Preacher’s lawsuit: “Religulous” made me look silly

17 Responses to Preacher’s lawsuit: “Religulous” made me look silly

1. Rob says:

   February 7, 2009 at 12:58 pm

   How’d you hear about the lawsuit? The story you link to was written in early December, so it’s old news. And yet, the DVD will be released in only 10 days, so it’s great promotion. I’m just sayin’, is all.
2. Walter Olson says:

   February 7, 2009 at 1:09 pm

   I heard about it from OnPoint News. It’s not uncommon for a story to take weeks to percolate through the legal blogs.
3. Roger Hallman says:

   February 7, 2009 at 2:58 pm

   I’m inclined to say that Rev. Cummings made himself look stupid, Maher just gave him a bigger pulpit to broadcast it.
4. Donna B. says:

   February 7, 2009 at 11:45 pm

   I’m inclined to agree with Roger Hallman. There’s no greater opportunity to look like a fool than to be represented as you actually are.

   That said, I would certainly not put it past Maher & Co. to deliberately portray someone as they are not. And, the title “Religulous” pretty much makes it clear that the content is slanted, does it not?

   Frankly, ridicule (and it’s related words such as “religulous”) are not the best way to go about disputing someone’s beliefs.

   Granted, it’s difficult to resist in some cases.
5. MIchael says:

   February 8, 2009 at 8:48 am

   Next up from Mahr “litigious”

   Oh, come on, it was just sitting there.
6. Polichinello says:

   February 8, 2009 at 3:12 pm

   The suit won’t go anywhere. On the other side of the coin, the people making “Expelled” misrepresented themselves as well by using another working title. I imagine Maher did that, too.

   While I agree the suit shouldn’t go anywhere, these sorts of ambush films are disgusting. I can kind of see doing it for public figures, but when you’re taking on small fry who can’t fight back, like Cohen and Maher have done, it’s just low.
7. Belindetta says:

   February 9, 2009 at 10:14 pm

   I worked on the film and people were told it was a film about religion, with Bill Maher. If you signed the release, as Rev. C did, without knowing who Maher is, you’re too dumb to be allowed out alone. The working title was A Spiritual Journey, but PBS was never mentioned as the outlet. Still–Bill Maher, hello? The guy could have refused to do the interview with BILL MAHER. Maher likes to pump up the tomfoolery in his interviews, but he was high most of the time. If the film’s funny at all, it’s Larry Charles, not Maher.
8. Polichinello says:

   February 10, 2009 at 6:01 am

   If you signed the release, as Rev. C did, without knowing who Maher is, you’re too dumb to be allowed out alone.

   So, basically, you’re worked on a film that picked on people who have committed the unforgivable sin of not knowing who Bill Maher is?

   Yeah, that’s something swell to put on your list of accomplishments.
9. Grant Canyon says:

   February 10, 2009 at 6:49 am

   “So, basically, you’re worked on a film that picked on people who have committed the unforgivable sin of not knowing who Bill Maher is?”

   The film didn’t “pick[] on people.” Maher asked them to display their religious nuttery and they did so, freely. He wasn’t even-handed (no filmmaking (or any other art, for that matter) is even-handed), but he was fair to them.
10. Polichinello says:

    February 10, 2009 at 7:03 am

    And it was the unvarnished, unedited truth? C’mon. At any rate, it most certainly did pick on people. The filmakers went out and found all sorts of cranks and used them to make a general argument about religion.

    Also, Belindetta’s comment notwithstanding, it turns out that Maher himself admits they used dishonest tactics:
    http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/the_big_picture/2008/08/bill-maher-hate.html

    So how did Maher manage to get all these people to actually talk to him? Since “Religulous” was directed by Larry Charles, who also did “Borat,” I suspected that subterfuge and trickery were involved. I was not far wrong. Here’s how Maher pulled it off:

    On how he got people to talk to him: “It was simple: We never, ever, used my name. We never told anybody it was me who was going to do the interviews. We even had a fake title for the film. We called it ‘A Spiritual Journey.’ It didn’t work everywhere. We went to Salk Lake City, but no one would let us film there at all.”

    On the element of surprise: “Larry Charles’ theory is–just keep going till they throw you out. I guess he learned that on ‘Borat.’ The crew would set up and at the last second, when the cameras were already rolling, I would show up. So either they’d be seen on camera leaving the interview and lose face or they’d have to talk to me. It was like–‘And now here’s … Bill!’ You could usually see the troubled looks on their faces. At the Holy Land theme park, the PR woman freaked out and finally told us to leave. She was definitely not a happy camper.”

    If you enjoy this sort of thing, fine. That’s your right, and it’s still a free country. I find it contemptible, just as I find it contemptible when Ben Stein does the same thing.
11. Grant Canyon says:

    February 10, 2009 at 2:24 pm

    “And it was the unvarnished, unedited truth? C’mon. At any rate, it most certainly did pick on people.”

