Representing Religion in Film

Tenzan Eaghll, Rebekka King

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781350140837
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

This is the first full-length exploration of the relationship between religion, film, and ideology. It shows how religion is imagined, constructed, and interpreted in film and film criticism. The films analyzed include The Last Jedi, Terminator, Cloud Atlas, Darjeeling Limited, Hellboy, The Revenant, Religulous, and The Secret of my Success. Each chapter offers:
- an explanation of the particular representation of religion that appears in film
- a discussion of how this representation has been interpreted in film criticism and religious studies scholarship
- an in-depth study of a Hollywood or popular film to highlight the rhetorical, social, and political functions this representation accomplishes on the silver screen
- a discussion about how such analysis might be applied to other films of a similar genre Written in an accessible style, and focusing on Hollywood and popular cinema, this book will be of interest to both movie lovers and experts alike.

CHAPTER 1

Atheistic Documentaries and the Critique of Religion in Bill Maher’s Religulous (2008)

Teemu Taira

In one of the few overviews of atheism and film, Nina Power wrote in 2013 that “surprisingly little has been written about the relationship between atheism and film at the formal or conceptual level” (Power 2013, 727). This is still true. There are also few empirical, in-depth examinations of atheism in individual films. At the same time, however, there has been a rise of atheistic documentary films in the first decades of the twenty-first century. This is related to the increasing interest in atheism, particularly the rise of “new atheism,” and the development of media technology. This chapter examines how atheistic documentaries represent religion and at the same time implicitly or explicitly imagine atheist and non-religious identifications as different from religious identifications. Although several recent documentaries will be referenced in this chapter, it will focus on the 2008 “comic documentary” Religulous, directed by Larry Charles and written by comedian Bill Maher. This chapter demonstrates how a particular representation of religion (and atheism) is constructed in documentary films through the selection of certain types of religious people, texts, places, and “experts” to signify what is considered typical for religion(s). Furthermore, the analysis proceeds to clarify how twenty-first-century atheistic documentaries, and Religulous in particular, have functioned to construct and solidify atheistic identities. It details the cinematic and comic means by which the construction is done and argues that the result is a very unique and modern understanding of both religion and atheism. In a fascinating way, these documentaries provide a case study of identity construction, detailing how religion and non-religion are imagined in contemporary cinema.

The cultural studies approach utilized in combination with perspectives from the study of religion is not new as such (Miles 1996; Wright 2006; see also Eaghll 2019). Margaret Miles outlined that in the cultural studies approach, film is “one voice in a complex social conversation, occurring in a historical moment” (Miles 1996, xiii) and it pays attention to “the social, political, and cultural matrix in which the film was produced and distributed” (Miles 1996, xiii). To pursue analysis in line with this basic idea, I shall introduce one concept that has not been at the center of religion and film.

The main theoretical concept that characterizes my approach is articulation. The term is used here in line with cultural studies scholars Stuart Hall and Lawrence Grossberg (Grossberg 1986; 1992; Slack 1996), for whom articulation is a concept that characterizes a process in which various contingent elements are connected with or linked to each other—and other elements are disarticulated at the same time—through signifying, affective, and material practices. Articulations construct (contingent and temporary) unity or identity out of available raw materials. Some articulations are resilient and some are not, but what matters is that the effectivity of practices, including cinematic representations, depends on successful articulations between elements. What these elements are depends on the context, but in the case of the identity construction highlighted in this chapter, religion—in addition to science, gender, race, and class—plays an important role. In some cases, the elements are more or less equal, and in other cases one element can be more dominant than others, but this is an empirical question. Articulation is a useful concept when analyzing social processes in which collective identifications are imagined and constructed. In this study it is applied to the focus of the analysis, namely, how Religulous connects various elements within its representations to create an identity position and how the representations function as attempts to articulate the documentary film itself in relation to wider social struggles (e.g., atheist movements). Therefore, articulation is not limited to the analysis of film as an isolated text, but it helps us to study the particular “cultural moment in which the film originated” (Miles 1996, 23) and even its potentially continuing role in social formation.

Atheism, Film, and Documentary

There are not many films that emphasize the atheistic nature of their key characters, and few blockbusters have an atheist protagonist. One notable popular exception is Inherit the Wind (1960), based on the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925. However, there are several self-identified atheistic directors whose works have been addressed in studies focusing on atheism and film, such as David Cronenberg, Pier Paolo Pasolini and Dziga Vertov (Power 2013). They are not examples of criticism of religion but reflect a sympathetic approach to religion by atheists, as in the case of Pasolini’s The Gospel According to St. Matthew (Il Vangelo secondo Matteo 1964). There are also popular films that have drawn accusations of blasphemy, such as Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) and The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), but they do not deal with atheism as such.

