Practical Assignment: Religulous Review

           Religulous is a humorous, yet informative, 2008 documentary by comedian Bill Maher. He spends the film interviewing various religious people of different faiths, asking them about their faith then pointing out the ridiculousness of it all. Maher interviews Christians, Hasidic Jews, a Jew for Jesus, Muslims, former Mormons, and a man who “prayed his gay away.” He also satirically preaches scientology at one point. Throughout this review I will summarize and analyze all of Bill Maher’s interviews. It’s also important to note that it is almost impossible to review this film without bias, so I’ll lay mine on the line right now: I agree with Bill Maher when he’s standing on the ruins in Megiddo, Israel (where the Book of Revelations says the Apocalypse will start) and says that most religions are poisonous to society and are hindering our development as a whole. It is important to note Maher is not as “radical” as he seems in the film with this statement, 16% of the United States is atheist. I feel that nobody should read past this point without seeing the film first, because spoilers do follow.

            I want my readers to visualize the following interviews in a certain way. Whenever the interviewee answers Bill’s questions with something non-factual (80% of the time), he puts cut-ins right after and text on the bottom. These are timed perfectly and really get his point across. Think of Family Guy mixed with Michael Moore’s documentaries, a hilarious combination. These really upped the humor, in my opinion a difference that separates TV movies from the silver screen. The film was directed by Larry Charles, who also directed Borat, and the comedic similarities run rampant throughout this motion picture. 

            Bill Maher starts off his documentary by visiting a southern church. There he starts an intelligent discussion with the various parishioners and the reverend. He asks them what they see in their faith, Christianity. The clergy refutes any scientific evidence Maher puts forth. They seem very stubborn and ignorant towards science and evolution. He asks them “Why do you believe in the talking snake and the man who lived in a giant fish?” This is in reference to the Garden of Eden and Jonah and the Whale in the Bible. None of them pose challenging answers. This question quickly angers a church-goer who refuses to be in the documentary any longer and storms off. *This is interestingly the angriest anybody gets at Maher in the whole film. Throughout the movie I was expecting Bill to get punched in the face, but he never did. Everybody was extremely patient with him and his mockeries of them.* Another church-goer states that he used to be a full-blown Satanist who sold drugs, was in charge of many prostitutes, and was always in possession of a large amount of cash. He reformed himself and gave all of those luxuries up. Bill, in shock, asks him why he would give up such pleasures. In his retort, the man states that he did it to save his soul and is now truly happy. This is an important quality of religion that Maher always overlooks in the film; the fact that religion has scared “most” people into doing the right thing, instead of acting like animals (radical martyrs aside). They finish the argument asking each other, what if the opposite is wrong? Maher ends the segment saying that people should not live their lives in fear of an afterlife, something I wholeheartedly agree with and appreciate. 

He then gives the Christian creationist museum in Kentucky a chance, taking in all that it has to offer. Quickly the viewer will notice the museum capitalizing on this religion. There’s a large gift shop and a singing performance of the Passion. The most ridiculous was the exhibit where the biblical figures live side by side with animatronic dinosaurs. Maher quickly gets into an argument with a fervent visitor while the museums PR people freak out over his presence there.

Another sidesplitting encounter takes place in a large Miami church, where a Hispanic man with “Jesus” in his name proclaims to be the second coming of Christ. He is shown to have over 100,000 followers, but Maher is able to break down his hoax during the one-on-one interview. This messiah can barely understand Maher’s jokes and seems more and more of a grounded person as he speaks.

Closing up the section on Christianity, we see a few more interviews in the film. There’s the Christian senator (Mark Pryor) who can barely put a logical sentence together and then states “You don’t need to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate.” I liked when Bill expresses his worry that people like this are allowed to run our country. Next there’s the Jew for Jesus who became a believer when he wished for rain on a cloudy day and then it started to rain a minute later. He thanked God for this “miracle” and never looked back. Then there’s the man who “prayed his gay away.” He states that no person is born gay but then later states that nobody can choose to be gay either, something that makes this guy seem woefully ignorant. The man states that all gay people are truly unhappy inside, Maher then says: “How can that be? They have the word gay named after them!” A cut-in of the Manhattan Gay Pride Parade ensues, showing people in bliss. In a funny and ironic twist, Maher ends the interview by hugging the man goodbye and then seeing if he got aroused. Finally the last interview on the subject involves two ex-Mormons, people who completely denounced their cult-like community. I personally liked this change of pace because the interview featured people that were on Bill’s side, people that he didn’t have to argue with.  The two men went on to state how their families and friends shunned them for their decision. In one of my favorite parts of the film, Maher analyzes the Mormon religion with the two men, showing just how ridiculous it really is. He goes on to say how Monotheistic religions and American nationalism normally do not mix and that Mormonism was created to change that. That it’s based on Joseph Smith’s gospel about Jesus resurrecting in America to meet the indigenous people, a lost tribe of Israel. He states that John Smith’s lies have created a cult-like religion, that allows for polygamy and misogyny. Clips of Yiddish-speaking Native Americans were particularly funny. The portion of the film on Christianity has now ended and so have most of the entertaining parts. The sections on Orthodox Judaism and Islam are unfortunately not as over-the-top.

