Jerry Springer - where high culture meets trailer trash

I watched the "Jerry Springer" musical. I confess that I watched only the first act. But this was not because of being offended by the show, but because I was tired and had other things to do. I watched, like many others, because of the publicity handed to the show by the protesters. 'What will this insult to God and human decency actually be like?' I wondered.

Well, musically it was as good as a musical show usually is.  Lively songs, professionally slick dancing. Bright, diverse and attractive costumes.  You couldn't hear the swear words if you'd wanted to count them, any more than most people can make out the words at an opera, or even join in an unknown hymn on Songs of Praise in the days before sub-titles.

Where did the offence I felt stem from?  This is the key question.  It isn't new to mock God, deride good taste, and deceive ourselves that what is smutty and insulting to human kind can be dressed up to gain notoriety and income from the titillation of an audience.  It's known to be thrilling to be naughty-naughty and if you can also persuade the audience that it's sophisticated, you may be on to a winner.  As was said, that show has been packing the Cambridge Theatre for months and delighting audiences.

As I see it, as I saw it on stage last night, and as I listened to protestations that this was "high art" - "where high culture meets trailer trash", all the protests, prayers, and vigils around blasphemy and offence to religious people are going to bounce off anyone who already believes that smut is more sophisticated and therefore more adult (than exactly what?). If God is meaningless our protests don't hit home because we are speaking a different language to that of the producers and audience of the show.

We have to dig deeper.  We need to become wiser serpents than we are, while remaining innocent doves. "Innocence" itself is a word derided - but that is not just today -  innocence has long been frowned upon.  Innocence however does not mean ignorance.  It holds within itself a sense of the use and
purpose of knowledge. "Wisdom" also is a word not much used. "Sophistication", when substituted, is a great step towards self-deception, which then leads to the turning on their head of such virtues as love and respect.  Love and respect are not only Christian virtues, not only "religious" virtues.

The offensiveness of the show is seen at its most universal when we acknowledge the self-deception that thinks we can excuse ourselves for devaluing particular forms of human life.  Religions teach the intrinsic value of life and of persons.  Recent thinkers, such as (for example) Peter Singer, have devised neat arguments by which they attempt to show that some human life - or human life is certaincircumstances - is of little or no value. How convenient this is, since it provides the self-styled "wise" with an excuse to demonstrate the stupidity of the "foolish": the so-called "trailer trash", people who are taken in by the tabloid press and lap up sordid TV shows, people who have neuroses and infantile fantasies, people who are sexually different, and so on. And, moreover, to do it by means of a stage show which makes a lot of money.

The offense lies in the insult to those who are most vulnerable.  This in-the-know derision of the foibles of those who can‚t answer back is like a celebration of primary school "behind the bike sheds" gossip.  We know that this is amusement of the lowest order.  Everyone, whatever choice they make about what they cannot or do not choose to see, should be aware of the value of human beings.   Or we are  in danger of considering them disposable (as
perhaps we are).  It is strange that the tourists and citizens of South-east Asia, victims of the recent tsunami, are so clearly human in the public mind, yet "trailer trash" as the butt of "Jerry Springer" humour are not. It seems that it is acceptable to laugh at the inarticulate, the homosexual, the transsexual, because that is who you are not, and laughing at them makes you feel clever.  It's such a relief to be normal, or at least that your foibles are hidden, respectable, not too far out.

We cannot realistically expect entertainment to express respect for God, since belief in him is limited to the few. Anyway, God can look after himself. He doesn't need our defence. But we can and should expect from everybody, including entertainers, respect for other people, especially the weak and vulnerable. This is a vital part of love for one's neighbour.

My feeling on viewing both the show and the protesters was that the protesters were right to protest, but their protests were wrongly directed. The message of Christ focuses on the love of our neighbour, and yet the protesters protested only at offences against God.  The reality and dignity of God - we have to face this fact - can and is dismissed by those who don‚t believe. But where was the protest - the one which might have carried some weight - at the exploitation of human beings?

Clare Weiner