Ramble: Beauty and the Beaster

my pitch is if they go back to plays they do transformers. its a technical nightmare that only pays off for 5 total minutes but i think they'd really try. lots of costumes made from painted cereal boxes

rusty

Church of the Rock did NOT do an easter play this year but last year they did Murder on the Jerusalem Express for some reason? The most recent remake was 2017 so I have to guess they were running low on genres or maybe no one with authority in the church has seen a movie in the past 8 years

rusty

“They could’ve done Little Mermaid if they wanted to be topical”……choir director/Mrs Potts lady as URSULA…

Callum Moore

A church using a song from rocky horror in a church Easter play is SO FUNNY it makes me think there’s a gay person mischievously recommending songs they know the church would disapprove of if they saw the original material

SunzyFrog

The pastor saying the temptress is the villain in beauty and the beast is such a strange take. I feel like in the story if you were to look at it from a bible perspective, the temptress would be god. And be like punishing the beast for his sins so he learns? Idk maybe that’s just me. I just thought it was interesting.

SunzyFrog

Ignore the haters for glasses Jenny. Your frames are always on point.

Robert Romero Jr

It just goes to show how out of touch churches can be when they think they’re entitled to use a song from the very queer Rocky Horror Picture Show in their crucifixion musical.

Quinton Walker

Oh my god, is apple peeling on the canadian kindergarden curriculum? You've unlocked a vague, long forgotten memory in me... We went to orchards, apple peeling is totally plausible 🤔

Scrum Diddely Umptious

I'm canadian and the first thing I thought with the macintosh joke is that no one likes that variety of apple. I think the last time I had one was in kindergarten when we manually peeled them with spiral peelers. I have a fond memory of the peelers but thought the apples were disgusting

w5w

If they were gonna do something topical imagine: Barbie but instead of Barbieland being feminist and the real world being misogynistic, Bibleland is good and righteous and the real world is secular and sinful

frecklifox

Oof, the shade to Rocky Horror stung a bit...

Katelyn Barrow

I cannot tell you how healing it is to watch someone who didn’t grow up in evangelicalism watch a mega church sermon and try to understand it

Mara S

This comment is the craziest thing to read with no context having not clicked on the video yet

Zoë Collis

The extremely awkward banter between Cogsworth and Lumiér while Belle is being crucified, followed by Ms. Potts entering and singing freebird is one of the most iconic church play moments of all time.

Ivy Clark

"This song is like a decade old at this point" To be fair, Red (Taylor's Version) had just come out in October 2022 so We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together (Taylor's Version) was very relevant lol

Siobhan is On

I for one am looking forward to them doing les miserables

Sandra Bergholm

i audibly laughed and had to pause the video at "its not delicious" edit: oh my god the sermon analysis is so lovely to watch. im dying laughing and healing catharticly. if your entire internet presence was just this i would inevitably obsessively memorize every word of your catalog.

The way i audibly said "no!" When they were setting Gaston up to sing Butter

stupid anda very late comment but whatever: my sister has autism, she loves disney movies and watches them all the time. and she had a problem that she would assume that ugly characters are evil and handsome characters are good. when she was 10 our mom had a long convo with her about notre-dame de paris bcs of that. she is 12 now and every time she calls me a large part of our convo is her just checking one more time that she understands who are the villians of disney movies, Gaston and the Beast are very often mentioned in these calls! so, i am not saying the pastor has an undiagnosed autism, but i am saying that his story is believable to me haha

Phoenix Wright

At some point, they will do Hamilton and it’ll be awful.

gentlecurveofeggs

If you imagine that they reversed engineered the play's logic using the sermon, the play starts to make a lot more sense.