Next up is an interview with a Hasidic Rabbi who is an anti-Zionist, against the existence of the state of Israel. At first the man seems noble since he’s working towards peace in Middle East. He also states that the Jews are undeserving of the state of Israel. He quickly turns into a hypocrite when a cut-in video showing him shaking the radical president of Iran and anti-Semite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s hand. This segment really highlighted the beauty of the film’s cut-in system to completely change your opinion of someone.

The documentary quickly shifts to Amsterdam, where Bill speaks to some of the City’s Muslims. He speaks to a Muslim man, woman, and Imam who all stating their love for Islam. They all proceed to speak about Islam’s focus on peace and completely downplay any emphasis on violence, or jihad, calling it “politics.” As per usual, Maher doesn’t buy it and berates them. He follows it with clips of Middle Eastern riots, jihadist pep rallies, and  9/11. I found this part of the movie to be fairly dry, to the point where I was getting drowsy. I feel that Maher should have had their monologues cut shorter and just have gotten straight to the point.

The last scene lampooning religions takes place at the Speakers' Corner in London, where Maher poses as a Scientologist. He preaches the beliefs of the religion, mainly its science fiction core. Normally a farfetched religious premise, Scientology seems right at home with the deadly fairy tales of the monotheistic religions from earlier in the film. I really liked how he mentioned the fees associated with their church’s “auditing,”  which is similar to Christian church dues that aren’t even taxed.

My harshest criticisms on Religulous are neatly summed up by Kenneth Turan’s LA Times review:

The humor he creates at their expense proves nothing except that dealing from a stacked deck benefits no one but the dealer… If people are incautious enough to be interviewed without knowing anything about the interviewer, if they are foolish enough not to recognize how foolish they will look, they have, in effect, signed their own death warrant, agreeing to be mercilessly drawn and quartered by some of the sharpest blades in the business.

He continues to state that Senator Mark Pryor (D-Ark) should have known better during the interview, and that his verbal commentary leaves a “sour taste” in his mouth.

At heart, Bill Maher is a comedian, an entertainer. It would take an entertainer to bring a topic this controversial to the big screen. It is job to make the audience laugh, but if they think a little bit afterwards it is a bonus. I just wish that he was a little more forgiving and less brutal towards his interviewees. Maybe then these religious pundits would reevaluate their beliefs.

Overall, Religulous is a hilarious documentary that refutes religion, and is sure to get a lot of peoples’ blood boiling.  In the end the story comes full circle as Maher is once again standing on the ruins in Megiddo, Israel stating that religion is poisonous and will lead to nuclear annihilation of the human race. I just wish that Bill Maher could have eased up on his subjects and didn’t berate them as much. I also wish that his segments on Islam and Judaism showed more direction and were as entertaining as the others. Maybe one day there will be a sequel where he addresses Hinduism and Buddhism.

Works Cited

03, October. "Maher Toys with Religion's Fringes." Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles Times, 03 Oct. 2008. Web. 14 June 2012. <http://articles.latimes.com/2008/oct/03/entertainment/et-Religulous3>.

"Believers, Skeptics and a Pool of Sitting Ducks." Bill Maher and Larry Charles Offer an Irreverent Debate on Faith. N.p., 30 Sept. 2008. Web. 14 June 2012. <http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/movies/01reli.html>.

"Religulous :: Rogerebert.com :: Reviews." Religulous :: Rogerebert.com :: Reviews. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 June 2012. <http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081002/REVIEWS/810020306>.

Response #1: Mark Twain and 19th Century Journalism

            I believe that Mark Twain’s short stories, “Journalism in Tennessee” and “How I Edited an Agricultural Paper Once,”  show many instances of irony and journalism of the era, even though they are both fairly hard to analyze. We can also see that Twain is fairly critical about the practice of journalism at that time.

