Fall From Grace

[pktechgirlbackup]

Fall from Grace is a documentary on Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church, better known as "the god hates fags assholes." As a documentary, it was pretty fail. Basically, I learned that Fred Phelps and his descendants are batshit crazy assholes and that people are hurt when assholes protest their loved ones' funerals. I didn't learn anything about the funding or logistics of the operation. There was basically nothing on how it got started or how it's evolved. We get a bunch of unbelievably frightening quotes from Phelps + Co about why they think they're protesting, but nothing about how the system they've created rewards their behavior*, much less how they created that system. No one calls them on their obviously self-contradictory statements. Contrast with Bible Camp, which did a pretty good job of conveying the reality the subjects lived in.

And I would have killed to hear them ask one of the bikers that runs interference between Phelps and soldiers' funerals if they'd ever protected an AIDS victim's funeral.

*I believe everyone lives in a system that rewards their behavior, at least on a micro level.

Comments

[scythe-of-time.livejournal.com]

Whatever your cause, there's a time and a place to protest. Funerals (no matter whose funeral it is) are not one of them, and soldiers' funerals even less so. That's not only inappropriate, it's disgusting (and let's not even get into the why of their specific protests, much less the when and how).

That being said, I'd be interested in the why.