The Audience is Biased
We got an interesting experiment this weekend as Bill Maher’s anti-religious screed Religulous and David Zucker’s right-wing satire An American Carol both opened. The two films were about tied in terms of total revenue but Carol was on three times as many screens, so basically Religulous was far more successful.
I think this mostly reflects something I wrote about a couple of years ago — the moviegoing audience is very demographically similar to the Democratic Party voting audience. It’s disproportionately young, disproportionately childless, and tilted toward residents of big cities and away from residents of rural communities. Conversely, the audience for television news is demographically very conservative (older, white, and a bit more prosperous than average) which is one major reason TV news coverage tilts right. The big screen audience for what looks like a witless screed against God is just a lot bigger than the big screen audience for what looks like a witless screed against Michael Moore.
57 Responses to “The Audience is Biased”
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October 6th, 2008 at 10:05 am
I saw Religulous, and if you think all it is is an anti-religious screed, you’re missing out on one of the smartest comedies I’ve ever seen.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:09 am
“the moviegoing audience is very demographically similar to the Democratic Party voting audience. It’s disproportionately young, disproportionately childless, and tilted toward residents of big cities and away from residents of rural communities. Conversely, the audience for television news is demographically very conservative (older, white, and a bit more prosperous than average)”
Yuperooni.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:11 am
The big screen audience for what looks like a witless screed against God is just a lot bigger than the big screen audience for what looks like a witless screed against Michael Moore
Wouldn’t they be the same thing? Don’t we lefties think Michael Moore is god?
October 6th, 2008 at 10:13 am
Yuperooni, you trutfund scumbag.
Fixed it for you there, Petey.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Er…that would be trustfund, not trutfund.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:19 am
I read a scathing review of American Carol in the Miami Herald, but the best line of the review was reserved for “Religulous”: “so bad it will make even hard-core atheists want to go to church.”
October 6th, 2008 at 10:19 am
I recently caught a pretty interesting documentary on Sid Caesar on Showtime. Worth TiVo-ing, if you catch it on the schedule.
Caesar’s TV show started in the late 40’s, when television was mostly confined to cities, and thus was able to be a helluva lot more interesting and sophisticated than what we normally think of as airing on the wasteland.
They make the point that Caesar’s show eventually was killed by competition from the Lawrence Welk Show in the mid-50’s, as TV grew to cover suburban and rural areas. Caesar’s more sophisticated stuff had no grip on the non-urban audience.
The takeaway being that at the dawn of television, TV had the “movie demographic” for a few years.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:20 am
Call both witless screeds without seeing either — how fair and balanced! You’ll make the MSM yet, MY!
October 6th, 2008 at 10:22 am
If the moviegoing audience is demographically similar, is it also ideologically similar, and movies reflect that? You seem to be suggesting this, since your argument is that TV news tilts conservative b/c its audience is rural older conservatives.
Which I guess leaves me a bit hopeless about the Dems, since most movies continue to herald patriarchal values (when they bother, they portray any powerful woman as unique and surprising, and of course her power is always made less threatening to men b/c of her big breasts), at times knee-jerk patriotism bordering on xenophobia (was I the only one who thought Independence Day was a satire?), and pure idiocy.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Stav: Make sure & let us know who the Miami Herald reviewer was that hated Religulous so much, so that I’ll know to never, ever, ever, ever listen to any review that idiot writes.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:24 am
Or read, perhaps.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Matt, can we have a more thorough dissection of your impressions of Maher’s movie. What scenes were mindless tripe? Which ones provoked curiosity or deeper thought? Where was it dishonest or sensationalistic, where did it evoke bigotry, hatred or disrecpect of religion? Please, flesh out “witless” for your readers.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:31 am
My Catholic, church-going sister said “Rel” was the best movie she’s seen this year. But I’ll trust MY’s take on it, since, even though he hasn’t seen it, he has a BLOG!
