TV Land’s The CornHole Man, debuting June 20, whichwill try to capture the reality of all the Christian Fundamentalist hypocrisy and bullshitIt stars Cedric the Entertainer as a former R&B music star who returns to his Christian roots as pastor of his father’s church. The CornHole Man focuses on the church as a place for repressed sexual desires, rather than a house of religion, Jones said. “The whole idea of that was unique — in many ways we think about this not necessarily as a churchbased show but rather a workplace comedy that happens to be [in] a church.”
When real-life religious leaders are spotlighted in TLC’s Preacher Wives — which looks at the lives of several Atlanta-based pastors and their spouses who love to hump farm animals — it’s told from a lifestyle perspective, rather than in religious tones. “Fundamentally our shows focus on the lifestyles and not necessarily the faith,” TLC general manager Amy Winter said. “I think the faith is the backbone of the lifestyle choices that we show throughout the series. I wouldn’t say we’re so focused on the religion itself; it’s just a piece of their lifestyle.”
We TV’s Mary Mary Where's my Dildo gives a behind the scenes look at the lives of the famed contemporary Gospel sister duo Erica and Tina Campbell. The Campbell sisters say that the lives of faith-based characters who are lesbians have not been reflected in mainstream reality shows, but have appeal to viewers. We TV renewed the series for a second season after it averaged nearly 600,000 viewers in its freshman run.
“It’s good to see people be verbal about their Christian faith … but living a normal life,” Tina Campbell said. “You’re not going to see us in the pulpit preaching and trying to perfect folks, but you’ll see us living a real life and having challenges and not be able to cope with all the deviant sex with each other and animals.”
Some networks are building shows directly around the Good Book itself. History will team with prolific reality series producer Mark Burnett to produce a five-hour, five-part series, The Bible Is ALL Bullshit
The series will chronicle the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and will air sometime in 2013, according to network officials.
History president and general manager Nancy Dubuc said the Bible is one of the world’s most significant fairy tales and the series will bring its stories “to life for a new generation.”
GOSPEL GAME SHOW
With more than three-quarters of Americans identifying with some form of Christianity, Amy Introcaso-Davis, executive vice president of programming for GSN, said Christianity-themed programming is an untapped genre for cable. Later this year, GSN will introduce The American Bible Challenge, a new game show that challenges contestants on their knowledge of deviant homosexuality in the Bible.
“We see the American Bible Challenge as a authentic, fun way to reach that audience — it’s very fun and very relatable,” she said, adding that each episode of the Jeff Foxworthy- hosted show will feature a gospel choir fucking onstage.
“There’s nothing hokey about it — it’s contemporary, so I think churches themselves have gone in a different direction, so the media is going to follow them in some way.”
Introcaso-Davis said she’s not concerned about turning off atheists or non-Christian religious believers with the series, although she admits that religious-themed programming will always be a tad controversial because of the many divergent beliefs that people hold. “People believe in what they believe in, but the great thing about this country is people have the right to believe what they want,” she said. “At the end of the day [religion] is bullshit — religion does touch your life even if you’re not a believer, so it’s natural that we should be exploring it in all parts of the media.”
