Fair and Biased - A One Sided Look at Larry Charles & Bill Maher’s film: “Religulous”
Wednesday, October 8th, 2008Fair and Biased.
That’s what good documentaries should be. All too often documentaries with an obvious agenda try to pass themselves off as fair and impartial. (Here I am thinking of films like “Jesus Camp” and Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11″) Their message is lost in their attempts to convince us that they’re not biased, that they’re presenting the material objectively. Bullshit.
When did it become bad to show your bias in documentaries. If your film is largely an editorial on a specific issue you should have a bias. Use that bias to make your point and present it in an interesting way.
So, the question is: Is “Religulous” a film that has something interesting or important to say?, or is it just “Borat” redux; a bunch of scenes of smart people shooting fish in a barrel.”
The answer is a bit of both. Fortunately it is much more the former rather than the latter.
Bill Maher isn’t out to make fun of these people. He is not there to insult them for our amusement. (Well, not usually) He has questions for these people, and he genuinely wants them to have answers for him. I think he would like nothing more than to have one of them give him these answers. There’s a scene in the film where he’s interviewing a character in a theme park. At one point the person being interviewed offers up a really compelling piece of rhetoric and it really does sort of stop Maher in his tracks, he doesn’t cut away, they don’t shrug it off. In fact they address it seriously and devote a few minutes to Maher talking about being thrown for a loop.
He’s not just interviewing crazy people here, specifically I’m thinking of when he speaks to a senior Vatican priest and a Vatican astronomer. These were two highly intelligent men who really had a lot of interesting and compelling things to say. If anything I would have liked to see a lot more from these men and a bit less from a few of the people who had literally nothing to say. Here I’m referring to the guy whose religion was based on smoking marijuana. (could someone please tell me why the hell that guy was even IN the movie? It honestly felt like it was an excuse for Bill Maher to smoke.)
Sure, there are scenes in the film that are only there to amuse. Let’s not forget that this movie is also a comedy. Some of the people he talks to are flat out crazy. But, the only people he flat out mocks are the people who deserve it. (Second coming of Jesus anybody?)
There are some flaws however, throughout the film Charles cuts to clips from pop culture in response to certain things that the interviewees say. Some of these are very effective and hilarious. Some of them however, are not. A lot of the time they are unnecessary. We as the audience are intelligent enough to know when something is funny or crazy, we don’t need a clip from pop culture to clue us in. I think there were just too many of them.
Ultimately, regardless of what you might think about the rest of the movie, the ending really works. After all the comedy we’ve seen he sums up his point: “Doubt is humble.” That’s really the theme of this movie, you should be able to question religions. You should be able to talk about these things with people without people saying you’re attacking them. Lastly, if you’re someone who saw this movie and was offended by the way Maher treated your religion I would be very curious to know how you felt when he went after the other guys. Did it bother you the same? Or were you only offended with he talked about YOUR beliefs. He doesn’t want cynicism. He wants skepticism, and I think that’s something we can all agree the world needs a bit more of.
“You want to know how I know you’re not sure? because I’m not sure and you don’t possess mental powers that I do not.” - Bill Maher
“Atta boy Bill!” - Joey Gruszecki