directed by Larry Charles
emceed by Bill Maher
It’s tough believing in anything these days. One is constantly forced to explain away contradictions that ultimately prove that no belief system no matter how sacrosanct truly holds up under scrutiny. One is left with a poorly strung together series of cliches that make skeptics giggle because they are so certain in their own belief system that posits that all religions are based on fallacies and should not be entertained by those who adhere to a strictly rational position. Enter Bill Maher. This is a fiercely funny man who has made his name lambasting every bastion of good, moral taste from his days as a petulant punk stand up comedian. In this film his pompous blatherings come off as both funny and mean spirited. He sort of resembles a weasel and his work here exploits such a comparison.
Charles emerged on the Anti-sitcom “Seinfeld” and graduated to directed the mildly amusing box office debut of Borat, another uncouth daemon who takes interviewers hostage and ransacks their soft spots for fun and profit. Maher certainly fits the bill here and his poking and prodding technique works for the most part to uncloak the pious and reveal the depths of uncertainty that undermines their own firmly held convictions. In short, Maher only proves to his targets that there is no legitimate way to justifying any belief whatsoever and much of it is nothing more than fables and fairy tales that even the dullest child can see straight through.
Maher takes us on a trip around the world to show us how absurd it is to waste one’s time giving credence to something that is impossible to prove. His technique mostly is to capture a person representing this or that religion and egg them on into revealing that they don’t exactly have a firm grasp on why they believe one system is more valid than any other. He goes to a trucker church filled with the exact type of person Borat enjoys lampooning so much. They are fundamentalist christian types who more than likely shouted “Kill Him” and “Traitor” at McCain rallies. They are horrid stereotypes and Maher knows this. Their understanding of the complexities of religious matters are no doubt very scant. They simply believe in the absolute validity of the bible as a uniform text that ultimately justifies all of their beliefs. Maher seems to be having a gay old time deriding them to the point that a rather corpulent man leaves in a huff because he senses accurately that Maher is taking direct umbrage with this man’s god. And he is. And he’s not even subtle about his scorn.
At first viewing I tended to see this film as merely the ranting of a tired little man whose real claim to fame is as an irritant that continues to plague no matter what measures are employed to eradicate it. I still felt this way until five minutes ago when I started writhing over this review. Somehow I have realized that all it is doing is showing the world that belief is not something that can be externalized in a way that makes perfect sense to an outsider. My real problem with this film is that it refuses to recognize that there are many individuals who allow themselves to be guided by a presence or a force that they interpret to be much larger than themselves and worthy of communion or worship or whatever other way they interpret it to be. It doesn’t separate faith from religion and chooses only to lambast the visual cues that people mistakenly take for the more esoteric aspects of their personal interpretations of matters of the eternal philosophy.
Religion is an easy target and the very construct of a binding set of beliefs that are rigidly held lends itself to lampooning. To those who cannot or will not succumb to the temptation to be so held, the sheer idea that such a formulation exists is seen as moronic and beneath contempt. In this film we meet George Coyne, an astronomer priest who firmly accepts as reality evolution and other bastions of heretical scientific inquiry. Maher allows this learned man to speak because he represents a way of thinking that is acceptable to him. Maher also allows Father Reginald Foster, who takes biblical literalism to be some kind of sick joke, the opportunity to express his views without being censored. The same goes for a group of former Mormons who with Maher cheerfully discusses some of what appears to outsiders to be the more baffling aspects of that religion. Indeed, Maher treats these individuals with great care and openly displays where his sympathies lie.
The same can not be said for everyone else in the film. From a man who claims to be the second coming of Jesus (his ministry reaches over 100,000 people) to the Jesus look alike who reenacts the crucifixion while onlookers cheer and guffaw–there is a sense that the film is taking great pleasure in denouncing the legitimacy of Christ as a living man. In fact, Maher states that Jesus never existed and the film points out that the Egyptian god Horus’s trajectory mirrors Jesus’s biography nearly point by point. But this is only something scholars or religion or zany half Jew comedians even bother to concern themselves with.
There are moments that annoy me. The treatment of Rabbi Yisroel Dovid Weiss is unfortunate. His position is against Zionism and the Jewish State. It is clear that he has quite a lot to say regarding his position but Maher keeps interrupting him and eventually just walks away. Also Mark Pryor, a representative of the group Jews for Jesus is ridiculed when he claims to have had personal experiences he considers miraculous. When asked for an example Pryor explains how he once was compelled by what he considers to be the voice of God to pray for rain and stick his hand out the window. The fact that rain came immediately convinces him that God was answering his prayer. Maher scoffs at this and labels it a mere coincidence but his response to the anecdote comes off as mean and unnecessary.
What’s missing here is any in depth analysis of belief that isn’t infected with the overarching need to reduce it to comedic talking points. The fact is that religion and faith are complicated and cannot be explained away by the simplistic attempt to refute them by outsiders who have not shared the same experiential events that have solidified them in the minds and hearts of adherents.
Still, there are moments of genuine hilarity as the contradictions are unmasked and the reasons for clinging to religion are shown to be held rather tenuously at best. That is the real aim of this film. It wants clearly to demonstrate how since there is no way of knowing the truth about any religious position then the only legitimate way to approach it is agnostically. What’s interesting here is that Maher claims to be coming from a position of doubt which makes him a hard agnostic but his surety in his own belief system suggests he’s more of an atheist. It’s a contradiction that puts Maher in the same boat as everyone else that he is trying so desperately to sink.
Overall, this film does bring some fascinating questions to light. It can ultimately be forgiven for Maher’s snarkish, smarmy approach to most of his subjects simply based on the nature of these questions. If nothing else it gives us an opportunity to challenge our own belief systems and perhaps transform them into something that is not hogtied by traditions that we cannot ably justify for ourselves, our heritage, or our kinfolk. One of the tragedies of this film is its lack of scope and depth. There are numerous legitimate spiritual paths that are not explored perhaps due to their obscurity. Still it would have been quite enlightening to see more Paganism or tribal heathenism investigated. Nature religions, Wicca, and the such would have shed light on the overall arch of the monotheistic religious traditions that are tackled in the film. Also, the tired, flatulent “satanist” who is profiled is yet another sad example by main stream media to represent a system of thought that is in no way religious but holds principals that this man clearly does not possess. It would have been a joy to see Maher attempt to weasel his way out of an interview with a bona fide Satanic Priest.
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