There are two types of people in the world: Thinkers and Believers.
To my overseas readers: If you’re ever struggling to understand why Americans behave like we do, it’s primarily because our national psyche is fundamentally schizophrenic – we’re a nation born in bottom-against-top revolution, and we still haven’t quite figured out how to reconcile our self-image (“scrappy underdog”) with our post-WWII “Superpower” status.
You can see this divided-mindset in the platform of the Republican Party as embodied (this week, anyway) by Mitt Romney; which bases it’s political appeal entirely on telling white heterosexual Christian men – the least oppressed, most culturally-dominant, most unduly-priviliged class of human beings ever to walk the Earth – that other types of people becoming their social/cultural equals or no longer seeing their culture held as the only or most important qualify as acts of oppression against them.
If you’ve got cable, you’ve probably seen the trailers for “Last Ounce of Courage” and divined that it’s a kind of sappy-looking family movie about the surviving relatives of a dead veteran (angsty teen son and aging-biker grandfather, primarily) getting their shit back together to fight some kind of local corruption. Well… those are the general-release “stealth” trailers – designed to make it look like a real movie when it’s actually a Christian-Right propaganda piece. Here’s the REAL trailer, in which we learn that the evil our heroes are fighting is one of the favorite boogeymen of make-believe oppression: “The War on Christmas.”
I for one can’t wait for the innevitable scene where assholes who insist on barking “MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!” back at anyone (particularly service employees) who dares to wish them “Happy Holidays” are lionized like they were freaking’ MLK…
Speaking of which, gotta appreciate that they went all-out with “Sinister Black Politician” as the leader of the Christianity-smashing efforts – I can’t imagine who THAT’S supposed to remind me of. I also love the little dipshit onstage holding up the American Flag in the middle of a High School Nativity play: A more perfect symbol of present-day religious conservatism I couldn’t have imagined.
Film opens September 14th – unsurprisingly, it doesn’t seem to be screening for us godless round-Earth-believin’ science-lovin’ critic types. Ah, well.
MOVIEBOB CENTRAL 
Did…did he drape an American flag over his motorcycle as a dust cover?
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Thanks for making all Christians out to be evil bigots, Bob. Your arrogance and hypocrisy know no boundaries.
And no, I'm not a Christian. Just fed up with your smugness and ego.
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@”Not a christian”
Only the Sith deal in absolutes; he's only going “Hey guys, look at these clowns, screwing it up for everyone else”.
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I really wish these Christians (note: not ALL Christians, this particular subset) would realize that having your special privlidges revoked isn't the same as having rights taken away.
You're being asked to be treated like EVERY OTHER RELIGION is treated, and not be the 'special' one who gets special treatment.
You can put your 10 commandments up when the Wiccan Rede & the 9 Satanic Statements and every other religious ruleset can be placed right beside it.
We don't object to “Under God” cause we hate your religion, we object to it for the same reason you'd object to being in nation that said “Under Odin” or “Under Horus”
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@ Offended commenter:
Bob never criticized all Christians in this post, just those who cling to the Republican party to shield them from things like diversity and tolerance. I'm sure Bob doesn't believe all Christians are evil. Try reading more carefully next time.
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As an ex-Christian, this makes me cringe.
Anonymous dude #2: Bob doesn't have to try at all to make Christians out to be bigots…most of them are.
Not to mention babies; they hold the status quo in this country (big fuckin' time) and still have the audacity and ego to claim they're being oppressed…particularly when the classes they've oppressed for so long are merely coming out of their holes to gain a little piece of that squandered Christian pie.
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I must say, the funniest part of this trailer is the attempt to make a bunch of bullies' tamper tantrum appear like some struggle of epic proportion.
“We will Fight! For our Freedom! to… huh… annoy people during the holidays season with impunity. Because! This is our unalienable Right!“
***
@ Anonymous:
Give credit where credit is due: to the studio who made this unforgettable trailer and who thought smart to give the name of a pagan deity to a christian organization.
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This movie looks stupid and this is coming Born Again Christian. MY GOD There is no Anti-Christian conspiracy going on in America. This movies only purpose seems to me to be to troll less intelligent Christians into thinking there is.