October 6th, 2008 at 10:34 am
“Where was it dishonest or sensationalistic, where did it evoke bigotry, hatred or disrecpect of religion?”
The funny thing about the religion wars is that the anti-religious zealots are pretty much just as stupid as the religious zealots.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:35 am
I’m totally out of the loop on movies so I didn’t know about either of these (so really I’m just late to the party), but did David Zucker just call himself the master of American satire? I don’t think he’s made a good movie without Leslie Nielsen. And now this.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Just because one finds Maher and/or his movie entertaining, it doesn’t necessarily follow that you agree with the movie’s premise. It may also indicate that people who like the movie are secure enough in their belief system that they can still enjoy comic attempts to lampoon it. Which points to a larger problem: the self-appointed values crowd take themselves way too seriously.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:40 am
I know this makes me an elitist but David Zucker has never made a good movie.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:45 am
“I know this makes me an elitist but David Zucker has never made a good movie.”
It doesn’t make you an elitist. It makes you an idiot.
Dude did genius work in the 80’s.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Perhaps reading too much into two box office failures, but also perhaps misleading selection of examples. From The Times today: “The film Fireproof, about a firefighter who saves his marriage by turning to God, has become a box office success.”
October 6th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Rich: One of the premises of the movie is to let the self-identified religious explain themselves, and then ask them to deal with it when they obviously and bluntly contradict themselves.
October 6th, 2008 at 10:56 am
Actually its a bit of a surprise that American Carol isn’t doing better. Bill O’Reilly and Frank Gaffney have each set up the comparison of the movie as a sign of conservative vs liberal strength in the country. Since there does not seem to be any liberals stupid enough to say that there is some political reason why liberals need to see this movie, this would seem to be a game being played by only one side.
If that side is still losing that is pretty pathetic.
October 6th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Dude did genius work in the 80’s.
No, he did not.
His movies may have some humorous moments, but there was no genius involved, it was comical, but it was obvious, derivative and on the level of The 3 Stooges or TV skit comedy.
October 6th, 2008 at 11:09 am
since most movies continue to herald patriarchal values
This is why it’s hard to take it seriously when Republicans whine about being shut out of Hollywood. Most big-budget action movies manage to fit in a lot of conservative themes. You’d think the right-wing would be able to stick to what they’re good at, rather than insisting on breaking into the “preachy comedy” genre.
“The film Fireproof, about a firefighter who saves his marriage by turning to God, has become a box office success.”
The reason Fireproof was a box office success is that it was made for only $500,000 and seems to have pulled in $12 million over the past 2 weeks. By contrast, someone was convinced to put up $20 million for American Carol. Their only hope for recouping their losses at this point is to hope that various wingnut welfare organizations make bulk purchases of the DVD.
Also, I’m not sure what the results say about the political leanings of moviegoers, other than the fact that they seem to love talking Chihuahuas.
October 6th, 2008 at 11:21 am
“witless” = possessing all the intellectual force of a Stevie Duncan comment.
October 6th, 2008 at 11:25 am
I wouldn’t say “Religulous” was witless. There were some delightfully funny moments. Still, while it was filmed (and somewhat billed) as a documentary, it was all about making fun of a lot of people.
Do they deserve to be made fun of? Perhaps – certainly, a large part of the movie’s humor was created by simply letting them speak their mind. Go and find the extremists and let them speak, and you will pick up all kinds of funny stuff. Bill Maher egged a couple of them on, but mostly it was a view of the ugly underbelly of religion.
The worst part of the movie (for me) was the ending, which was far more serious than it should have been. The ending left the humor behind and, with a series of apocalyptic images, tied religion to the end of civilization (evidently via nuclear war).
I kept hoping also, for some bit of even-handedness. Letting some of the more reasonable adherents of these religions speak, perhaps bringing in some education into the humor.
