h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ormy, when Life of Bryan was first released we were living in Tyler, Texas, which is a medium-sized town in East Texas about an hour east of Dallas - if you drive like I do . Very much a Bible Belt location.

LoB opened on a Friday at the local theater. F was away on business, so we didn't get to the theater until Saturday. There were only a handful of people in the audience on a Saturday night! Anyway, at he close of the movie, when they started the credits, a man with a microphone got up on the stage and began to berate the few of us who were there about being in league with the devil and started praying for us all and for everyone who worked on the film. I was astonished that the theater would permit it. F and I got up to leave in the middle of the prayer and the man screamed at us and pointed his finger and screamed "Satan! Satan!"

I threw one hell of a stink over it to the theater manager. Poor old F was pulling my arm trying to get me out of the theater. Anyway, they pulled the movie entirely the next day. I always intended to write the Pythons and tell them about it, but never did. It turns out that the churches had been telling their congregations not to go to it. Which explains the poor turnout.

F, pragmatist that he was, told me to forget it - that I got to see the film, enjoyed myself, and that was that.

We had a different but equally disturbing experience when "The Last Temptation of Christ" came out. We were in San Antonio by then. That time we had to pass through a check point to get into the theater. My purse was searched and we were patted down for weapons! There was a hugh demonstration outside with signs and chanting fundamentalists passing out leaflets. But this time the theater was full, at least. And we weren't reviled and prayed over inside the theater.

Well, with two days of screenings, Tyler did better than several British towns where the local authorities banned 'Brian' - and better than Norway, where it couldn't be seen anywhere in the country. Perhaps the Norwegians were still upset with the Pythons because of that dead Norwegian Blue parrot?

It should be an interesting discussion on Thursday. My Popular Culture lecturer and fellow Python fan is a liberal Muslim: he mentioned that he'd looked at *those* cartoons of Mohammed and simply thought they weren't very good, a view with which I entirely agree. After last week's lecture he and I got into a fairly vigorous discussion about 'Life of Brian' with a Christian student who admitted that he hadn't watched anything more that a couple of clips from the film, but still just *knew* that he'd find it offensive. Though, in fairness, I stayed away from Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of the Christ' on similar grounds.

'Brian', right. I'm so used to spelling the name with a y.

I haven't seen the Mel Gibson movie, either. And don't intend to see it. But I can't imagine protesting the movie at a theater or trying to keep someone else from watching it.

What few Muslims we have in WC keep a very low profile. The US may be a melting pot, but this part of the country certainly isn't. We're pretty homogenized.