Final Project Revision: Famous Furious Faces

“Religulous”, Bill Maher’s satirical documentary on religion, released in 2008, is a frustrating film to watch. Yes, it’s very funny; yes, it makes a lot of good points, but there is something unmistakably vain, even Michael Moore-ish, about it. Throughout the film, Maher makes it clear that it is his sole duty, as an icon of anti-religion and a guiding voice of reason, to ramble around America and various biblical regions of the Middle East confronting passers-by and interviewing figurehead officials to argue them into corners on their faith, riding from one stumped expression to the next. The documentary is laden with Maher monologuing about himself and his steadfast dedication to denouncing religion, clips of his standup routines, and even chats with family members. He enjoys reveling in the fact that he’s miles above this whole crazy religion nonsense, and wants to place himself, as Al Gore did with Environmentalists, as the leader of an anti-religious movement, appointing himself instructor of the choir he’s preaching to. What’s exasperating about this is that Religulous’ message is, as the late George Carlin put it, “Religion is the greatest bullsh** story ever told,” yet Maher took this message, a camera crew, and a van, and made a massive ego-trip out of it, relying on his skill in satire and the sheer ridiculousness of fundamentalist Christians, Mormons, Jews, and Muslims for humor. This message is extremely important to any atheist, being the foundation of their non-belief, and Maher chose to send this message by lampooning simpleton fundamentalists. Yes, it is hilarious when a mosque attendant defends the gender-equality of his religion by pointing to the special corner of the mosque female Muslims get to pray in, but where is the humor in convincing a devout Texan truck driver that the ludicrous he has been fed since he was an infant is, in fact, ludicrous?
Somehow, it certainly does elicit laughter, at least from me. But qhy? Why was it so enjoyable to watch these people burn? I should hold no grudge against these people, my belief being that they are hopelessly misled, but their stalwart, brazen faith in something I consider to be wholly false makes them seem amusing and aggravating. I’m ashamed to put it in these absolute terms, but I hate these people and what they believe in, and so does Bill Maher, and therefore I felt compelled to watch him conquer these foolish believers.
This sentiment is what Maher built this entire documentary around, which is what made it, regrettably, satisfying. However, he did not venture into new ground, offer a unique perspective, or even do any real investigation; he really just drove around with a camera crew trying to convince people their indoctrinated beliefs are false. His method of presentation in this documentary shifts back and forth from this intellectual terrorism on poor targets to big preachy speeches where Maher saunters towards the camera relating his anti-theistic sermon with verve as clips of Al Queda and the KKK flash by. After the third of these high-production value close-ups, one might wonder, “Where are his Bono glasses? Where is his donation speech?” Before long, the viewer has been sitting through more than an hour of Maher taking apart easy targets and reciting anecdotes of his personal stories of religious disillusionment. As the credibility and potency of this documentary begin to fall to his incessant vanity, an unsettling fact begins to rise to the surface, much like a severed finger in a baptismal font.
Bill Maher is a self-Proclaimed Libertarian, has remained unmarried for 53 years, either solely for anti-religious principles or because the porn stars and strippers he dates are more interested in filing lawsuits against him than in settling down with him, and has a habit of making uproariously bad decisions on his talk-shows, one of these taking him off the air. His lifestyle choices are comparable to those of Jimmy Swaggart. In all honesty, Bill Maher is an extremist, and Religulous is essentially a denunciation of religious extremists of every color, race, and, creed. Nothing like sitting through a straight hour and 20 minutes of hypocrisy.
And yet, Maher has a massive following that apparently lauds an Atheistic (or “apatheistic”) extremist for condemning religious extremists. What does this say about our culture? It says that a majority of the people of their own particular atheistic/agnostic persuasion that watch Bill Maher gallivanting about are frighteningly similar to Pentecostal evangelists watching Benny Hinn they despise so intensely. It wouldn’t matter if people supported the humane treatment of animals or the slaughtering of the Shiites; all we need is a famous, furious face who endorses our own beliefs to an absurd extent and who makes a very big deal out of condemning those who don’t share our particular beliefs and we’ll follow them to the ends of the earth. Think about it. How easy is it to tune into the Colbert Report and get gleefully lost in that ridiculous, caustic and superbly witty personality? It’s pleasurable to let these ostentatious personalities do all the talking and lead us, their loyal devotees, from campaign to campaign. Yes, some of these celebrated pundits provide a useful critical service in the media, but it doesn’t exactly take much to criticize fundamentalists, and Bill Maher needs to understand both that he is unfit for this job and that this service isn’t useful or constructive in any way, shape or form. He is not the anti-messiah and should not be, regardless of how many ways he can make a “Jew for Jesus” squirm under his self-assured smirk.