HBO and others respond to Larry David 'peeing on Christ'

October 28, 5:02 PMAtheism ExaminerTrina Hoaks

Previous Next

41 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Atheism Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

Ever since I noticed and reported the growing controversy over Larry David's episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm in which David urinates (accidentally!) on a picture of Jesus, people have been picking up the story and running with it. The increased interest and controversy prompted HBO executives to release a statement about the show They said:

Anyone who follows Curb Your Enthusiasm knows that the show is full of parody and satire. Larry David makes fun of everyone, most especially himself. The humor is always playful and certainly never malicious.

On Monday, October 26, an entry was made to the Catholic League Web site by its president Bill Donahue about the episode. He said:

Was Larry David always this crude? Would he think it comedic if someone urinated on a picture of his mother? This might be fun to watch, but since HBO only likes to dump on Catholics (it was just a couple of weeks ago that Sarah Silverman insulted Catholics on “Real Time with Bill Maher”), and David is Jewish, we’ll never know.

In the same post, contact information was provided for HBO Chairman and CEO, Bill Nelson.

According to a report today on Fox News, Deal Hudson, author and publisher of InsideCatholic.com, sounded off about the episode. He said, "'I don't think it's funny. Why is it that people are allowed to publicly show that level of disrespect for Christian symbols? If the same thing was done to a symbol of any other religions -- Jewish or Muslim -- there'd be a huge outcry. It's simply not a level playing field.'" He is calling for an apology from the show's producers and writers.

The internet, in the past few hours, has become littered with people speaking out about the episode. Many people are pretty ticked off about it. Of course, as one would expect, most of those people who are upset are Christians. A couple of Jews are less than thrilled with Larry David, too. However, there are a few articles out there written by less up tight folk who have actually watched the episode and understand that the peeing on Jesus was accidental and that the context of the show itself is fictional. And, I'm just guessing here, no real pee was used and no real Jesus was harmed in the filming of the episode.