Remember the odious Phelps family from the Westboro Baptist Church? Well they're back, and amongst the anti-semitism and general hatred, cracks have started to appear...
Barely five minutes in and one of the members of the Westboro Baptist Church is proudly showing Louis Theroux his anti-semitic music video, a high end production that has Hasidic Jews bopping along to Hava Nagila while rubbing money on themselves. But when the Westboro Baptist Church aren’t knocking up Jew bashing videos, they’re inciting just about every ism possible. From good ol’ homophobia to a more niche form of offensiveness, in picketing the funerals of soldiers and declaring that cancer is God’s glorious wrath against human beings.
The Westboro Baptist Church, more specifically its originators the Phelps family, have upset BBC viewers before back in 2007, with a religious extremism so odious it was hard to believe they existed. This revisit was intended to be a look at cracks that have formed, with family members defecting from the group and a string of legal battles leaving them under the scrutiny of the media. However, the ‘in crisis’ portion of the programme, though highlighting the few that have managed to escape with their mental health intact, does not show any wavering in the group’s faith. In fact the lack of remorse shown by the families left behind shows a frightening dedication to their beliefs, with defectors said to have “the hottest places in hell” reserved for them, presumably burning for eternity alongside all the poofs, war heroes and brown people.
Defectors said to have “the hottest places in hell” reserved for them, presumably burning for eternity alongside all the poofs, war heroes and brown people.
Now, we’ve seen Louis smile and dither his way through a variety of testing situations; milling round the Gaza Strip, making small talk with meth heads, having to spend time with Max Clifford. But this was the first time I’ve seen his ‘innocent-abroad’ act ruffled. The members are far more hostile compared to his first visit, one casually branding him a “chief worker of iniquity”. Rather than Theroux’s usual approach of coaxing people into answering him, he comes across as grumpy and uncomfortable to be there…but not uncomfortable in a charming way like that time at the orgy. His gentle leading questions are replaced by a hacked-off Theroux clearly outlining his distaste and, unusually for him, on the attack. Coming from a man that has kept his cool arguing with a Ku Klax Klan wizard this is both terrifying and very entertaining TV.
Since his last visit, the Phelps have kicked up a national stink. For starters, publically burning the “idolatrous piece of trash” that is the Qu’ran and then becoming the focus of a supreme court case, which has pushed the First Amendment to breaking point and simultaneously propelled them into the US media. One thing the WBC crew are fond of, which I’m not sure God would be so down with, is their unashamed courting of publicity, hence why, though a little more defensive this time round, they’re quite happy to welcome back the PR shit-storm a BBC documentary will bring. I mean, how many cults do you know, bar Justin Bieber’s fans, have an active Twitter presence? As Lauren, one of the girls that escaped remarkably unscathed, points out, past the rainbow banners of ‘GOD HATES FAGS’ it looks like less of a religious crusade and more of a manifestation of egos. After a while, their very public efforts of picketing and use of inconceivably bizarre and insulting re-workings of pop songs, seem like a louder cry for attention than the drunk girl at a party begging people to do Jägerbombs with her.
They could be lifted straight out of an episode of Brass Eye. I’m guessing from the amount of people approaching them during the programme, shaking with rage, and telling them where to insert their placards, most would agree that they’re lacking in the sanity department. Yet, I don’t find them more unsettling than the anti-abortion psycho nuns that taught me at Catholic school and to a degree I don’t really find them offensive. For example, there was once a senile old man I used to walk by in Lewisham that would sit on his porch feeling up a ball-bearing gun, hurling random homophobic abuse at passers-by. What with him being clearly out of his mind, you just ignored him and walked on by. This is how I feel about the WBC, their views are so extreme and so obviously provocative that it becomes a case of not feeding the trolls. I’d like to think for every crazy ball-bearing gun stroking nutter, there’s a thousand reasonable people who’d agree to obstructing them from the publicity they so gleefully feed off.
Click here for more stories about TV & Film
Click here to follow Sabotage Times on Twitter
Click here to follow Sabotage Times on Facebook