This is so beautiful. Thank you for your work

Logan

I don't know if anyone else has noticed this (probably but I can't sort through all these comments) but Cogsworth's hat is definitely a re-used costume piece from Back From The Future

Winona Honey

I recommend David Kushner's "Daylight" for Jake Sully's song. I would place it right after the Home Tree burns down. For your delectation, I've come up with the lyrics for such a parody. Probably still needs work. I started out in earnest, then leaned into the cheese. Now I wish I had gone more cheese. Told myself I wouldn’t come here Oh, but I know the price of fear Tryna wash away all the blood I've spilt Such trust is a burden and it’s unfair I’m a sinner tryin’ to atone with a true prayer Soul’s dyed, pained, and tried with my pride and guilt There’s darkness in the distance From the way that I’ve been livin' And it’s the time to resist it Oh, I love this faith, it guides me through the tough times You and I protect Na’vi against the hate crimes Oh, I love this faith, it guides me through the tough times Draggin’ all my sins to the daylight To the daylight, runnin' to the daylight To the daylight, runnin' to the daylight Oh, I love this faith, it guides me through the tough times I will redeem all of mankind Can you spare any mercy that you might find If I'm down on my knees again? Tree down, burned down, Lord, I tried Tried to bring your light, but it won’t shine Please, lead me to a holy end There's darkness in the distance I'm beggin' for forgiveness (ooh) This time I won’t resist it, oh Oh, I love this faith, it guides me through the tough times You and I protect Na’vi against the hate crimes Oh, I love this faith, it guides me through the tough times Draggin’ all my sins to the daylight To the daylight, runnin' to the daylight To the daylight, runnin' to the daylight Oh, I love this faith, it guides me through the tough times Oh, I love this faith, it guides me through the tough times You and I protect Na’vi against the hate crimes Oh, I love this faith, it guides me through the tough times Draggin’ all my sins to the daylight To the daylight, runnin' to the daylight To the daylight, runnin' to the daylight Oh, I love this faith, it guides me through the tough times

Abba Slurm

I wonder if Jenny will ever cover the illegal Hamilton that a Texas church got in trouble for doing it and live streaming to boot

David Arroyo

I looked down for a second and looked back up and Belle was being crucified while a teapot was singing free bird

Mimi

the fact that this pastor has consistent access to hundreds of impressionable minds makes my stomach turn but also if i met him at like a party or something i think it'd be so fun to get him ranting

Julia takla

For anyone looking for a copy to watch, it is available on the Internet Archive.

Nah the way my heart stopped and the amount of fear I felt in the buildup dialogue to Gaston singing butter will never be matched.

church of the rock is a charismatic church that believes that the holy spirit is in the church and you can be healed by the pastor through the holy spirit, so part of the appeal is the pastor himself because he does the healing. the website says that they believe in the idea of "supernatural gifts," which is so crazy lol. i wouldn't be surprised if this pastor tells his congregation that he's been anointed by god and has christ-like abilities (which is what the supernatural gifts thing implies and it's something that every pastor like this does) and that they have to come to *him* to experience true salvation and gain access to the lavish lifestyle that charismatics believe god promised everyone. this theology and style of preaching has exploded over the past few decades because it glosses over traditional christian ideas of mortal inadequacy and tells us that we will be given whatever we want if we just ask for it and have faith. it really is nothing like actual church or theology at all because it's not challenging in any way, and it only serves to boost the net worth of clergy and make poor/sick laypeople feel bad about themselves and their "lack of faith." and the big thing of like... charismatic pastors turning themselves into god by telling people that sickness and death can't touch them because they have so much faith, but that is deep christian discourse lol

sawyer tsaregorodtseva

Okay so Jake Sully's opening song has to be "Welcome to the Jungle"

I'm having a really strong desire to do some quick cardboard backgrounds around my room, really just to have some sort of brains in a jar style lighting, to spook things up. Not why I'm commenting, I love all the a clockwork orange commentary, any other channel would be edgy about it when in reality I think, I probably shouldn't have had access to a lot of these movies when I was a child, but it's a great movie. Id say the excorsist was the worse. I still can't lay flat on my back in a house alone without feeling it shake and getting a little freaked out. And I'm 38! I'm a big man jenny, haha dear God I've been bingeing this and I say this a lot after the trigger warning vid! If you want to find a root of that in a Johnstone type, read any WW2 Pacific theatre literature and you will see a height difference being conflated to dizzying heights. Oh and while I remember the carny singing baby mine was regine from arcade fire, every arcade fire album has one excellent song and its the one she sings. I.e.sprawl II or electric blue. Ok time to ruminate on some more A+ content

