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Hollywood Hates Nuns
Townhall.com ^ | September 7, 2012 | Brent Bozell

Posted on 09/07/2012 9:06:45 AM PDT by Kaslin

Some hateful stereotypes never die in Hollywood. The cover of the Sept. 7 edition of Entertainment Weekly featured the 63-year-old actress Jessica Lange, smirking in a nun's black habit, holding a big, punishing cane in her hands. Lange is returning for a second season on the FX series "American Horror Story," but this time with an entirely new plot and characters.

Nuns are now a thing of horror. "Jessica Lange returns, this time as a terrifying nun," promised the magazine's cover. They eagerly hyped a new storyline that's "a macabre mash-up of nuns, Nazis, aliens, a serial killer named Bloody Face and the lead singer of Maroon 5." Set in Massachusetts in 1964, this nun dominates the inmates of a mental asylum named Briarcliff.

The mastermind of this spectacle is Ryan Murphy, the fallen Irish Catholic homosexual (surprise) who began with the FX sleazefest "Nip/Tuck" and then scored big with "Glee" on Fox. Think of a horror show, and naturally, Murphy thinks of ... nuns?

"I'm just writing what I would like to see. I'm scared of aliens and I'm scared of Nazis and I'm scared of nuns. So it's the perfect stew of horror and fear."

Murphy told Entertainment Weekly he "wants Catholic groups just waiting to be outraged by his show to know" that "We show people who are really devoted to Catholicism and believe in its powers. For the most part, the religious people in the show are making an attempt to do their best in a very difficult world."

Baloney. It is patently untrue. That, of course, has never stopped Murphy.

The same article promised "viewers will meet Lange's Sister Jude, a scarily stern woman of faith (and fan of corporal punishment) who's running the show at Briarcliff while grappling with some very un-nunlike personal demons."

Lange told the Los Angeles Times "If I were playing a straitlaced nun, start to finish, I can't say that would interest me too much. What's great are the extremes. To go from where she was and where she's getting to, that's what's going to be interesting."

A summary of the characters spread across the Internet by Murphy's team also explains that, "Lange now takes on Sister Jude, a nun who's more sadistic than saintly." Monsignor O'Hara will be the subject of the nun's sexual desires: "Sister Jude's superior finds himself on the receiving end of the nun's affections (and fantasies), but he's not entirely innocent. Not unlike the red lingerie under Jude's habit, there are dark intentions under Monsignor O'Hara's grace and piety. This year, he'll be subject to Sister Jude's brutal punishment (read: shackles, canes)."

Entertainment Weekly quoted Lange that Sister Jude has "a lot of bad history and secrets that would threaten her if it came out." The magazine added this character "used to be a girl named Judy who drank and slept her way around Massachusetts." Actor Joseph Fiennes, who plays Monsignor O'Hara, suggests "clearly she's attracted to the monsignor for his grace and religiousness...and the monsignor might play with that, manipulate that."

The magazine also reported "Sister Jude serves as the Nurse Ratched to Briarcliff's troubled inmates." That's a reference to the villain of the movie "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," who was a vicious, dictatorial ruler of a mental asylum.

Does this sound to anyone with brainwaves like a Catholic nun and priest attempting to "do their best" to be faithful to God and his church?

Murphy's producing partner, Brad Falchuk, confessed his ignorance to Entertainment Weekly "I'm a Jew. I don't know enough nuns. I saw 'Sister Act' and it freaked me out." But Adam Levine, that aforementioned pop singer in the cast, explained: "What's great about the fact that it's on FX is that you can go too far. You can do really unorthodox, crazy things that people are going to talk about."

It's easy to see the game that Murphy is playing here. He wants to "go too far" and build a big buzz -- but he also wants to claim his religious characters really try to "do their best." He wants critics to be outraged enough to draw publicity, but not so outraged that they get the show canceled. He wants enough outrage to maintain his place as the toast of sybaritic Tinseltown. In its first season, "American Horror Story" was touted by FX as the year's top-rated new cable series, and the Emmy tastemakers honored it with a whopping 17 Emmy nominations.

Once again, that "conservative" tycoon Rupert Murdoch is amoral enough to provide the Fox and FX platform with shows that have painted pornographers and perverted plastic surgeons as rebellious heroes and now will portray nuns as creepy villains. Murdoch must laugh all the way to the bank as his entertainment properties shred everything that's uplifting and decent in our popular culture.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: antichristian; catholic; hollywood; liberalagenda
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1 posted on 09/07/2012 9:06:47 AM PDT by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Which nuns? The women who devout themselves to the Lord and church or the dykes who serve for “social justice”?