            “Journalism in Tennessee” tells us the story of the narrator’s trip to Tennessee for his health. He starts work at a small local newspaper company, and realizes after writing his first article and a prolonged stay at the office, that the state’s journalism is biased, violent, and only caters to a specific demographic. He comes to the conclusion that the periodical never seeks the truth through its inquiries. Once the narrator brings this up at the newspaper office, many acts of violence and name-calling are directed to him. Soon after, he quits his job and leaves Tennessee. He is modest in his opinion of Tennessee, ironically stating that it’s “stirring.” It is ironic that he came to Tennessee to save his own life, but almost loses it on his first day of work there. It is apparent that Twain did not base this story on reality; all one has to do is look at how flat and boring some of the newspaper’s stories seem to be. The quote, "Thunder and lightning! Do you suppose I am going to speak of those cattle that way? Do you suppose my subscribers are going to stand such gruel as that? Give me the pen!", demonstrates how sensitive people are in the story when it comes to content. It also sheds light on the long-standing customers that the newspaper had to keep happy. It really focuses on how easily people got upset about newspapers at the time. At no point in the story do the characters even consider the events as odd, everything is told in a serious tone. Elements that are opposite of today’s real world journalism occur when the chief editor revises the narrator’s first article on the railroad. He cuts and changes many parts of the article, turning it into something unusual. What remains makes little sense to the reader. In this instance, the inverted pyramid is completely ignored. His focus is on the background information and minor details instead of the who, what, when, where, why, and how. One could say that the newspaper is guilty of reverse yellow journalism. Ultimately, I feel that Twain is showing the reader the common struggle between the journalist and his editor, who often strips their articles down and completely changes them. Twain is also showing us the day to day politics, arguments, and grudges held between members of journalistic offices through the displays of gratuitous violence.

            “How I Edited an Agriculture Paper” describes Mark Twain’s experiences after taking over an agricultural paper. The overarching theme here is a satire of the newspapers that criticize things they know nothing about. Also it seems that putting the narrator in charge of anything is never a good idea. The narrator’s decision to write this story around agriculture is a great one, because most people depended on it for their food in 1870.  At first, he is tasked with presenting his article on agriculture, something that he knows nothing about. An old man soon comes in and criticizes the narrator’s statements on Turnips, causing the man to go hysterical. As expected, violence ensues all over the place and the man storms off. Soon the paper’s real editor arrives stating that while the paper’s reputation has been ruined, it has gotten very popular. This increase in popularity is due to the crazy things stated in the paper. The editor continues to berate and accuse the narrator, he ends his monologue saying that he’ll never go on a vacation again. The narrator then calls the editor names (after vegetables), and argues that a man doesn’t need to know anything about a subject to write an article on it. He proceeds to give many examples, such as: book reviewers, financial leaders, and experts on Indian campaigns. The less a man knows about his assignment, the more pay he’ll receive and attention will be garnered.  He asserts that a man should be able to state whatever he wants in his article, no matter how ridiculous, and never be constrained by the actual facts on the matter at hand. The narrator feels that ignorance is key and that truthful articles are dull and lifeless. He soon quits, stating that he did a good job by getting the paper more viewers. In my opinion, the irony and satire in this short story are even more apparent than in “Journalism in Tennessee.” Once again the inverted pyramid of journalism is blatantly ignored, with an emphasis on random details in the agriculture article. True yellow journalism is at work here, where quality is set aside for quantity. The narrator’s quote, “a solitary individual who could tell a watermelon tree from a peach-vine to save his life,” hilariously demonstrates general ignorance (these two fruits are not grown by these respective methods). In this instance, Twain is satirizing the people who are considered “experts” in the media. The people who are not very qualified in their area of work. These people are talking the talk, while the real experts are walking the walk (scientists, engineers, etc.). The most striking journalistic satire comes from the editor’s lecture on how to write the article; the person who has no skill or business writing articles in the first place. I feel that Mark Twain is critical about journalism in this respect, because authors lose their creative control as soon as the editor steps in.

            Overall, Mark Twain makes some grand gestures of irony and satire in his short stories: “Journalism in Tennessee” and “How I Edited an Agricultural Paper Once.” One can easily identify the 19^th century American journalism in his stories. Depending on the clientele, the papers in question tend to be made into exciting or boring passages. This shows us that writers are often at the mercy of their editors, a frustrating circumstance that Twain is critical of.

Works Cited

Gahr, Elton. "Short Story Reviews: How I Edited an Agriculture Paper, by Mark Twain." Helium. Helium, 24 Sept. 2010. Web. 04 June 2012. <http://www.helium.com/items/1963461-short-story-reviews-how-i-edited-an-agriculture-paper-by-mark-twain>.

