Dir. Larry Charles, US, 2008, 101 mins
Cast: Bill Maher, 'assorted religious idiots'
Review by Mike Bartlett
Your reaction to the “cast list” above should pretty much determine whether you go and see Religulous . If you're amused, book a ticket now; if you're outraged, stay well clear. But it's important to note that these are “idiots” we're talking about. US comedian Bill Maher sets off on an odyssey to confront some of the most extreme examples of religious mania that Larry Charles can throw at him and basically take the piss out of them. The result is a documentary that purports to be tackling “religion” but only succeeds in ribbing a few individuals. When Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 911 appeared in 2004, I was surprised by some of the criticism it received, putting it down to political differences on the part of the reviewer. But the argument went that, in making such an unsubtle diatribe, Moore was undermining the very liberalism he wanted to promote. Having watched Religulous , I'm beginning to understand that sentiment.
For a long time, I have felt that Western governments demonstrate a moral and intellectual cowardice in the face of religious fundamentalism. Maher's call to secularists to stand up for their beliefs is most welcome. He makes intelligent points – that atheism has a right to be offended too, that freedom from religion is the privilege of a developed civilisation. And he backs these up with impressive evidence. The film is very good on the history of faith – check out the similarities in representation between Jesus and the Egyptian god Horus – and scientific research – a neurological scientist has found that the brains of religious people seem considerably smaller. But frustratingly, the film doesn't explore these lines of inquiry in depth and flits between them randomly, failing to build them into a coherent case.
Maher is at least brave enough to tackle the two most controversial religious questions of our time – the debate over Darwinism and Islam's relationship with the West. His visit to a Creationist museum, where waxwork cavemen stand side-by-side with model dinosaurs, perfectly exposes the need of people who happily use the other achievements of science – mobile phones, nuclear power – to suit the facts to their beliefs and not their beliefs to the facts. And, after the hoary old sport of Christian baiting that takes up most of the film, it's telling that the section on Islam is the most serious and sensitive. His interrogation of a Muslim rap musician sees Maher at his most engaged and the decision to excerpt the film for which Theo Van Gogh was murdered is highly commendable, prompting the question of why Western governments are so timid in protecting such controversial art. Maher even dares to look into the extraordinarily complex situation regarding the Mount in Jerusalem, the place where the tension between the three Western religions reaches its apogee and the conflict between Jew and Muslim is at its most abrasive.
But to put it into perspective, there are 1 billion Muslims in the world and only 14 million Jews. This is only one of several mind-blowing statistics in the film which actually constitute its greatest contribution. For instance, Maher exclaims on the “astonishing” amount of people in American society who no longer subscribe to any religion – a mere 16%. That he thinks that figure is so high is offset by the fact that 93% of scientists are of the same inclination.
Where Religulous fails is that it is precisely of and for such a society. The opening montage gives it away – a rush of soundbites and apocalyptic shots edited at MTV speed. It's aiming for a satellite TV audience, the same “uninformed” population Moore was targeting in Fahrenheit 911 . Those who already have an investment in the subject will find nothing they didn't already know. The whole thing is played for entertainment value, from the choice of a wise-ass comedian as presenter (and he's not particularly funny) to the way interviews are cut so only his jokes survive. There's no sense of any real dialogue. Indeed, the film favours Maher so thoroughly, that it ends up being just as one-sided as an evangelical rant.
It's both messy in terms of its content and its structure. It doesn't know what it wants to be – a comedy? a documentary? – and, more crucially, where to aim its attack. Maher commits the classic error common to atheist proselytisers of conflating individual faith with organised religion. It's all very well attacking “fairy stories” like the Virgin birth and Jesus' miracles, but the crucial problem is how such beliefs become dogmatised in the interests of social and political oppression. Which is why the film should have targeted orthodox religious leaders and not the gallery of nutcases we're presented with. Like Michael Moore before them, Charles and Maher could have done with focusing their anger; just laughing at people does not constitute an argument.
Ultimately, the problem with Religulous is that it scores its finest point in the first five minutes. Visiting a truckers' church in the deep south, Maher starts to question the congregation about their beliefs. One burly guy at the back stands up and growls, “If you question my God, I'm outta here.”. And so there it is; having a religious calling means freedom from debate, freedom from self-explanation. “My right is your wrong”: the message of the film in a nutshell, making everything afterward rather redundant. It seems that in a multicultural, multi-faith society, absolute individualism only leads to absolute intolerance.
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