Saturday
30Aug2008
Is This 'Religulous' Boycott for Real?
Saturday, August 30, 2008 at 7:12PM
I'd like to think this is fake, a bit of controversy
carefully manipulated by a movie studio to raise awareness of their film. I
hesitate to call it viral, because I hesitate to call anything that. Regardless,
it definitely fits the description.
So what do you think? Are these guys real? My first reaction was that it was a set up, because their positions are so bizarre, at least to the rational set. (I mean, what does their stance on Lionsgate actually mean, anyway?) However, the first video is so long that it doesn't seem like a satire; if it were professionally done, I would think it would be more direct. Then I went to their website, which has a few videos, some of the band's songs, and a message board dating back almost a year and a half. Of course, you can fudge publishing dates on blog posts with no problem, so that didn't convince me.
I checked their Whois info and the domain was registered back in February 2007, which seems awfully early to be associated with this movie, unless Maher and company knew (before they had a distributor for a film that wasn't yet completed) that they wanted to do a pro-Christian counterpoint website called The Rapture Right to generate some buzz. On the flip side, the registration info lists an address in Burbank. Could be nothing... After a little more digging, I found more music videos for the band on You Tube, which were posted in March 2007. In order for those to be a ruse, Maher would've had the whole idea mapped out, actors cast, music written, song recorded, and video produced long before his own movie was even finished. That's probably unlikely. There is the possibility, however remote, that The Rapture Right is a gag - some kind of performance art or something - that mocks Christianity through one of its most annoying characters: The Christian rocker. And perhaps as part of that ongoing performance, they saw the opportunity to latch onto this film, which would clearly upset that character. That makes the most sense to me. But what if these guys are real? Unquestionably, there are guys like this out there, which is scary enough, I guess.Colin Boyd | Permalink | in Documentary, Religulous, Video | Print Article | Email Article | 3 Comments | Share Article
Reader Comments (3)
I suspect these guys are a professional comedy team hired by Maher's production company to make these videos, which are laced with too many absurdities to be real...I find it hard to believe that neither of these guys saw Lion Witch and the Wardrobe before their foolish rant on the "symbolism" of Lions!
I like the "Beat on the Street" logo graphics in the second vid: the letters B and S are in a font that is about 8000 times bigger than the rest of the letters...
Read their blog and get a clue, man! Some very fine sarcasm there.....
I'd say I'm 98% confident that they are not for real. Just clever satire.