While Donnie mania may be giving way to some Donnie fatigue, I continue to be interested in it for several reasons. One is the I teach social psychology and I am fascinated by the types of events and messages that persuade and capture the attention of groups of people. I showed The Bible Says video to my social psychology class and the reaction, as I expected, was quite negative. The discussion that ensued was subdued (I think my students were in shock) but focused on the persuasive potential of the video. As a caricature, the whole Donnie Davies episode could be quite persuasive. The analogy is to Archie Bunker and All in the Family. Take for instance, this episode where Archie reacts to the purchase of a doll for his grandson.
Donnie Davies may or may not literally mean what he sings (latest word from him is that he does), but whether he means it or not, the current Love God’s Way episode may function in the present day in a very similar manner to the way All in the Family did in its day. Those around then may recall the controversy over language and epithets used by Bunker on the show. Even though you knew it was spoof, it was still startlingly persuasive to see it acted out.
UPDATE: 1/28/07 – And the winner is…Looks like it is an actor named Joey Oglesby… And he’s a Baylor grad who once played a role in something called Jesus Hates Me.
It’s interesting to see you describe your class’ reaction to the video. I would have liked to have been there.
This all reminds me of when Freshman English teacher Mrs. Lucas (one of my favorite teachers in all of PHS) had us read Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” without any explanation ahead of time as to what we were about to read. It was just another reading assignment. The class reactions were much the same, I think.
So if Joey Oglesby really pulled this off, he was able to pretty much achieve the same effect as Jonathan Swift. That’s not bad company to be in.
Well if anyone is interested in knwoing who Donnie is, you’ll be pleased to know he’s a 28 year old Dallas based comedian by the name of Joel Oglesby.
http://www.beforeiforget.co.uk/images/-dd.jpg
It’s been a fun week chasing his shadow around the web. He wasn’t going to stay a secret for long under that pressure.
The week did raise some interesting questions though. I’m writing a post on my blog about one or two of them tomorrow, but for now all this amateur detective work has tired me out. I need to sleep!
People who think that gays are under special wrath from God generally don’t make music videos that include little phallic symbols and homoerotic subtexts.
i’d like to take a little impromptu survey, how many people here who are presently unable to figure out that Donnie Davies is making fun of Homophobic Christians were unable to figure out that George W. Bush was full of crap when he went around claiming that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?
I would seriously like to know.
He is a joke alright but on whom? Is it an effort to lampoon fundamentalists or is it an effort to use humor to say gays are under special wrath from God?
It does not bode well for our society that so many seemingly intelligent people are unable to immediately identify donnie davies as a joke.