In this ABC made-for-TV production of “The Ten Commandments” we have a new Moses, ethnically and religiously cleansed.
As played by Dougray Scott (Charlton Heston, not), Moses has been homogenized, pasteurized, sanitized and dry-cleaned so as not to offend any race, religion or creed. This Moses (as opposed to the Moses of the Bible and even the Moses of Cecil B. DeMille) is not Hebrew, and in fact he’s not anything but multi-cultural.
Along both parts of this series (new and improved over DeMille!!!) that ran Monday and Tuesday, April 10 and 11, the word “Hebrew” never came up, neither attached to him or to his people, yes, the Hebrews. The best this fat-free, low-calorie script could do was refer to Moses as a “slave” and later, as the “leader” of a “people.”
What people? That, we do not know, and that we must not know for then it will be assumed that our heritage is (dear Lord!) Judeo/Christian. To let that word get out (if you ask the film-makers and ABC) would be a sin. So if you tuned in late and missed the promo hoopla, you would not know that this is a Biblical event, but rather just another episode of “Survivor” or “LOST” or “The Amazing Race.”
Also, in this drama, Pharaoh comes off better than Moses, really. Pharaoh is a nicer guy, or just as nice, to keep the storyline on an Equal Opportunity level so that nobody or everybody gets offended, equally, in case ABC has plans to distribute this in today’s Egypt. (The gods of Al-Jazeera and the ACLU must be appeased.)
The lapses in this (Hallmark?) telling are so enormous (spirituality? zero) that this ABC God of this ABC Moses is less all-powerful than Donald Trump.
Jews (by the number Six Million and still counting in Israel itself) of course know what it means to be religiously cleansed, and so do Christians, who dare not pray or display any piety outside of church and home. Any sign of Christianity (even during holy days) in schoolyards and courtyards – well, strictly forbidden.
Who thought this day would come, when a Biblical story is consigned to the heaping Sheol of political correctness? I did, and I’ll bet you did.
Imagine, please, the story of Jesus with no mention of the Christian faith that followed? That must be next in ABC’s made-for-TV pipeline -- Christianity cleansed of Christians. But there will be no riots. Imagine, however, the story Mohammed with no mention of Islam? ABC and all the rest of the MSM would not dare!
The people who make the movies for the big screen and small screen, they know that Jews and Christians can take a joke, and even an insult. Complaints, yes, over “The Da Vinci Code” and there were even some letters to the editor when the Brooklyn Museum of Art featured Jesus in association with “dung art.”
We (Christians and Jews) don’t much appreciate being hustled, so we sign petitions, or just shrug.
But the Religion of Peace? We all saw what happened when the (false) rumor circulated about a Koran being flushed down a toilet at Gitmo. Riots everywhere. We know what happened to Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh when he stepped out to film some grim truth about Islam’s treatment of women.
Hollywood (which raised nary a voice in protest) sure took note.
Hands off, then, for Islam. Don’t mess with that crowd. The rest of us, by contrast, are open to cleansing and even ridicule. In that movie “Meet the Fockers” there’s a dog in there, and the dog’s name is Moses, and what happens to this dog? He is flushed down a toilet.
Imagine a flick with a dog named Mohammed – and then flushed down a toilet. That would never happen, and shouldn’t.
But we took it from that (horrible) movie and we’ll take again from this sorry ABC spectacle that refuses to let us know what “people” gave us the ten rules of behavior that regulate us and keep us civilized to this day. There is always next week, when DeMille’s version gets broadcast, and that’s not perfect, either (many liberties taken of Biblical truth), but here at least when Heston says “let my people go,” he means the Jewish people. (Known then as Hebrews.)
But that, remember, was filmed when Christianity and Judaism were not yet secularized and cleansed but still Gospel and kosher.
Read the Book!
