I thought that maybe I might enjoy the film, supposedly a ‘documentary’, possibly in the same vein as Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine ring a bell?), a few hours ago. Maybe I might have thought that this could be an ‘enlightening’ (for lack of a better word) experience.

Let me just preface the rest of the entry by saying that I identify Roman Catholic.

Having stated that, I’ll state that I found Religulous to be rather disappointing. It did paint most religious folk as largely unintelligent and uninformed sheep (save for the ‘Father of the Human Genome Project’). It (meaning Bill Maher) did focus largely on the irrational conclusions that most religion identifying people came to as a result of their unyielding desire to follow their God to the letter, without ever questioning why some things never made sense. Jonah and the Whale was brought up a few times, as well as the question if Jack and the Beanstalk were considered to be God’s Word, then did that mean that Jack and the Beanstalk were undeniable fact, despite the part where no solid evidence/proof of this beanstalk ever existed?

I don’t deny that a lot of Maher’s questions did point to the truth that most people who believe in some sort of God (I really feel that he (Maher and Larry Charles) placed too much focus on Christianity, and largely ignored other religions) do so blindly and never question what doesn’t make any logical sense. If it doesn’t make sense, they just chalk it up to God’s way. Which isn’t right.

Like that Senator. OMG. Total embarassment to our legislative branch: “You don’t need to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate.” Ugh.

I don’t think I expressed my issues well enough to my boyfriend (who went to see the movie with me) immediately after the film ended. Now that I’ve had several more minutes to gather my thoughts together:

I believe that Maher made the film for entertainment purposes only. If it were to be a true food for thought ‘documentary’ then it really should have delved deeper into its statement/hypothesis. Not just gathered together several clips from various interviews to ‘prove’ a statement that has already been presented to us as ‘truth’. Maher’s ‘truth’ is cobbled together from interviews he’s done with people who do nothing but prove his point, plus snark-laden subtitles, humorous clips, and clips from religious movies. Couldn’t he have also shown us examples of more intelligent people who have successfully balanced their religious beliefs with that of their command of religious thought? Just by answering that with ‘because people like that don’t exist’ is perpetuating the original ‘truth’ set forth in the film.

I suppose my line of thought is best expressed in this post (Docs in Progress) I came across while writing this:

And that may be the point. This film is like the point of a pencil which has run out of lead. My Docs In Progress colleague Adele Schmidt refers to documentaries as being a use of visual storytelling to explore a hypothesis; a documentary which enters production with the answer already in mind is not a documentary. It is an advocacy film. And this, in my mind, is what diminishes the potential of Religulous to either bring in new “believers” in disbelief or “preach to the converted” because we already know where the film will take us. There are no surprises.

The irony of Religulous is that, for a film seeking to critique the simplistic aspects of religious belief, it suffers from its own simplistic storytelling. And yet plods on for nearly two hours without really building the story beyond a one-trick pony of showcasing the extremes of religion. By not exploring faith in any thoughtful way but that which supports a pre-conceived notion, the film becomes a lost opportunity.

Attack, attack, attack, and not giving any opportunity for rebuttal. I think it’s totally possible to be a person who accepts religion and rational thought as equals. They don’t have to be mutually exclusive. (see here for earlier post) But the film didn’t bother attempting to find a person like that. And that’s where the film fails a bit.