Gahr, Elton. "Short Story Reviews: Journalism in Tennessee, by Mark Twain." Helium. Helium, 13 Sept. 2010. Web. 04 June 2012. <http://www.helium.com/items/1951193-short-story-reviews-journalism-in-tennessee-by-mark-twain>.

"How I Edited an Agricultural Paper By: Mark Twain." How I Edited an Agricultural Paper By: Mark Twain - Home. Web. 04 June 2012. <http://twainshameek.weebly.com/index.html>. 

Discussion #5: Media is Hurting Democracy

I agree with Robert McChesney statements that the mass media has become an anti-Democratic force. I attribute this change to the conglomerates that own the media companies. They have used the media to further their own political agendas. Fox News immediately comes to mind, along with the Rupert Murdoch News of the World scandal in Britain. They have consistently supported our nation’s two party system, something the Founding Father’s disagreed with. The most dastardly deed that the media commits is the over exaggeration of scandals that cause the public to forget about the real problems at hand, like the national debt. Media has always been necessary to Democracy, but it has gotten too large and powerful in this day and age.

Discussion #4: Gotcha.

Going with Gotcha as the front page story for the New York Sun obviously would have been the wrong thing to do at that time. It was their media responsibility to report what they knew, and that was the Brooklyn Boys’ innocence. Henry Hacket took the risk in bringing this case to justice, and it worked. Alicia Clark represents cheap thrills and yellow journalism in the industry; evil and ignorance. Ultimately, going with Gotcha on the front page wouldn’t have done much harm to the Sun’s journalistic integrity, because it’s tabloid that is not taken as seriously as the New York Sentinel. Based on the readings, going with Gotcha would have set a bad example in the eyes of the impressionable public.

Discussion #3: Influence of the Media

Based on the presented quote in “Media and Society,” I can easily agree with the authors’ point. Media has become the go-to source for information among today’s youth. Media is just a more convenient and fun information delivery system. Today’s youth can quickly pull up headlines on their smartphones during their social studies classes in school! They’re paying more attention an electronic device then their teacher. This is something I’m guilty of myself. It also brings puts education and religion in the backseat. Many people are consistently bored with schooling and just want to get out in the world and work. With the help of the media and education, the scientific method is influencing people’s lives more and more every day. Many now see religion as an outdated way of scaring people and controlling them. In many ways the private corporations and government have taken over scaring and controlling the public with media.

Discussion #2: Dada Berlin Photos

The saying, “A picture is worth a thousand words,” becomes very apparent when looking at the assigned Dada Berlin photomontages. The first image shows a man who is “incapacitated” by his reading habits. This form of artwork is obviously propaganda, serving to scare the public away from Bourgeois ideals. The second photo, Dialogue at the Berlin Zoo, is somewhat difficult to understand at first. Some research showed me that it’s represnting an anti-semitic dialogue about the fate of the Jews. This type of photo could have had resounding effects on the German youth, setting the tone for future generations. The next photo, The Roving Reporter, shows us a giant robot made out of “media.” Maybe the artist is trying to say that the mass media has become too powerful, become all knowing, and holds too much influence over Germany? The fourth photo, the collage, is a clear satire of important German figures. It serves to disarm their stern image in the eyes of the public. The fifth photo, the self-portrait, showing a man who seems passionate about rejecting the social and political developments that are going on around him. These photomontages fall in line with Adorno’s, Horkheimer’s, and Benjamin’s ideas. Adorno and Horkheimer believed that popular culture was mass produced to calm and control the public, whiol Benjamin thought that art has lost its “aura,” its innocence, and is now a tool for political gain.

Discussion #1: Onions are good for your health!

Based on this week’s readings, I can easily attach Poe’s work to The Onion’s writing style. If you look at a front page article on The Onion such as “Biden to Honor Fallen Soldiers by Jumping Motorcycle Over Vietnam Memorial” (http://www.theonion.com/articles/biden-to-honor-fallen-soldiers-by-jumping-motorcyc,28285/), and compare it to the Balloon Hoax, they’re very similar in structure. The Balloon Hoax has a diagram of the balloon used to demonstrate validity, while the Biden article has a comedic photoshopped picture of the subject on a motorcycle flying through the air. Both articles utilize the inverted pyramid, where the who, what, where, when, why, and how are focused on. Then important details are presented. Then finally, small details and background information are thrown in. Coupled with quotes, these articles have a very “authentic” feel to them. On the large scope of things The Onion and other forms of media and government satire show us that it can be good to be skeptical. We should always question the information that we’re being fed so that we are not being taken advantage of by the mass media. We should never allow fear to control our lives. It has gotten to the point where many educated college students watch The Daily Show for their news and Fox News for their entertainment.

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