Also find it hard to believe that this is getting a theatrical release, It looks like a made for lifetime movie (just with heavier religious over tones)
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The entire plot of this movie is just dumb, but what if, instead of Christianity that was being oppressed (in AMERICA? *rolls eyes*) What if it was Islam that was outlawed. That feels a lot more probable, in my humble opinion. And a better movie that isn't just bring preachy. I dunno, This movie should just go fuck itself because the plot just wouldn't happen.
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You know, I could mock the RIDICULOUSLY stupid premise (and the overblown politics attached to it) or how there is a trailer that is literally not being shown outside of Churches and how DUMB that makes them look.
But you know what? That's no fun. Can I just mock the production values? I mean, skipping the terrible acting on display and a script which, if it's on the level shown in the trailer, is easily Razzie level, can we just talk about how cheap it looks? It looks like it was shot in a weekend.
Oh and Christians offended by it getting mocked? I'm not mocking your movie for being Christian, I'm mocking it for being stupid, overblown, preachy and poorly made. There are Christian based movies I like, Christian based movies I love even. Like Saved! Or Jesus of Nazareth. Or…well I suppose you wouldn't like me mentioning Last Temptation eh? Well, my point stands.
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This kind of stupid shit just makes me even more convinced that giving up Catholicism is one of the best decisions I've ever made.
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In any other movie, I'd automatically assume the guy with the crazy Just For Men hair and the glasses standing on a roof, wearing a flak jacket, spouting rhetoric at spellbound believers, was the bad guy who'd just stolen a nuke or somesuch and would wait to see which one of the Expendables was going to come along and save the day with a machine gun. But no…that guy is the hero. Right.
Also, speaking as someone from the UK here, I will never understand why Christianity in America has adopted the country's flag so heavily, as if it's as much a symbol of their faith as a cross. I've been to plenty of churches over here – and was a Sunday School kid for years – and I've never once seen a union jack or a saltire inside one. It seems incredibly…xenophobic, maybe; “You're not a REAL AMERICAN IN AMERICA unless you're with US!“
P.S. Since nobody seems to have mentioned it yet, HEY BOB OBAMA IS AS BAD AS BUSH AND ROMNEY WHY DONT YOU ADMIT IT SO I CAN FEEL SMUG. There ya go, saved the regulars the trouble! 😉
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You are giving your own religion a bad name. It REALLY amazes me at how badly a lot of Christians represent themselves.
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@Craig The Destroyer
Obama IS as bad as Bush. Don't give people shit just for pointing out the truth.
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Anyone else think that Bob has become a left-wing Limbaugh? Because posts like this serve as pretty good evidence that he has gone that route. (Refute this if you can, Chipman).
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I've got to thank Bob for bringing this up because it's something I've been think about a lot lately…
I contend that there is absolutely no empirical evidence suggesting that whites, males, or Christians are “privileged” in any statistically significant way. Every relevant study I've seen over the last 10 years or so (basically, as long as I've been paying attention) has suggested that influence is directly proportional to income, income is directly proportional to education level, and that all other factors have pretty much a nil effect.
And, I don't want to hear and BS about how privilege manifests in vague, unspecified ways that are inherently untestable and unfalsifiable. I want to see fucking numbers, preferably from with-in the last decade.
I'm not saying that minorities don't have to deal with shit… everyone has to deal with shit. Forces for social change fought long and hard for equality, and at some point they're going to have to accept that they actually achieved it.
PS – Yes, the movie looks incredibly stupid and not really worth comment or thought beyond that.
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Excuse me while I go bang my head against the wall.
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@TheAlmightyNarf
So you have to ask yourself, which class of people have had an intrinsic better access to wealth and the privileges associated with that due to generations of enforced disparity? And which class is thus better able to “look after their own” by support networks that are targeted at friends and family in the same class?
“Equality of oppertunity” applies only when the playing field is level. And you can gauge that by looking at measures such as Poverty indexes, and Prison Populations (Where the truly desperate often end up)
Anyone who even glances at such measures can quickly tell you that the playing field isn't level yet, and there's more to be done before “they finally achieve it”.
