´óÏó´«Ã½

« Previous | Main | Next »

Coronation Street: a no-go area for the cross?

Post categories: ,Ìý

William Crawley | 10:51 UK time, Thursday, 15 January 2009

church_exterior_2.jpgWe're back into the culture war of giving and taking offence. Coronation Street producers rented a Church of England parish church to film a wedding scene, in case.

One can understand why producers would wish to avoid causing offence to viewers, but why would they imagine that a Christian symbol placed at the centre of a Christian place of worship is an offensive image? Presumably, the audience of Coronation Street is more than willing to accept that a cross makes sense as an aspect of .

The programme-makers now accept that a mistake was made in this case. It's quite a serious error, in fact, both from a production and a PR point of view. From a production point of view it's a mistake because the characters at the centre of the episode wanted a traditional wedding, and it is a narrative oversight to exclude the cross from that depiction; and from a PR point of view it's a mistake because the producers have come close to insulting the intelligence of their viewers. On the other hand, there's nothing like a little bad publicity to raise an audience.

Perhaps we could all learn from the wisdom of Alexander Pope: "At every trifle, scorn to take offence; that always shows great pride, or little sense."

In any case, , pictured, is to have the last word. They were paid more a location fee of more than £4000 and they plan to use that money to purchase a new Processional Cross. A perfectly pitched response by this historic church community: graceful, classy, and playfully ironic.

Comments

  • Comment number 1.


    It's not all that long ago that placing a cross on the Holy Table (Altar!!) was a contentious matter in the Church of Ireland, indeed I rather fancy I was a member of the General Synod when the prohibition was repealed (forgive the echo of Lord Emsworth). The CoE of course went through that argument a century earlier when a low church vicar, assuming it referred to a processional cross, reputedly altered Baring-Gould's famous hymn to read: "Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war, with the cross of Jesus left behind the door".

  • Comment number 2.

    Portwyne from what I can tell from the church's website, it was an altar in their case!

Ìý

´óÏó´«Ã½ iD

´óÏó´«Ã½ navigation

´óÏó´«Ã½ © 2014 The ´óÏó´«Ã½ is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.

This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.