Still – I don’t regret the $6 matinee price for the movie, and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys Bill Maher’s brand of humor.
cheers
October 6th, 2008 at 11:30 am
His movies may have some humorous moments, but there was no genius involved, it was comical, but it was obvious, derivative and on the level of The 3 Stooges or TV skit comedy.
No, Zucker/Abrhams’s work seems derivative because everybody’s been copying them for 30 years. Go watch Kentucky Fried Movie, then find me something even remotely similar produced before it.
(And no, Mel Brooks doesn’t count–his sensibility is wildly different and I’ll smack you down for even trying it.)
It is obvious, sophomoric, and definitely LCD, but everything in life doesn’t have to be Tristam Shandy.
October 6th, 2008 at 11:46 am
If you haven’t seen it, how did you arrive at your opinion that the movie is it a witless screed against g-d? I assume that is your opinion and by your comment I would guess that anything that overtly questions religion is a “witless screed”? These movies don’t compare other than the box office comparison you were trying to make. You carried the comparison too far with “witless screed” opinion.
October 6th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Hey, Ygl, does it matter to show your ignorance so clearly? Maher is not an atheist, and his film has nothing to do with God. It is about religion.
October 6th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Saw the Bill Maher movie this past weekend, it was lame. Can’t imagine the new David Zucker movie would be any better.
All I know is David Zucker is very unfunny now and perhaps it’s aesthetic stalinism, but most of his “classic” comedies bring the unfunny too IMO. They haven’t aged well.
October 6th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
scythia,
Kentucky Fried Movie was derivative of The Groove Tube which was also a bad movie.
October 6th, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Re the “Witless” thing…
Folks, Yglesias said that both *looked* witless (”The big screen audience for what looks like a witless screed against God is just a lot bigger than the big screen audience for what looks like a witless screed against Michael Moore.”) And, going by previews, they did both look witless, even though I’m a pretty devout atheist who was brought up with an orthodox lifestyle and education, so I’m inclined to like the Maher movie. But the preview was certainly witless.
He doesn’t have to see the films to determine what the trailers and advertising, which are what get people in on opening weekend, look like. He has to see the films to determine if they’re any good or not, but that’s not what he’s doing there. The advertising, which he *has* seen, puts them as aimed at diametrically opposed audiences. Comparing the effect of that advertising is not film criticism, is not meant as film criticism, and stands or falls regardless of whether one movie, or both movies for that matter, was actually any damned good at all.
For all I know, Zucker has come back and actually made a massively entertaining film that skewers Michael Moore brilliantly. For all I know, Maher’s film is so brilliant that it starts actually making the teleological argument for G-d’s existence, since nobody could possibly have come up with that much humor without being divinely inspired.
Or they could both suck. I have no idea.
But I CERTAINLY can judge whether, in trailers and advertising, they look witless. And MY has it right on the nose that they do look witless.
October 6th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
Box office predictions, or subsequent post hoc analysis and demographic breakdowns is a fools game.
I don’t think even the studio heads and people paid millions of dollars to figure this stuff out always know why some things are successful, and some aren’t.
If it was that predictable, there wouldn’t be so many films that bomb.
Some movies are good, some movies are bad, some connect with audiences, and some don’t.
October 6th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Maher is not an atheist, and his film has nothing to do with God. It is about religion.
Don’t you know that to even question organized religion is to mock and disparage God? The two are one and the same. The same mechanism is at work when unpatriotic America-haters question the policies of the Bush Administration.
Not possible to question W without demonstrating your hatred for America.
October 6th, 2008 at 3:28 pm
There wasn’t a Studio marketing exec or Trailer Co. honcho in town who didn’t think that “An American Carol” would bomb. And, these are usually the most cautious people in the business. Michael Moore IS Boffo Box Office. Expecting moviegoers to rush to a picture skewering him is like expecting 50’s moviegoers to clamor to see a cheapo-dumbbell movie mocking John Wayne. You might as well pour 100M into “The Dick Clark Story” (starring Jason Biggs) or “The Ayn Rand Story” (starring Elizabet Hasselback). Bill O’Reilly? Kelsey Grammer? Where the hell was Joanne Worley and Marty Allen?
