One of the truisms of Hollywood is that it will always try to repeat the successes of the past, so when there is one hit show about, for instance, six friends sitting around in a coffee shop talking about their sex lives, it’s guaranteed that executives will commission a dozen more. But with a twist! For instance, this one takes place in a bar.
Even worse than straight repetition, however, is when executives take two things that have proven successful in the past and jam them together in unholy union, Frankenstein-style. That is exactly what is going on with The Passion, Fox’s live musical about the death of Jesus hosted by Tyler Perry. Yes, that last sentence is not some sort of TV programming Mad Libs, it is an actual program that will be on your HD screen live on Palm Sunday, which falls on 20 March in 2016.
Live musicals have been huge since NBC introduced the much-derided, but widely watched, Sound of Music Live!, which attracted nearly 22 million viewers in 2013. The Wiz Live!, which just aired earlier this month, scored 11 million viewers – still considered a giant audience though only half that of its predecessor.
Religious programming has also been a huge boon for broadcasters. The very Christian production of Dolly Parton’s A Coat of Many Colors brought 13 million God-fearing viewers to NBC last week. That’s about the same number that tuned in for The Bible miniseries on History Channel in 2013, which was a big shock to just about everyone. And speaking of The Passion, Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ is still the country’s highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time, with $370m in ticket sales.
You can just see someone tapping his or her fingers together and thinking, “What if we did a live musical about Jesus? That thing would be huge!” No one stopped to think that maybe a musical about the death of Jesus broadcast live from New Orleans, which culminates with a 20ft illuminated crucifix being paraded through the streets, would be a good idea. Creatively, it hardly seems to be. There are so many ways this could go wrong and/or verge into unmitigated camp that it’s absolutely unbelievable.
To be fair, the live crucifixion musical is a format that has existed in The Netherlands since 2011, but their population is only about 40% Christian and more than 40% non-affiliated. Things are very different in the US, which is 70% Christian and of an evangelist strain seen in few other places in the world. I have a distinct feeling that this production won’t be as worried about creating an artistic examination about religion as it will be about letting America’s church-going masses congregate around a craven spectacle that will get as many eyes as possible on ads for Walmart.
Because, lest we forget, what it all comes down to is commerce. Fox is trying to attract as many people as possible so that it can make as much money as possible. It’s one thing to exploit people’s desire to hate-watch a beloved musical like they did for The Sound of Music, but surely even more cynical to exploit people’s religious feelings into an entertainment trifle. There’s no mistaking that the show is going to be absolutely huge and will take social media by storm. But by making it, isn’t Fox, for all its show of piety, behaving more like the moneylenders in the temple?