It is notable that documentaries, rather than fiction films, have become a vehicle for popular atheistic criticism and identity politics in the first decades of the twenty-first century. Examples are Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief (2004–7, also known as A Brief History of Disbelief), The Atheism Tapes (2004), The God Who Wasn’t There (2005), The Root of All Evil? (2006), The Enemies of Reason (2007), The Four Horsemen (2008), Faith School Menace (2010) and The Unbelievers (2013). These documentaries address the question of how humans should live. Although most films do this at least implicitly (Miles 1996, 7), these examples are as explicit as one can be about what is not their favored worldview. None of them target specific groups but religiosity in general. Moreover, although the documentaries promote atheism, they do not describe the atheistic lifestyle in detail (i.e., most of them are primarily not documentaries about atheism and atheists but documentaries that are critical of religion).

These documentaries would not have been made without the existence of people interested in criticism of religion. Some of them refer to 9/11 and Islamic terrorism explicitly, and many address more mundane worries about the organization of education, for instance, in a particular country. Furthermore, certain people are interested in doing these documentaries, meaning that production has revolved around a small number of atheistic celebrities. For example, Richard Dawkins has been involved in more than half of the films mentioned earlier. In addition, the development of media technologies, particularly in terms of distribution, has facilitated their reach. Many of the documentaries have been broadcast on television, it is possible to buy them as DVDs and some can be watched via video-streaming services. Contemporary documentaries generally have potential for broad dissemination at very low cost, and their form is sufficiently entertaining. As Nichols (2017, 1) argues, “Documentary has become the flagship for a cinema of social engagement and distinctive vision.” These factors are relevant, but they only partially explain why the documentary format has become so important for atheistic representations of religion.

Documentaries are defined as consisting of nonfiction that makes claims about what the described phenomenon is like (Bonner 2013, 62). Although it is now commonplace both to question whether any representation can be coherent with the world outside of its representations and to challenge the dichotomy between what is made up and what is not, there is still (unspoken) agreement that the documentary film should be realistic in style (i.e., it is difficult to make a film in the genre of science fiction or romantic soap opera and get people to interpret it as a documentary). It is perhaps for this reason that the audiovisual options that atheists choose lean toward the documentary approach; if atheists wish to propose that religions are irrational and out of touch with reality, then documentary film is probably the most efficient and obvious choice.

Religulous—A “Comic Documentary”

Most of the twenty-first-century atheistic documentaries are stylistically and aesthetically quite conservative. Religulous follows a different style, as it breaks partly with the conventions of realism, borrowing from an approach that was made popular by American documentary filmmaker Michael Moore. What is typical for Moore’s documentary films is an openly taken (political) position that utilizes emotional narratives. In one sense, documentary films can be defined and understood as always being about the argument that the filmmakers construct—they select, edit, and organize the raw material in a narrative form—but Moore is clear that he does not simply document a phenomenon or conform to an observational style; thus, he not only interviews people but also participates in the action seen on the screen, arguing for a certain position in a much more radical manner than what is typical for documentary films. In other words, Moore is an opinionated presenter rather than an anonymous and omniscient narrator (Nichols 2017, 4). He is often seen on the screen and in many cases the camera follows what he is doing, rather than documenting what is happening outside of Moore’s own involvement. This has been called a reflexive mode, because the documentary reveals itself as constructed text, but Moore’s style often overlaps with the performative mode, too, because the main character performs actions that constitute the main content of the documentary (Bonner 2013, 69–70).

A similar style has been adopted in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed (2008), a documentary that defends intelligent design, directed by Nathan Frankowski and presented by Ben Stein, and in Borat (2006), written and produced by Sacha Baron Cohen. Given that Borat was also directed by Larry Charles, it is not surprising that a comparable style is adopted in Religulous. Religulous has been branded as a “comic documentary,” suggesting that it is not conventional and does not fully adhere to the genre of documentary film. In addition, its name is a portmanteau word, consisting of “religious” and “ridiculous,” leading people to expect an approach that laughs at religions, not with them.

The United States has been the most fertile ground for the content of Religulous. This is partly because of the examples it deals with. For instance, it highlights the debate between evolution and creationism, which is much more prominent in the United States than in Europe. Visits to religious theme parks, such as the Holy Land Museum and Creation Museum, reflect the American context. During the year of its release, Religulous was the most successful documentary film in the United States, grossing over 13 million dollars at the box office. It was much less successful outside the United States, but its theater distribution was limited.¹ It has taken in almost 10 million dollars in DVD sales, and it has been widely available for free via video-streaming services. Overall, this suggests that people around the world have seen (and possibly enjoyed) it. Currently, Religulous is the 25th-highest grossing documentary in the United States.

One of the film’s promotional images (also used on the DVD cover) demonstrates its content relatively well. In the picture, three apes are sitting next to each other, each wearing the accoutrements (hat/cap and necklace) of a different religion: Judaism, (Roman Catholic) Christianity, and Islam. One of the apes covers its eyes, one its ears, and one its mouth. The choice of symbols reveals that the main target of the film’s criticism is “Abrahamic religions,” although it deals with Scientology and Mormonism, too. The film pays little attention to Eastern traditions—due to their lack of relevance to the US audience, according to the filmmakers (French 2008)—despite the reference to the three wise monkeys embodying the principle “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil,” familiar in Japanese culture and other parts of Asia. The intended meaning of the three monkeys in this context is feigning ignorance or a lack of moral responsibility, which the film attributes to religion.