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it's said when it looks like you could've set the budget for this movie on fire and it would've been more entertaining, seriously the TGWTG.com anniversary specials have a hire production value then this
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How did they go from “dead son/soldier” to “War on Christmas”? Is that just a cheap ploy to win sympathy for this family? Would the target audience not be expected to automatically support them in their crusade?
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@ Jay Blanc
What did I say about untestable claims?
The issue with “support networks” is that the essentially exists with-in just the upper class… They're no more accessible for a lower-middle class white, male Christian than they are for any one else in the lower-middle class.
Let's put it like this… What if the actual reality of our country was that Asians tended to earn more than Whites; Hindus, Buddhists, Atheists and Jews all tended to earn more than Christians; and that men and women earned with-in a statistical margin of error of each other?
How does “privilege” come into play then?
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Peace Bob, I'm leaving your blog before “Thinkers and Believers” turns into “Thinkers vs. Believers”
You have become the liberal equivalent of the post 9/11 conservative hotheads who hated every muslim and liberal for the attacks that extremists were responsible for, but instead of Muslims and liberals, its Christians and conservatives.
What Christians did to you I have no idea, I really hope it wasn't something as bad as the 9/11 attacks. From my own experiences, some tend to have a “holier than thou” attitude about themselves, but that doesn't make me angry enough to hate every Christian by default.
Your “white guilt” is also disgusting. And at the same time exposes you as the racist you really are.
Maybe someday you might be able to comprehend the idea of thinkers believing in something.
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Peace Bob, I'm leaving your blog before “Thinkers and Believers” turns into “Thinkers vs. Believers”
You have become the liberal equivalent of the post 9/11 conservative hotheads who hated every muslim and liberal for the attacks that extremists were responsible for, but instead of Muslims and liberals, its Christians and conservatives.
What Christians did to you I have no idea, I really hope it wasn't something as bad as the 9/11 attacks. From my own experiences, some tend to have a “holier than thou” attitude about themselves, but that doesn't make me angry enough to hate every Christian by default.
Your “white guilt” is also disgusting. And at the same time exposes you as the racist you really are.
Maybe someday you might be able to comprehend the idea of thinkers believing in something.
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Hey Bob, grow a pair and ANSWER some of your critics.
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Can't you just leave James? We all know its you, there is no need for you to post an Anonymous.
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Just to be clear, the 8:02 Anon is not the 7:57 Anon. The 7:57 anon was myself.
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Nobody who posts Anonymously even deserves an answer. It's Bob's prerogative if he wants to respond, but you should stand behind any statement you make by at the very least identifying yourself by a regular name. If you post as Anonymous, you're just a lone voice in the wind; you could be anybody, and you're clearly not someone who cares. So why should anyone care about you?
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The old man's last name is “Revere.” Ugh, I guess him driving around on his bike is a symbolic of the Paul Revere's Midnight Ride.
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@ Obviously James
Bob doesn't owe you shit. Deal with it.
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@TheAlmightyNarf
“Untestable” claims?
You do understand that there are such things as censuses and records of prison populations?
Interesting “what if” you come up with. “If” it were so, things would indeed be different. But 2006 average income for White families averages to $54,920, Black families earned $33,916, Hispanics families earned $35,000, and Asian families earned $52,000 annually.
The greatest measure of power in 'the west' is indeed access to money. And as we see, White people get more. So your entire proposition that White Privelege does not exist is bunk, and as you can see it was so simple of me to demonstrate that I call into question the basis for your making these claims.
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AlmightyNarf: I can prove Christians are privileged. Again. “One Nation, Under God” in our pledge.
“In God We Trust” on our money.
The fact that “Should the 10 commandments be displayed in a courthouse?” is even a freaking question.
When is the last time the idea that any other religions major 'rules' should have a monument displaying them in a government building?
Why is that Obama being “secretly muslim” is a common attack obviously meant to be seen as negative to him, but every other candidate in history openly believing Jesus Christ was the savior (even Romney believes that, somewhat) is a GOOD thing?
Christianity IS privileged.
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Narf, you know, the fact that you are part of an incredibly privileged group does not mean that you, personally, are an asshole.
You're only an asshole if you are an asshole about it. Like, for instance, if you backhandedly insult people with your pathetic efforts to convince yourself that your privilege doesn't exist.