2 posted on 09/07/2012 9:13:59 AM PDT by Dick Vomer (democrats are like flies, whatever they don't eat they sh#t on.)
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To: Kaslin

“a macabre mash-up of nuns, Nazis, aliens, a serial killer named Bloody Face and the lead singer of Maroon 5.”

This could easily be mistaken for a portrait of actual nun life. /sarc


3 posted on 09/07/2012 9:31:44 AM PDT by Borges
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To: discostu

Hehe


4 posted on 09/07/2012 9:33:05 AM PDT by Borges
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To: Kaslin

IIRC Hollywood just loved that old real life nun played by Susan Sarandon (who ministered to Sean Penn on Death Row in that liberal movie (sorry can’t recall the name and don’t really want to).


5 posted on 09/07/2012 9:36:18 AM PDT by An American In Dairyland
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To: Dick Vomer
or the dykes who serve for “social justice”?

You mean like this alleged "Nun" that spoke last night at the DNC?


6 posted on 09/07/2012 9:36:21 AM PDT by dfwgator (I'm voting for Ryan and that other guy.)
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To: Borges

First fictional nun I always think of is The Penguin from Blues Brothers. She’s pretty scary.


7 posted on 09/07/2012 9:38:29 AM PDT by discostu (Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends.)
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To: Kaslin

Never watched the first season. Looks like I won’t be watching the next either.

Some shows are just better if you don’t watch them.


8 posted on 09/07/2012 9:39:12 AM PDT by History Repeats (Drink plenty of TEA, but avoid the Koolaid.)
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To: Kaslin
***Nuns are now a thing of horror.***

Oh but they are! When I was a child (1950) I was put in a small hospital run by Catholics. The nuns terrified me so bad for years when I saw one on the streets I would dive for the floorboards of dad's old car as I thought they might get me and take me to the hospital again. I was only 4 years old.

A few years later I decided I didn't need to be scared of them and have not been scared since.

I have noticed the upswing in horror movies using nuns as the villain.

9 posted on 09/07/2012 9:43:23 AM PDT by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: An American In Dairyland

I didn’t see ‘Dead Man Walking’ as all that liberal (apart from that wretched execution scene). It did not glorify the murderer at all and gave plenty of voice to the opposing view. It was fairly artful and even handed. Did you see it?


10 posted on 09/07/2012 9:47:44 AM PDT by Borges
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To: An American In Dairyland

“Sister” Jean Prejean


11 posted on 09/07/2012 9:48:43 AM PDT by IronJack (=)
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To: IronJack

Helen Prejean. You’re confusing her with the ‘Les Miserables’ character Jean Valjean.


12 posted on 09/07/2012 9:51:15 AM PDT by Borges
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To: Kaslin

The only nuns I remember on TV and/or movies was The Flying Nun (Sally Fields) and the nun on Airplane! and both of them seemed to be “good” nuns.


13 posted on 09/07/2012 10:00:44 AM PDT by BipolarBob (Biden: "HOPE and CHAINS for all 57 states".)
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To: discostu

I had the biggest schoolboy crush on Sally Field on “The Flying Nun.”


14 posted on 09/07/2012 10:00:48 AM PDT by dfwgator (I'm voting for Ryan and that other guy.)
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To: Kaslin

There are approx. 1500 elderly renegade “nuns” who have served the Dem Party well and this is the thanks they get! heh


15 posted on 09/07/2012 10:32:05 AM PDT by bronxville (Margaret Sanger - “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population,Â)
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To: bronxville

And I hasten to add the others are conservative doing the work of the Lord. God bless them.


16 posted on 09/07/2012 10:33:02 AM PDT by bronxville (Margaret Sanger - “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population,Â)
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To: dfwgator

Actually I thought the movie Sister Act gave a pretty fair shake to nuns.


17 posted on 09/07/2012 10:33:30 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Buckeye McFrog

Because you had liberal whackos portraying the nuns.


18 posted on 09/07/2012 10:35:28 AM PDT by dfwgator (I'm voting for Ryan and that other guy.)
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To: dfwgator

Whoopi Goldbeg played a lounge singer who was pretending to be a nun. Who were the other liberal wackos?


19 posted on 09/07/2012 10:48:06 AM PDT by Buckeye McFrog
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar
"Jessica Lange returns, this time as a terrifying nun,"

Ah! They're doing a story about my 3rd grade Nun!

20 posted on 09/07/2012 11:15:37 AM PDT by Wilum (Never loaded a nuke I didn't like)
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