Conservative Christians are fired up over the idea that Netflix has released a comedy where Jesus (you know, the guy who did the water into wine trick) is implied to be gay. When I first saw the tweet circulating I was intrigued because a gay Jesus comedy honestly sounds fun but I hadn’t heard of this film …
Netflix is releasing a comedy about a “gay Jesus” & the Left has been telling conservatives and Christians not to be so outraged about it
Ok fine, then let’s make a sequal about a gay Mohammed and see how that goes over with y’all.
— Ashley StClair 🇺🇸 (@stclairashley) December 12, 2019
Anything that makes people that mad by just existing is worth looking into. So I did. The movie is very real and there’s a Change.org petition to remove the film that has over 1.3 million signatures and counting … but you may not have heard of it because it’s from Brazil and entirely in Portuguese.
The movie isn’t really a “movie,” it’s a cheaply made comedy special by Brazilian group Porta dos Fundos (literally “the backdoor) and it’s called “The First Temptation of Christ.” It has production values a bit above a Saturday Night Live skit. It’s 45 minutes long and revolves around Jesus showing up for a surprise 30th birthday party with a new “friend” by the name of Orlando.
Orlando is a gay caricature that’s very dated, but I’m not sure what the humor is in Brazil and what their standards are for what’s offensive in regards to this topic. And the whole 45-minute special is meant to be offensive to everyone. Its main storyline is about Mary and Joseph telling Jesus that Joseph isn’t his dad and “Uncle Vittorio,” who is actually God, is. The holy family swears, Jesus gets super-stoned to deal with the stress of being a God and has a vision where he talks to other religious figures like Shiva, Buddha …as Rastafarian and an Alien (there’s a good Scientology joke there). And yes, Allah is there too, but they don’t show him.
It’s funny that Christians have chosen to be offended at the implication that Jesus comes home with a boyfriend—who he really doesn’t want his family to meet—because there are a lot of things to be offended by in this special aside from that. And there are even things that are offensive to gay people because the big twist is that Jesus’s boyfriend Orlando is … actually Lucifer. Ooof.
The special isn’t particularly funny – at least it wasn’t to me, though I’m sure some of the humor was lost in translation. It’s the kind of “offend everyone by making fun of things people hold sacred” humor that got old on South Park a decade ago. But again, maybe in Brazil this is cutting edge. It’s both homophobic, a bit racist and offensive to all religions and it’s just … tired.
But yes, there is indeed a “gay Jesus movie” on Netflix that you too can watch anytime you want. But I’d recommend a rewatch of Jesus Christ Superstar instead. And oh boy, are these same people gonna be mad when they find out what the forthcoming Netflix series Messiah is about.
(image: Netflix Brazil)
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