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@Andrew couldn't have said it better myself, thank you. Also yes James both me and everyone else here know that it is you, so why should Bob indulge your insipid Libertarian bullshit when you don’t even have the balls to identify yourself anymore? So please, just leave us alone and go suck on Gary Johnson’s withered old cock!
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A movie about the War on Christmas, that time of year where Atheist trolls and Christian trolls scream at each other while all the sensible people (regardless of faith) just ignore them. Would anyone else besides me prefer a Christmas movie about the 4chan trolls instead?
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@ Jay Blanc
Two problems… First, you're looking at household income and not personal income which I think is much more relevant in this scenario. Second, your not accounting for education level which I clearly specified as the single largest contributor to economic disparity (and on that point, the Hispanic average get's brought down quick a bit by there being far more Hispanic poverty stricken immigrants with little education and poor English skills than any other demographic; their average comes pretty much on par with whites if you take 1st and 2nd generation immigrants out of the equation… then there's the issue that “Hispanic” isn't really a legally defined term and is only counted by self identification, and after a few generations most Hispanics tend to just refer to themselves as “white”).
Once you start to take that variable into account, you get a very different picture.
@ Merrick_HLC
But does any of that lead to an actual quantifiable effect?
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Speaking as a Christian engineer this is interesting. I have followed Bob's online career since he debuted on the Escapist and I like many of the points he brings up, if only for the debate in my own mind and I dare say such debates have improved me as a person. I find this movie trailer mildly offensive and as a Christian would not want to associate myself with it. I have noticed for years that there is a Christian culture that assumes that the Christian point of view is the way things should be for everyone. They treat faith in Jesus as some kind of intellectual assent. Having faith in something implies that there is no evidence for it. I do not expect Christianity to make sense to anyone who does not have faith. The same culture treats every move for equality of faiths under the law as an assault on Christianity. I know Christianity isn't for everyone. I live my life respecting others decisions while having an answer for anyone who ask about what I believe and faith I have. I am tolerant in that while I do not agree with some people, I do not wish to silence them. I tolerate annoying conservatives, I tolerate annoying liberals, I tolerate people who say that in order to be a good engineer I need to believe evolution. I would like to have a debate with Bob over this if his schedule allows.
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@Narf
Do you have links to those studies? They sound interesting.
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@Narf
Yeah, that makes sense. If you just remove the significantly large number of people that prove you wrong you're not as wrong. Okay, solid. Also I'd like to question how, say, Jose Martinez would decide “yeah, I've got grandparents who were raised by immigrants from Mexico and it was a huge part of their lives. When we visit the extended family it's a giant fiesta. Sounds caucasian to me.” Unless, of course, there was some sort of stigma to NOT being white, almost like prejudice or privilege or something…
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“white heterosexual Christian men – the least oppressed, most culturally-dominant, most unduly-priviliged class of human beings ever to walk the Earth”
…
History includes more than European middle ages, Bob.
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@TheAlmightyNarf, I'm surprised to hear you claim women and minorities do not have institutional disadvantages compared white, Christian males. Here's a couple of studies I found after looking around for, like, two minutes on the topic of women's pay:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-03-16/shining-shoes-best-way-wall-street-women-outearn-men.html
http://www.aauw.org/learn/research/upload/simpletruthaboutpaygap1.pdf
Here's an article on the advantages of being white when it comes to jail sentencing:
http://www.allgov.com/news/top-stories/black-americans-given-longer-sentences-than-white-americans-for-same-crimes?news=843984
If you want to talk numbers, why don't you tell me how many hate crimes have been committed against white Christians since 9-11? Or how often the construction of a church or synagogue in NYC get protested? How white people in AZ get arrested for not having proof of citizenship? How many white people get stop-and-frisked in NYC? How many minorities are lead actors in movies or TV shows?
I'm not even going to get into the inherent advantages of being straight, because…c'mon, no one seriously denies this, right?
All these matters aside the structuring of your comment does not take into account the scope of these social problems. While in the last ten years things certainly have gotten better, that doesn't change that fact that not everyone around right now wasn't born in a time that was so egalitarian.