J B

I may have commented this months ago lol, but I was part of the live chat on the Church of the Rock website and it was so much fun, I hope we do it every year

Olivia Smith

There is a book called Beauty and the Beast tales from around the World by Heidi Anne Heiner that compiles fairy tales that are similar to Beauty and the Beast( if anyone is interested). In folkloristics they are classified as animal bridegroom tales, which East of the Sun, West of the Moon is one. Cupid and Psyche is considered to be an inspiration for Beauty and the Beast, but Jenny is correct in saying that Cupid and Psyche is not the archetypal Beauty and the Beast story.

Regarding the Time Warp... There might be a regional Canadian reason for this. A long-standing tradition in Manitoba are wedding socials, aka pre-Wedding fundraising parties, that were huge for decades, and along the way the song selection the DJs would play for these became very formulaic, and the Time Warp was one of the go-to standards you would hear. For a lot of these Manitobans, even if they never seen the movie, they'd heard and danced to the song on its own so often they're more than familiar with it to not really think too hard where the song is originally from.

King Cabernet

As someone who has planned bad church plays. Its not really made based on whats trendy or happening. Its just whatever someone thinks of or what people think of and any alignment is coincidence or just cause its in the zeitgeist.

Eric

Is this a megachurch? Seems fairly like it would be midsize? I wonder if trying to theme around Beauty and the Beast threw him off cause I don't know how he keeps his job if this is how he sounds every week.

Eric

I'm honestly shocked the Beast wasn't the Christ figure considering how well his transformation would work into it, but yeah it was pretty cool to see a female Christ figure for the first time. Pretty disappointing Easter play this time around though I gotta say, though I kinda love the Cosworth costume honestly. Also Mrs. Potts was amazing.

I got a news alert on my phone about “why millions of Americans are abandoning church” as I was watching this lol

Mike R

The sermon really is what church is like though, the pastor rambles about things that are barely connected and then he says "Jesus loves you, bye guys" and we all get up and run away. There's usually singing thrown in somewhere there as well.

That Ranting Girl

I imagine Mario crucified on a piranha plant, with the giant head above him 😂

tagliatelle grande (sam)

why did it take me a full month to get what the pun in Beaster was

keri

"Ooh, how would they crucify Mario?" would be a great out-of-context quote to send someone who had no idea what this was about to get them to watch this.

Ben Detrixhe

My favorite part is when Dancing in the Streets plays and Jenny starts rocking out 😂

Keith Hasperg

So delighted at Jenny literally booing a sermon. No tolerance for poor literary analysis, even from the pulpit.

MJ Crom

hahaha no i don’t think so actually!

apelsindipp

So was it not the pastor?! 😭

Jason Perez

better than that, he gets hit by a shell and falls upside down onto an upside down cross, plot twist, mario is the ANTICHRIST

Penguin Gabe

howl’s moving castle…

moomoomilliemoo

i don’t know if anyone spotted it, but i am very sure that lumiere is played by the guy who did the racist coffin-shopkeeper in the cowboy themed one😭

apelsindipp

BELLE WILL ME BY WIFE

octopus for good

When Jenny mentioned Mario as the the theme for next year my wife turns to me and said “oh my god! Peaches… is Jesus! Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus I LOOOOVE YOUUUU!” And I need this to happen

Andrew Hill

jenny's spiel about the references needing to be topical and new made me think of how any show that references Game of Thrones feels instantly dated despite how ubiquitous and recent they were

Mau

okay if they did Mario too, the crucifixion should be the little sad dying jump he does from a turtle shell and when he lands hes on “the cross”

Aimee W

jake needs to do “i didn’t just come here to dance” to keep up with carly rae

Aimee W

“who else thought gaston was the good guy???” *crickets*

Aimee W

IM SO HAPPY YOU WATCHED THE SERMON AT THE END

Aimee W

Are they homophobic? If so I’m not having much fun anymore.

Aramis Calcutt

I love Human Again! I was in the orchestra for a BatB production and it was easily the most fun song to play out of the line-up.