The two slogans used in the promotion material were “The end is near,” where “end” is crossed out and replaced with “truth,” and “When religion gets ridiculous.” The first plays with the apocalyptic phrase, known particularly in Christianity, suggesting that the motto is untrue and the film reveals the truth behind the false religions. The second simply breaks down the portmanteau word of the film’s title and clarifies its approach of morally superior atheism dissecting religion.

Religulous can be divided into more than twenty encounters between Bill Maher and a variety of religious and anti-religious individuals. Several underline the irrationality and anti-scientific nature of religion, such as the interview with Ken Ham at the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. Ham states here that the museum’s purpose is to teach visitors that “the Bible is true, from Genesis to Revelation,” after which he argues that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time, as depicted at the museum. Some encounters underline the harmful nature of religions. This theme is perhaps most explicit at the beginning of the film, when Maher refers to Catholic child abuse, the Danish cartoon controversy, and religious suicide bombings to frame the context of the documentary.

The film merits a more detailed examination, however, as studying these articulation processes reveals how the atheist message and identity position are constructed in the film and further connected to atheist struggles.

The Construction of “Us” and “Them”

When inviting people to be interviewed for the documentary, Maher used a different title for the film. This was A Spiritual Journey, which prompts completely different associations than the final title. Nor did the production team mention Maher’s name, because he might have been linked to a disrespectful attitude toward religion. This is how Maher described the recruitment of interviewees:

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.” [. . .] 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. (Goldstein and Rainey 2008)

Religulous does not describe what the atheistic lifestyle looks like, although it includes some of Maher’s autobiographical aspects and in that way offers glimpses of what an atheistic life might mean in practice. It is primarily by representing religious others that it constructs a mirror image of the atheistic position. The statement about the strategy to find participants for the project is questionable in terms of documentary ethics, but the most important points for the purposes of this exploration are that the atheistic identity is predominantly constructed via its Other—religious people who were expected to have doubts about the documentary—and that the team was willing to use whatever material was gathered whenever the camera was rolling in order to present those people in the way the team wanted.

There are some moments, however, when the exposition of atheism is not done through the description of what it is not. For example, Maher talks about his family background and upbringing before starting his journey to the various locations where he meets religious people. Maher is a white man with a religiously mixed family background; his mother is Jewish and his father Roman Catholic. Maher is a relatively typical non-religious person in the United States, because sociological evidence shows that non-religious people are likely to be white men, and a religiously mixed heritage increases the likelihood of becoming non-religious—particularly when one of the parents is not religious (Zuckerman 2014, 93–94). Maher is far from typical, however. He is a known comedian and a critic of religion. Identifying as agnostic, he claims to preach “the Gospel of I don’t know.” At the same time, he proposes that religion is detrimental to the progress of humanity and that religion prevents people from saving the world. The implication is that saving the world is the task of non-religious people, because they do not worry about an afterlife and punishment all the time. Such comments are far from what Maher says about the “humbleness of doubt.” The contrary attitude supports the overall message of Religulous: for those who are right, it is time to act. As Maher says at the end of the documentary: “This is why rational people, anti-religionists, must end their timidity and come out of the closet and assert themselves.”

All this reveals that the main target audience for the documentary is not those who are committed to a religious position. It is those who are sitting on a fence, who are undecided, indifferent, or quiet about their views. Religulous is, therefore, part of a much wider atheist identity politics, which animates the phenomenon generally known as new atheism as well as a good number of secular organizations (Taira 2012; see also Cimino & Smit...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Dedication
• Title
• Contents
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• Introduction Three Film Critics Walk into a Theater: The Ideological Blindspot in the Academic Study of Religion and Film
• 1 Atheistic Documentaries and the Critique of Religion in Bill Maher’s Religulous (2008)
• 2 Capitalism, the Hero’s Journey, and the Myth of Entrepreneurship in The Secret of My Success (1987) and Joy (2015)
• 3 Oprah, Mindy, and Reese: “The Gaze” and the Holy Trinity of Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time (2018)
• 4 Race, Colonialism, and Whiteness in Martin Scorsese’s Silence (2016)
• 5 We Haven’t Located Us Yet: The Mystic East in Wes Anderson’s The Darjeeling Limited (2007)
• 6 Lost in Žižek, Redeemed in Cloud Atlas (2012): Buddhism and Other Tales of “Asian Religions” in Western Cinema and Affective Circulation
• 7 Magical Realism, Anti-Modernity, and the Religious Imaginaries of Latin American Cinema: A Look through Ciro Guerra’s The Wind Journeys (2009)
• 8 Unsettling Settler-Colonial Myths about Native Americans in The Revenant (2015)
• 9 From the Horrors of Human Tragedy and Social Reproduction to the Comfort of a Demonic Cult: Agency in Hereditary (2018)
• 10 Superheroes, Apocalyptic Messiahs, and Hellboy (2004)
• 11 AI Apocalypticism and the Religious Impulse in, and from, the Terminator (1984–2019) Franchise
• 12 Myth of the Auteur and the Authentic in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017)
• Conclusion Religion as Film: Constructing a Course as a Critique of a Dominant Paradigm
• Notes
• References
• Index
• Copyright