Music nerds who were Very Online™ some 20-odd years ago might recall the strange diss battle between deliberately elitist review outlet Pitchfork and an obscure band called Joan of Arc.
In fact, Joan of Arc and lead singer Tim Kinsella were mostly known for the scathing reviews they drew from every publication that bothered paying attention to them. As they should have been; there was nothing exceptional about them except for the bizarre, tuneless, talent-unimpeded, deliberately painful art-rock that was their calling card.
Another outlet, not wrongly, described the group’s 2000 release “The Gap” as “one of the most unlistenable albums in existence.” (I’ve heard it — once — and you can safely remove two words, “one” and “of,” from that sentence, along with making the noun “albums” singular.)
I was reminded this week of Pitchfork’s notorious review of Joan of Arc’s 2001 anti-masterpiece “How Can Any Thing So Little Be Any More.” In particular, reviewer Brent DiCrescenzo took issue with the group’s “inconceivably horrendous lyrics,” including the couplet “Jesus really was so / g*****n pretentious.”
“Kinsella sounds jealous,” DiCrescenzo quipped.
That, of course, was a joke about the scale of the band’s pretensions, which were not immoderate.
But a quarter-century later, Joy Behar of “The View” effectively made the same argument Kinsella/Joan of Arc did, and that whole “sounds jealous” remark came immediately to mind — a long-dormant neuron in the hippocampus having, at last, the chance to fire and release one of the least-useful memories my brain has stored from my youth and put it to work, somehow.
The primary difference is that, when Behar called Jesus “narcissistic” for calling Himself the Messiah, I’m not sure saying she “sounds jealous” is as much of a joke as I’d like it to be.
So, “The View.” Quite frankly, I’d rather be listening to Joan of Arc, but attention must be paid, because we’re now having a too-long debate over whether an image President Donald Trump posted to Truth Social which some thought depicted him as Jesus was blasphemy, and of course the ABC flibbertigibbet-fest wanted in on the discussion on how unlike Christ our commander-in-chief is.
For instance, Behar said during the Tuesday airing, “Jesus Himself did not run around saying, ‘I’m the Messiah. I’m the Messiah.’”
This is where even her co-hosts were forced to tell her that, yes, He did. While they didn’t name the passages, they’re easy enough to find for yourself — Mark 14, John 4, John 8, Matthew 16, and so forth.
In short: No, Joy, you’re an idiot.
Nevertheless, she persisted: “No, he did not. Jesus was more modest than that. Listen, I knew Jesus,” Behar said. “Jesus was not narcissistic like this guy.”
“But when you are the Messiah, it’s not narcissism to say it,” co-host Sarah Haines responded.
“Yes, it is!” Behar shot back.
“When you are the Messiah?” Haines asked.
“Yes!” Behar said.
Even Whoopi Goldberg was forced to say that she was “going to move this along, because it’s too much for me.”
Joy Behar claims Jesus never said he was the messiah, gets corrected, then says it’s “narcissistic” for Jesus to call himself that.
Never has there been a more blasphemous moment on The View.pic.twitter.com/cfLraGh4tz
— Media Research Center (@theMRC) April 14, 2026
So, yeah, Joy sounds jealous.
The whole concept of the Christian faith is that Jesus is not only the Messiah, but declared Himself as such — not every moment of every sermon or every interaction with the disciples, mind you, but it was pretty clear He said who He was.
Calling that “narcissistic” is like, say, calling the president narcissistic for calling himself the president. (There I go, giving Joy ideas.)
Mockery of Christianity is not a new topic on “The View,” mind you; from Ana Navarro’s February rant about “cross-wearing Christians” being bad people to platforming and praising the woke “bishop” who scolded Trump using profoundly unbiblical theology at a “unity” service after his nomination, this is a leitmotif for the show in the Trump era.
Calling Christ “narcissistic,” however, and insisting that you know because you knew the guy, represents a new low in that department. Congratulations, I guess.
It’s funny, though: You never hear them talk this way about Islam. Wonder why!
As a side note, Joan of Arc finally broke up in 2020. Shame, because the one television program where they would have been the perfect musical guest aired just this week.
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