Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) spits on a life-size crucifix
Posted on 03/07/2015 12:25:07 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
Frank Underwood is a pretty loathsome man, but that’s par for the course when you’re a screen villain.
Underwood is the always-scheming, almost comically insincere Democratic congressman from South Carolina who is the main character in the Netflix series House of Cards. He is played with admirable skill and gusto by Kevin Spacey. I’m only about 10 episodes into season one, but today I skipped ahead to the just-posted third season. That’s because the ending of one new chapter in particular — number 30, or the fourth episode in the new batch – is causing much wrath and condemnation among Christians:
“How Hollywood Spits on Christianity,” blares Robert Davi on Breitbart.com.
“Shame on Netflix: House of Cards Spits In the Face of Jesus,” harrumphs Tim Graham at Newsbusters.
Graham describes what upsets him so: Frank Underwood visits an empty church, has a brief theological discussion with a bishop who says there are really only two rules in life (love God and love your neighbor), and finally asks for time alone to pray at the altar. So far, so pious. But then — oh, the humanity!
[Underwood] sidles up to the crucifix – just a few feet above his head – and mutters most cynically to God the Son. “Love…. that’s what you’re selling? Well, I don’t buy it!” Then he spits in the face of Christ.
When he gets out a handkerchief to wipe off his offense, the whole thing shatters on the floor. He instructs the Secret Service to clean up his mess, and walks off with a ceramic ear. “Well, I’ve got God’s ear now,” he quips.
Frank Underwood (Kevin Spacey) spits on a life-size crucifix
That’s almost correct. What Graham doesn’t mention is that, right when Underwood reaches out with his hanky, there’s an inexplicable shudder or rumble that goes through the crucifix. It’s as if Jesus tears himself off the cross and self-destructs, rather than undergo the indignity of letting the vile Underwood touch him and wipe away the evidence of the latter’s blasphemy.
In other words, something supernatural (perhaps even miraculous and divine) happens in that scene. How very odd that Graham, who ought to be delighted with the scriptwriters’ nod to the Almighty’s power, neglects to bring it up.
It’s less odd, I suppose, if all Graham seeks to do is promote the red-meat narrative that Hollywood secularists love spitting in God’s face.
But even apart from the metaphysical surprise of Jesus, untouched by human hands, falling off the cross… isn’t it a given that scoundrels and miscreants like the fictional Underwood do ignoble things? I never knew that meant that writers, actors, and producers endorse actual wickedness (or even perceived wickedness such as spitting on an inanimate object).
When Charles Dickens created Fagin, was he giving two thumbs up to petty street crime? When Alfred Hitchcock directed Psycho, was he advocating the slashing of motel guests? When AMC broadcast the adventures of Walter White in Breaking Bad, was the creative team going to bat for for meth-cookers and murderers?
You have to wonder if the protesters understand how fiction works.
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P.S.: Breitbart’s Robert Davi provides more evidence for two things: How well some pontificating Christians know the Bible, and what Jesus-loving hardliners mean with that whole “Love thy neighbor” credo.
Angry about the Spacey scene, Davi writes:
Perhaps it’s time for Christians to start a crusade [against blasphemy]. Heck, President Obama brought them up – incorrectly, I might add. Well, doesn’t the Bible say fight fire with fire?
Um, no, actually, it doesn’t.
As a matter of fact let them start The Knights of the Judeo-Christian Values so that there is accountability for the blaspheme against Christ and the Ten Commandments. An ISIS of Christian fundamentalists who refuse to let the name, image, morality and Christian faith and holidays be attacked.
Oh, hello there, true colors!
You did not really mean to compare that pile of crap to Shakespeare did you?
“Why read MacBeth?”
Because Shakespeare’s play foretells the ruin of the evil doer - and it happens.
“Black Sails on Starz had to have a homo angle—and this show is about 1700s pirates!”
Well, actually:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0814712363/thebookofzines
Since Christians will not fight this type of behavior is what they get. We need a St. Bernard of Clairvaux and we have the attitude of a St. Francis of Assisi. Sometimes men must fight for what they hold dear.
I think a similar fate awaits Frank and his wife. The most poetic ending would have them turning on each other.
-— You did not really mean to compare that pile of crap to Shakespeare did you? -—
Absolutely. The writing is excellent, and it’s the best portrayal of evil that I can think of since Dostoevsky or Shakespeare.
I watched the first two seasons. I thought it jumped the shark when he murdered someone himself. But at least it’s not another Democrats=good/Republicans=bad show. They’re all corrupt and venal, just like real life, but the main villain is a Democrat.
Why does anyone even watch this drivel anyhow?
Get rid of cable.
“I think a similar fate awaits Frank and his wife. The most poetic ending would have them turning on each other.”
Probably, but I think it is still different. We know Macbeth is doomed. He is not an anti-hero so much as a classically deluded weak man who destroys himself by doing something he knows is wrong. I think many modern works have us instead cheer for the anti-hero and get us to hope or almost hope they get away with it. That’s what I thought with the original. We wanted him to get away with it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Cards_(UK_TV_series)
Ian Richardson insisted his character had to be destroyed in the final series so that evil would not win. (But in a way it does because he is assassinated - as arranged by his wife - to protect his reputation and their retirement fund).
Standards for excellence are not what they once were.
“The writing is excellent, and it’s the best portrayal of evil that I can think of since Dostoevsky or Shakespeare.”
Maybe, but try Chigurh from McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men or even - for sheer brilliance in describing the mind of a hellbent psycho after power - the Broken Empire Trilogy, starting with Prince of Thorns, by Mark Lawrence. It’s just a fantasy novel, but the writing about the main character’s inner mind are fascinating and shocking.
Democrat Senator spitting in the face of God?
So House of Cards is nonfiction?
If you don’t watch the show - SPOILER ALERT - they do indeed turn on each other at the end of season 3. Season 4 will be all about the war between the Underwoods.
Final scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Goqw0fDMbUg
“You can bet that faggot Spacey enjoyed doing that.”
Repeating popular rumors makes it fact, for you?
Understand your point, but it’s not a cable show, it’s a Netflix elusive show.
Waiting for some TV character to spit on a Koran... still waiting.
Underwood was directly responsible for the murders of two individuals and abetted the murder of a third, yet it’s spitting on the Christ on the cross statue that crosses the line?
I’d be surprised if there are ‘any’ shows nowadays not written by gays. Everything has that kind of self-consciously bitchy/sarcastic/detached-irony tone to it, in terms of dialogue and performances. I find it all rather insufferable, in both its immaturity and unmanliness. And it’s one of the reasons I vastly prefer vintage fare.
This is an atheist site trolling for hits.
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