October 6th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
can’t wait to see religulous. as a non-believer, I can barely contain my excitement that it exists.
this ‘american carol’ movie, I’ve never even heard of, not once. there have been commercials for Maher’s movie for weeks now, but I have never, ever heard of that other movie. so I guess they were pretty successful seeing as nobody knows what the hell it is…I guess you just get a certain number of people lumbering into just about anything that’s in the theater. lots of people get disoriented there.
October 6th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
I’m sure there are a fair number of people out there who are both fans of Michael Moore and devoted to their religion. Moore’s hometown of Flint is a pretty Catholic place and I’m sure people like him there.
The difference between insulting God, and insulting organized religion, is less absolute than many here imply. Most people do not simply believe in “God”, they believe in a specific conception of God with particular attributes and particular manifestations- in the case of Christians, they believe in a God who was incarnate in the person of Jesus. Organized religion consists in the codification and elaboration of those propositions about the nature of God. To a Muslim, for example, to abuse the Koran is presumably equivalent to abusing God, and quite rightly (granting their premises, which of course I don’t).
October 6th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
One might think it was strange that a liberal like Mr. Yglesias would let the feast day of St. Francis go by without devoting a blog post to this man who was a true friend of the poor, a true attendant of the sick, and a true lover of nature before his time. Many Democrats are deeply inspired by the figure of St. Francis. Instead of devoting a post to some cracks that a third-rate professional celebrity makes about organized religion. Such is the intellectual and moral vacuity of the media culture today.
October 6th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
I’ve never seen anything of Bill Maher’s and don’t care to start now. I would rather spend my time meditating on St. Francis and striving to follow his example.
October 6th, 2008 at 6:07 pm
(in a high lispy Pee Wee Herman voice) Yes, let’s all celebrate Thaint Franthis, namethake of Than Francithco! Go West, boys!
All kidding aside, Hector, have you ever seen that British film Longford, about the British peer who championed the Moors killer Myra Hyndley in the 60s and 70s out of his deep faith in Catholicism and the power of forgiveness. Denominational issues aside, there are a lot of good performances in it and I suspect the subject matter would be right up your alley.
October 6th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Matt’s smarter than to confuse a critique of religion with a critique of “God.” Surely his study of philosophy taught him that if God exists, God is not a human institution.
And what would be the point of criticizing something that doesn’t exist anyway?
October 6th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
I went to see Religulous at a cineplex in northern Oklahoma City this weekend, where there was also a showing of An American Carol. I can’t say what the audience size was for AAC, but the theater for Religulous was almost packed out. At the end of the movie there were quite a few applauses and two standing ovations from some people in the first two rows.
Even as an atheist who is fervently anti-organized or disorganized religion I had some problems with Religulous. Maher tended to find only the most crackpot of chrsitians to “debate” with and his handling of Islam was pretty reprehensible. I don’t really care for Bill Maher, and if he hadn’t had made some comments on his show Poliitically Incorrect that weren’t in keeping with the pro-America feelings in the U.S. at the time, he would still be on late night ABC. Sure, Maher has his moments, but as they say around here the sun shines on a dogs ass every once in a while. I don’t like Real Time purely because Maher is a hack and his depth of thought on any issue is suspect, but at least he made a movie that had some genuinely funny moments, intentionally and at the expense of others, which is more than could be said, I gather, about An American Carol.
I have to admit, I thought AAC would be making tons of bank this weekend.
Stay away from How to Alienate People & Lose Friends, unless you thought the Devil Wears Prada should have been made about men. I love Simon Pegg, but I got the feeling he wanted to make a formula Hollywoood movie. It isn’t horrible, just not as funny as Sean of the Dead or Hot Fuzz.
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