for portraying Jesus Chris in such a fashion. But The Catholic League offered a less outraged statement regarding the program
We have long taken the position that portraying Jesus as black is fine with the Catholic League, and indeed we find it silly that anyone would object. The Jesus character in this show is a mixed bag: He is irreverent, and can be downright crude, but he also has many redeeming qualities,” [Catholic League president Bill] Donahue said of the show, which premiered last week.”
The Jesus character parks illegally, curses, smokes pot, drinks, and hits on women. At one point he is depicted as the get-away driver for a drug deal gone wrong; he is eventually robbed and gets busted,” Donahue continued. “But he is also forgiving, kind, respectful, and condemns violence. No one questions his divinity, and even an atheist detective who interviews him after his arrest appears to sense that there is more to this man than what first appears.
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