With 'Noah's Ark,' TV sinks to new depths
My ears always perk up when television announces a new biblical epic.
In this case it was "Noah's Ark," the story of a wandering madman in search of dry ground, which aired on NBC last Sunday and Monday.
If you are by nature a lucky person, your local NBC affiliate chose not to carry the story, or you might have been busy with other events that fine Sunday evening. This biblical epic was about as bogus as television can get. The reviews I read last week before the broadcast revealed a Bible story that will give scholars, clergy and devout lay people fits.
According to a Religion News Service review, the story began its slide into ridiculousness just a few minutes into the program, when Lot approaches Noah and innocently asked "Hey, aren't you staying for the orgy?" You may recall there is no orgy scene in the true biblical account of Noah and his super boat.
You may also recall that in the Bible the story of Noah appears in Genesis, chapters six through nine, while Lot's occurs hundreds of years later in chapter 19. But the NBC fiasco had Noah and Lot as neighbors and contemporaries. That's simply not true and any decent biblical scholar will testify to that fact.
In the NBC drama, Lot turned on Noah after the ark began to sail, because the script had the two men battling at sea. Lot, however, had the advantage because he commanded an armada of pirate ships. Noah, poor soul, only had a big ol' clumsy boat several cubits long and filled with hungry animals.
There ought to be a law that television producers cannot tamper with the great stories -- these epics that bring our blood to a fever and our brains to a boil. Pilgrims! We teach our children the story of Noah's ark, telling them about the animals walking into the ark, two by two. And we talk about the courage of Noah battling the seas as the animals writhed in hunger and turmoil in the hold of the big clumsy boat.
It is a lesson about hope for a better world, hope that the sun will shine again, not just physically but psychologically and spiritually. Goodness, how much we need that message of hope right now to massage our tired and battered souls. The Bible is full of such stories; it teems with brave stories and characters for our benefit.
But the NBC version of this Bible story was twisted to include pirates on the high seas. What kind of hope does that bring the people? How does that work toward the common good or the general welfare of the populace? Obviously, it doesn't. And that is what drives me more and more to ignore the offerings on the tube. The people who produce this stuff don't care about the common good. They could care less about people, as long as they have pictures to plaster on the screen.
For instance, when Lot confronts his crazed wife, he said, "I didn't know what happiness was until I married you, but now it's too late."
One of the reviewers said the line sounded like Henny Youngman, the late comedian who carried a violin and never told a joke longer than one line. Another gag invoked the same memory. After Lot's wife turned into a pillar of salt, Lot said to Noah, "She always said she was the salt of the earth, and suddenly, she was."
This so-called biblical yarn was so corrupt that the final hour had Noah struggling with a serious nervous breakdown, the kind that drives people to believe something is under the bed, such as monsters. The story was so dishonest and childish that one wonders if a gang of impish adolescents wrote the script and directed the production. But no, it was written by an adult, Peter Barnes, and directed by another adult, John Irvin. Shame on them.
Clergy everywhere ought to denounce this kind of offering from their pulpits. Parishioners ought to encourage one another to walk away from the big glowing box whenever "Noah's Ark" and its ilk hit the screen -- which it will undoubtedly do in reruns.
Instead, throw a party and invite the entire church and just play games. Do anything to avoid these corrupt stories that pose as a biblical epics.
Why is television so corrupt, you may ask? Because people like you watch this kind of junk and call it entertainment. Shame on us!
Clark D. Morphew
5-8-99