    I’m not saying that it was unvarnished or unedited. But if someone is a crank, it’s not picking on them to point out that they are cranks.

    “The filmakers went out and found all sorts of cranks and used them to make a general argument about religion.”

    There were some cranks in there, for sure, but not all were cranks. Furthermore, cranks are part of religion. If you did a documentary that excluded the cranks, that would be dishonest.
12. Polichinello says:

    February 10, 2009 at 2:43 pm

    I’m not saying that it was unvarnished or unedited. But if someone is a crank, it’s not picking on them to point out that they are cranks.

    Luring people into interviews under false pretenses is pretty creepy thing to do on its own. Doing it to individuals who have little to no experience with sort of thing and have pretty much no means of fighting back is beyond creepy.
13. Polichinello says:

    February 10, 2009 at 2:46 pm

    Furthermore, cranks are part of religion. If you did a documentary that excluded the cranks, that would be dishonest.

    I rather doubt you’d take the same position if a documentary on homosexuals spent a proportional amount of time to “bug chasers” and bathhouses.
14. Grant Canyon says:

    February 10, 2009 at 3:23 pm

    “Luring people into interviews under false pretenses is pretty creepy thing to do on its own.”

    How were they lured? They were told that they were going to be in a movie about religion and they agreed to be in it. Now, they might not have been happy with the approach to the subject that Maher was taking, but they could have stopped the minute they saw Maher.

    The fact that they didn’t use Maher’s name (or Ben Stein’s name in his movie) is a bit underhanded, but it doesn’t really bother me. As long as they aren’t editing the footage to make them appear to say something that the subjects aren’t actually saying, the fact that they were less than upfront in getting the interview is sometimes necessary to get the interview.

    “Doing it to individuals who have little to no experience with sort of thing and have pretty much no means of fighting back is beyond creepy.”

    Nonsense. They could have halted the process at any time. Just because, in retrospect, they were given hard questions and their answers were foolish doesn’t mean that they were lured or that they couldn’t do anything.

    I am reminded of the movie “Jesus Camp.” In the movie, there are a bunch of religious people who babble gibberish and pretend that they’re talking other languages, “speaking in tongues.” The main pastor in the movie apparently later commented that she couldn’t understand why the film repeatedly noted them babbling this gibberish, because, to her, “speaking in tongues” was a normal, unremarkable thing. She complained that she was made to look foolish, but the fact is that she was doing a foolish thing. It was her actions, and not the actions of the filmmakers in passively filming it, that generated the foolishness. Same here. If you are being interviewed on camera and you go on and on about some crazy religious view, you really don’t have cause to complain that you were made to look foolish when you’re shown going on and on about those crazy religious views.

    “I rather doubt you’d take the same position if a documentary on homosexuals spent a proportional amount of time to ‘bug chasers’ and bathhouses.”

    Do you mean proportional as in proportional to the their numbers among the homosexual population? No, I wouldn’t complain so long as it’s done truthfully. (And I thought that the whole “bug chaser” thing was an internet myth, anyway [or mostly so.])

    But I don’t believe that Maher attempted to say that all religious are cranks, and, in fact, he went out of his way to point out that most religious people aren’t cranks.
15. Polichinello says:

    February 10, 2009 at 3:37 pm

    Jesus Camp is a different film, as wasn’t going out of its way to make people look ridiculous. I never got the sense of being manipulated. They showed the camp as it was and you got both sides of the story. Nor am I aware of any kind of dishonesty being practiced on the part of the filmmaker.

    That was not the case with Maher and Charles’ project, which used deception to get onto a premise and then put unprepared, inexperienced subjects in a spot that had been deliberately set up to make them look bad by experienced filmmakers with scads of cash. I found the whole project creepy and bullying.

    No, I wouldn’t complain so long as it’s done truthfully.

    Yeah, right.
16. faith 19 says:

    February 10, 2009 at 3:47 pm

    I was at the taping of the film. The one you all locked out after you had sat up the cameras. No one knew Bill Maher was a part of A Spiritual Jouney film. Maher even admited he and Larry Charles Lied to get people in the film on CNN. Get Ready for Deframation of Character and Racial Profiling, Somebody must be paid like somebody is already getting paid. The editing was wicked Cummings never stuttered you Satanists did that href=”#comment-5352″>@Belindetta
17. Grant Canyon says:

    February 10, 2009 at 4:00 pm

    I never got the sense of being manipulated.
    Yeah, right.

    Nor am I aware of any kind of dishonesty being practiced on the part of the filmmaker.
    Yeah, right.

    I found the whole project creepy and bullying.
    Yeah, right. Sure you did.

Comments are closed.