Carlos

people in general hate macintosh apples for some reason. #softapplesuperiority

Lily

57:20 Jenny, you just described American politics, especially conservative politics.

Matt Penn

Seriously, why have they never done the Matrix? You can't get a better Jesus allegory movie than that.

Matt Penn

I was *out loud* shouting “NO… NO!!!!” when I could tell they were gearing up for Butter. And let me just say, it was… easily ten times worse than I imagined

I'm Canadian and I didn't know that we HAD a national apple.

Markus D

I'm way more shocked that your conservative christian mother would show you RHPS. That seems like she's the exception, because in my experience, conservative christians aren't super into LGBT+ people and being open about sexuality.

Markus D

Very “whatever” detail but I think the McIntosh apple joke is a reference to how a) it’s the national apple of Canada and b) a lot of people seem to prefer baking with or juicing McIntosh apples over eating them normally.

northco

I find it funny that people here seem to think that the use of the Time Warp would be super controversial to the church, because literally the only reason I have ever seen RHPS is because my conservative Christian mother insisted I had to see it. Unless this church is particularly evangelical I doubt most people cared, and am willing to bet that a decent number of people were delighted by it's inclusion. And given this church's uh... everything, they don't seem particularly evangelical (either that or they are very very bad at being evangelicals). Also wondering if they changed the pelvic thrust line in part because that dance move paired with Mrs.Pott's costume could be considered a bit uh, much. Though they've generally been inconsistent about what they think is too "inappropriate" for a church play so who knows.

Mickey

Oh my gosh, I knew I'd live to the see the Defunctland Starcruiser video!

The Peaches song from the Mario movie will entice them. Change the word peaches to Jesus. Gold.

Courtney Sheffield

I just saw that the star cruiser hotel is being shut down and I came to this Patreon for literally no reason other than to feel vaguely excited for the upcoming star cruiser video lol

run_away

jenny i appreciate you so much for using the word simplistic appropriately

You should definitely put this on youtube

Kara Kaspar

I wish Howard Ashman was alive to see this

Amy Shine

Im not going to read all the comments. Maybe someone beat me to the punch. But they should have included Maurice and then shoe horned in "the joker" by the Steve Miller Band in the scene where they comitt him to the mental hospital. I know they did that song in a different play, but I DONT CARE.

Amy Shine

Off topic for this video, but re: Evermore park. Tools and Toys, a recommendation site just mentioned Evermore Park as inspiration to search for gifts related to it. They found a nifty "NC Steampunk Feather Quill Pen and Ink gift set" (on Amazon) on their May 15th post. I thought it interesting they found the park "awesome" (in italics).

Dundough Breadbox

Absolutely love this. I'm super late, but I don't think our LeFou is British- I think he's Nigerian.

Iris

I’m near certain that Free Bird was chosen just to allow belle time to change dresses. “Belle can’t get this dress on in the time it takes you to sing Easy On Me, do you know any really long songs?

They honestly could be shipping people in. A friend of mine is hired by churches to sing professionally pretty often

Lex Oberwetter

I like your glasses

Travis Jackson

Jake sully can sing "I'm blue da bo dee da bo dy"

Taylor Calloway

When Mario is crucified he could have a crown of pirana plants haha.

They could crucify Mario on a giant lit up super star that either goes dark as he's hung up or lights up when it all goes dark. You can have Mario hung up on a giant lit up star while the post crucifixion lament happens. Or they could do the have the cloud guy from Mario kart hold him up so they can use the cable system they used for iron man.

Totesnotasheep

I was still a kid when I noticed that this serpent segment of the story sounded a lot like the Tribal Fables we learned about in school that explained "how the cheetah got its spots" or something. God's dialogue with and punishment of the snake definitely doesn't vibe with the idea that this is a fallen Angel or demonic entity of some sort, God literally just doesn't like a tricky snake. haha.

Ello Asty

I died at, “it’s kind of his grift”. Love how you break these things down.