Let's say, hypothetically, starting in 2001, everyone was hired and paid based on education. Great, but what did it take to get a good education before 2001? Well, having rich parents to pay for your schooling sure helps. And if you were rich before the nineties, you were probably white because your parents generation wasn't so open-minded. Simply put, that fact that society is more free and open this decade doesn't change the fact that a lot people get a head start by coming from a more privileged (white) background.
So, yeah. It's pretty awesome to be a Christian white guy.
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“Film opens September 14th – unsurprisingly, it doesn't seem to be screening for us godless round-Earth-believin' science-lovin' critic types. Ah, well. “
You're not a type, Bob.
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There is a real war on Christmas Bob! I started it last year when I didn't get a PS3! That fat bastard Santa will pay! Luckily I got a rocket launcher for my birthday.
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Bob, I think you're wrong about the source of Republicans' culture of victimhood comes from. This is a feature of most if not all conservative political movements that people in a position of privilege insist that they are being oppressed or persecuted by the very minority groups they oppress or persecute.
The Nazis insisted that they were being persecuted by Jews. Apartheid South Africans insisted they were being oppressed by blacks. Islamists in Muslim-majority countries insist they are being persecuted by religious minorities.
So of course conservatives insist that rich people are being persecuted by the poor, whites are being persecuted by racial minorities, men are being persecuted by women, Christians are being persecuted by homosexuals. They're just doing what every conservative political movement ultimately does.
As for why this happens, just look at the history of the South. Every time rich white Southerners stoked the fires of the racism of poor white Southerners, it's because they were doing something to screw over poor white Southerners and needed something to distract them. “Help! You're being persecuted by nigrahs!” turned out to do the job perfectly.
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I think, in simple terms, that there isn't a wide societal “oppression” of minorities. At least not in the sense that they are actively held back as they have been in the past. I think what we're simply looking at is a scenario where our cultural mindset has outpaced our system.
In a technical sense, sure, every person has the opportunity to go to school, do well, and rise above poverty if they're in it. But access to that opportunity is harder to come by. Is that a result of the government specifically oppressing minorities? Or is it a result of an education system that hasn't budged an inch in at least a century. We still use the most outdated methods of teaching and learning of any developed nation.
I believe that if we were to do a serious overhaul of education, and fix that, then many of these issues start to come into greater focus, and be more manageable. Yet both sides of the political spectrum want to focus on band aid solutions, not to mention railing on each other rather than fix the issues.
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Wolverines!
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Next time someone claims that saying “Happy Holidays” is taking religion out of Christmas, ask them what day it is.
If it is Dec. 23, you are WRONG in saying Merry Christmas. Happy Holidays & Seasons Greetings cover all of the holidays/and general season during December. When it is actually Dec 25, then it is the correct time to use Merry Christmas.
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So the old guy's a pharmacist, eh? Can't imagine how that will be relevant. Seriously, it's amazing the selective rationale that says an individual shouldn't be forced to do something against their personal beliefs even if it's clearly in their job description, but a retail corporation shouldn't be free to promote to a diverse marketplace with inclusive language like “Happy Holidays”.
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@Markus:
My point isn't whether or not the statement is true – it's that fact that the statement or a variation thereupon HAS to appear on every. Single. ****ing topic posted by Bob here irrespective of whether or not the subject at hand has anything to do with it, and I for one find that to be pointless and deeply tiresome. Thus, I mock it, for that is all it deserves.
Why is Bob's political opinion – which is just that, an opinion, and thus of course bound to personal biases that may well not have real basis in fact – worth getting butthurt over anyway? “Oh no, an internet movie critic doesn't like Republicans! Clearly this could swing the vote in multiple otherwise-red states!” Do you believe that? Of course you don't believe that. No-one believes that. And yet every time a new post comes up here, the same persistent group of largely-anonymous commenters gather around to heckle Bob as if they've made it their life's mission to convert him to their political beliefs. And even if they succeed, what difference will it make? Zilch, basically, except the next bunch of posts will be biased in a different direction, one that these people, whoever they are, find more agreeable.
And now I just spent 2 paragraphs being angry about right-wing politics when I should still be angry about self-entitled Christian whining, which isn't political at all.
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