Did baby Jesus burp, redux.
Director Dallas Jenkins says this scene "might be the key moment of the movie".
Last week, I wrote about the scene in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever in which the people attending the titular pageant react to Imogene Herdman burping the baby Jesus.
I said that this scene—and its emphasis on the idea that, yes, Jesus really did burp—felt “very on-brand” for director Dallas Jenkins, whose life-of-Jesus series The Chosen has often dwelled on the fact that Jesus et al. had the same body functions we do.
I also noted that the movie version of this scene is subtly but notably different from the equivalent scene in the book, which focuses not on whether baby Jesus burped but, rather, on whether he had colic, i.e. on whether he cried excessively, possibly due to physical conditions he could not control that were causing him discomfort.
I’m bringing this up again now because Jenkins just posted a clip from this scene to his YouTube channel, along with a caption that says:
This short but important moment in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever might be the key moment of the movie and important to understanding the TRUE Christmas story.
Here is the clip (which, yes, is in vertical “shorts” mode):
So, there you have it. The “burping” scene—which softens the theological implications of the equivalent scene in the book—might be “the” key moment in the movie.
Mind you, this isn’t the only “key moment” from the movie that Jenkins has posted to his channel. Two weeks ago, he also posted this one-minute clip—titled “Key moment from The Best Christmas Pageant Ever”—with a caption that says, in part:
This scene isn't from the book, but I believe it captures the whole point of the book as well as the whole point of the Christmas story.
So, the burping scene might be “the” key moment in the film, but the scene between Beth and her mom—which, as Jenkins notes, is not in the original book—captures “the whole point” of the story (or stories, plural!) that the movie is based on.
While we’re looking at clips from the film, here’s one more from Jenkins’ channel, in which the Herdmans hear the Christmas story for the first time:
This is a highly condensed version of the equivalent scene in the book, but the bits it keeps are pretty close to the original. One slight tweak stands out to me, though.
In the film, Imogene and the narrator say this (words that are also in the book in bold):
Imogene (to Alice): Will you shut up? I want to hear.
Narrator: I couldn’t believe it. The Herdmans were famous for never sitting still and never paying attention to anyone—teachers, parents, police—yet something about the Christmas story had them hanging on every word.
And here is the equivalent bit in the book (words that are also in the film in bold):
“Shut up,” was all she said [to Beth, the book’s narrator]. “I want to hear her.”
I couldn’t believe it. Among other things, the Herdmans were famous for never sitting still and never paying attention to anyone—teachers, parents (their own or anybody else’s), the truant officer, the police—yet here they were, every eye glued on my mother and taking in every word.
So, the film really wants us to know that it is the story itself that is having an effect on the Herdmans, and not the storyteller or how the story is told. The movie’s dialogue—which deletes phrases from the book like “her” and “my mother”—has minimized the fact that Imogene was making a point of listening to Beth’s mother, specifically.
And is it just me, or does the book give the Herdmans a little more agency in how they receive the story—“taking in” every word, instead of merely “hanging on” them?
The book also gives Beth more agency, I’d argue. In the movie, Beth sits between Alice and Imogene and just watches passively as the other two girls react loudly to each other. But in the book, Alice whispers to Beth, and Beth pinches her in response, which makes Alice yelp, and so Beth’s mother separates them and makes Beth sit down next to Imogene, which is why Imogene tells Beth, not Alice, to shut up in the book.
Make of all that what you will. More later, maybe.