Samantha Ansley

Speaking of bad media literacy: I'm always annoyed that Christians assume that the snake in the Garden of Eden is Satan but there's LITERALLY NO EVIDENCE OF THAT. That story is partially a "just so" story for why snakes have no limbs and women hate them (allegedly). The Jewish stories don't even have "Satan" as the Christians think of the character. There is a Satan but its just a being who challenges people and essentially represents things that might turn a person away from worshipping Yahweh, he's not an evil arch enemy.

Markus D

Man, Jenny, you are so much more of a man than me for sitting through the post-musical nonsense. I kept breaking off the work I was doing to scream at the pastor, and I didn't realize I was even paying attention.

Rish Outfield

i would love to see Jenny watch Jehovah's Witness original films. A dissection of them would heal my whole childhood lmao

Desiree DiBerardino

Came for the Church of the Rock reactions, stayed for the well thought out and completely dead center take down of the Mega Church pageantry format

Scott Carter

Mario would be crucified on the flagpole obviously

Tama Hero

My assumption is that they did The Time Warp because the events thus far scarcely match Rocky Horror. Belle is running from a storm and goes into a creepy castle, meets a man/creature(Beast in this instance, alien in Rocky Horror) and his cast of strange acquaintances.

O

"This is one of the most nonsensical crucifixions we've had" is not a sentence I thought I'd ever hear but here we are

Frostfalls

My only pitch for the potential Mario christ analogy is to have him head into a casino run by Bowser that's obstructing his means of heading from the human world into the Mushroom Kingdom and flipping tables; shiny dinging coins bouncing and sounding throughout the room.

Alexander Burbridge

I’m shocked they haven’t done harry potter bc it’s a millennial thing and harry does have a die and come back story! And it’s not topical at all so that fits.

Spencer Hastings

When I saw this I fully thought that Gaston would be the protag, the play opens on him and the symbolism of slaying a "demonic beast" is pretty obvious lol. Also Belle with the comically large holy bible is going to be my halloween costume

boobookeys

I feel like Church of the Rock are very much not clearing the rights for these things.

Isaac Lawton

My theory for why they did Beauty & the Beast is that there must have been easy access to the rights this year. The Christian high school I graduated from also did it and it seems like too much of a coincidence

Janna Jackson Gorog

Definitely not Avengers level, seems more rushed? Maybe they had another idea and it got pulled last second

Jenna Stoddard

People don’t go to church every week because they feel they have to. they do so because it is a place where they feel they belong to something bigger than themselves, their friends are also going and maybe they will make new friends. Maybe they will bond with someone over how they didn’t like the sermon this week. And they get to do fun things like put on an easter play. I’m an atheist but when you look at religious institutions in terms of being a third space it is a no brainer people go.

Spencer Hastings

This is the first time I've heard the song butter, and I honestly cant imagine a better version. #breakintomyhut

I nearly screamed at the BTS cover.

Neither a captain nor a stingray

There was a popularish right wing commentator who earlier this year talked about how Gaston was the hero of beauty and the beast. Basically because he kinda epitomised the view of masculinity the guy idolised. I doubt the pastor was referencing it but it turns out media literacy really can be that bad.

Suedini

Also the fact that the pastor thought Gaston was the hero explains SO MUCH

Janna Jackson Gorog

I’m so glad you talked about the sermon, I watched it and as a regular churchgoer my entire life, it was one of the most unhinged sermons I’ve ever seen in my entire life 😂

Janna Jackson Gorog

i like the glasses! it makes you look smart!

Brian Balster

Amazing as always. Side note, I doubt the church would reference the rapists from a clockwork orange in their easter musical, but you never know.

Patar

Jenny, your critique of the sermon and megachurches as media at the end was great and really tied the video together. The evangelical "milk-before-meat" communication strategy is really being brought out hard here. The church has this fun, light-heated, and politically bland rendering of the easter story first. Then they follow it with a sermon filled with call-outs to millennialist, apocalyptic one-world government beliefs. It's like money laundering for ideology. Also, anyone who complains about your glasses should be cursed with dry, itcy eyes forever.

Honestly between the bad performances, the lower production value, and the the incoherency of the plot, I feel like maybe they decided on doing the church play this year very late, and had maybe half the amount of time they usually have to write the script and do rehearsals.

Xylia Stargazer