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BCCSA receives record number of complaints over Lucifer

South Africa’s Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCCSA) recently had its hands full with a record number of complaints about the television series Lucifer.

The BCCSA says it’s received 89 complaints ranging about the show, currently airing on M-Net, as it allegedly “promotes Satanism”, gives a “false picture to our youth” and “glorifies Lucifer and sells lies to the public by making Lucifer look human and caring”.

The show, which stars Tom Ellis in the titular role, follows the adventures of Lucifer after he abdicates his throne in hell and ‘relocates’ to Los Angeles in search of a more exciting life.

The short explanation of the synopsis is that Lucifer doesn’t want to be evil anymore, and instead wants to help the police in solving crimes. Later on he realises that he doesn’t want to punish the guilty, but rather defend the innocent.

The show has been adapted from the comic book series of the same name – a spin-off The Sandman comic books, written by Neil Gaiman.

Naturally, M-Net and Dstv had to answer to the allegations lodge at the BCCSA.

“The programme, in a very artistic manner, explores the possibilities of Lucifer leaving his evil ways and doing something positive. The devil is not glorified at all. The narrative in the programme is purely drama and does not in anyway dispute the contents of the Bible,” Dstv said.

After the first episode aired, M-Net decided to move the show’s time-slot from 19:00 on Wednesdays to 23:00 on Fridays, but that hasn’t stopped the complaints from streaming in.

In its judgement, the BCCSA said that Lucifer is full of “bloody drive-by shootings, heaps of sexual innuendo, gangster glorification and crude language”, but for M-Net to remove the show altogether would be too drastic.

The show has also raised the blood pressure levels of the American Family Association (AFA) website One Million Moms, as it launched an online petition to stop the show from being aired in the US.

By the time that the first episode rolled around, it had over 140 000 signatures.

Co-creator Neil Gaima’s response was typically dry.

“Ah. It seems like only yesterday (but it was 1991) that the ‘Concerned Mothers of America’ announced that they were boycotting SANDMAN because it contained Lesbian, Gay, Bi and Trans characters,” Gaiman said.  ”

It was Wanda that upset them most: the idea of a Trans Woman in a comic book… They told us they were organizing a boycott of SANDMAN, which they would only stop if we wrote to the American Family Association and promised to reform. I wonder if they noticed it didn’t work last time, either…”

One has to wonder if the ones who complained have actually watched that show…

[Via – Channel24]

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