John Safran vs God

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John Safran vs God is an 8 part television documentary series by John Safran which was broadcast on the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) of Australia in 2004. It has been described in a media release as "[John Safran's] most audacious project yet". Despite being an irreverent look at world religions and theology in general, Safran managed to be both informative and entertaining, without being outright offensive. It had a much more serious tone than Safran's previous work Music Jamboree. The show was released by Ghost of Your Ex-Boyfriend Productions and SBS Independent, it was directed by Craig Melville and produced by Selin Yaman. The series won the 2005 Australian Film Institute Award for Best Comedy Series.

To his detractors, the informal format was received as being slightly condescending. On his official website, a parody site featuring an ex-girlfriend as webmistress, says about the series, "There is only one thing worse than someone shoving their religious views down your throat, and that's someone shoving their smarmy, superior views on religious beliefs down your throat".

The show's opening theme was Hate Priest, a song by the band Mozart on Crack. The opening sequence featured John in a black suit breaking out of a patch of black scorched earth with his bare hands during a thunderstorm. The words "When the thousand years are over, Satan will be released from his prison." Revelation 20:7 are spoken.


Contents

[edit] Episode guide

[edit] Episode One

The fatwa was later removed from McManus.

[edit] Episode Two

  • Safran looks at the duplicity of Australia's "Sorry" attitude to Indigenous Rights
  • Safran tries out zen Buddhism in Japan, the segment includes two incidents of Safran being beaten with a stick as punishment for mistakes made with meditation and philosophical questions
  • Safran examines the link between Satanism and Freemasonry

[edit] Episode Three

Father Bob Maquire later joined Safran in a regular segment on the radio station Triple J and the SBS series Speaking in Tongues.

[edit] Episode Four

The Voodoo segment was rather graphic, featuring the TV crew being attacked, spiritual possession, and a goat having its testicles bitten off and its throat slit.

[edit] Episode Five

[edit] Episode Six

The only politician who was found to be a so-called "vampire" was Kevin Rudd, who would later become Prime Minister.

[edit] Episode Seven

After 31 years of not qualifying, the Socceroos finally qualified for the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, beating Uruguay in what many media articles termed a stroke of luck for a team previously lacking it. The game of Football has since flourished in Australia since that day.

[edit] Episode Eight

The eighth episode was the most controversial. Instead of its usual format of various segments, the show featured a single story: the exorcism of John's demons by Christian exorcist and fundamentalist preacher, Bob Larson. There was none of the humour that had characterised the preceding episodes. The exorcism was dramatic and realistic, and no explanation was given at the end of the episode as to John's behaviour. On the Yahoo! "Cult of Safran" web group, a stormy discussion started on whether John was actually faking. Safran's lisp is absent while allegedly possessed. Safran had appeared in several radio and television plug spots for the show post-production pre-screening, and only briefly mentioned the exorcism episode as a very intense segment to film. After the screening of the episode Safran appeared in interview on ABC radio and said he didn't remember a lot of the experience. The sales pitch for the recently released DVD goes "You've seen the exorcism, now buy the DVD"

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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