04/02/2007
Towleroad Guide to the Tube: #109
Most Hated Family in America Edition
A documentary on the Fred Phelps clan, The Most Hated Family in America, aired over the weekend on the BBC. To supplement it, on Friday the BBC published an interview with journalist Louis Theroux, who tried to get to the bottom of it all:
"What we're trying to do in the documentary is look at an activity that is so antisocial, so strange, so futile and at its worst, so cruel, and we're saying 'Why? Why do that?', especially when you seem to be, for the most part, kind and sensitive people. We're exploring what is cruelty, trying to explain how something that really does very often just amount to cruelty could be perpetuated and passed down in a family. Why would nice people do such horrible things?"
Parts 1-4:
Parts 5-7 after the jump...
The Most Hated Family in America [bbc]
Westboro Baptists Continue To Rock The House [queerty]
Video: 'The Sur-Real World' [good as you]
Posted 3:46 PM EST by Andy Towle in Fred Phelps, Gay Slurs, News, Religion, Shirley Phelps-Roper, Towleroad Guide to the Tube | Permalink
Like it?
Subscribe to FREE Towleroad daily headlines with our RSS feed!
RECENT STORIES:
Comments
You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post.
As much as I hate giving this crazy dude (who looks, by the way, JUST LIKE the evil preacher from Poltergeist) any more airtime, it is nice to realize that his sociopathic hateful venom is doing more to change hearts and minds in our favor than the HRC ever could with their mealymouthed appeasment. Straight people sometimes are comfortable with their mild form of homophobia, but show them what happens when you take their own views to their logical conclusion and it isn't quite so tasteful.
Posted by: Brian | Apr 2, 2007 4:05:25 PM
Thanks for posting this. I missed it when it aired.
Posted by: Chad | Apr 2, 2007 4:08:50 PM
Amen, Brian.
Posted by: the other jeff | Apr 2, 2007 4:09:01 PM
"Fags eat feces. That's a fact! Hon." - Shirley Phelps.
Wow! Just wow!
Apparently, I never got the memo on that one.
Not to mention that unless this dumb f*ck is a vegetarian, she is eating feces almost everytime she eats ground beef.
Course... why even bother to try and make logic out of any of this?
Posted by: RP | Apr 2, 2007 4:10:16 PM
"Why would nice people do such horrible things?"
Answer: They're NOT nice people!
Posted by: Jason | Apr 2, 2007 4:42:25 PM
Theroux also wrote a piece for The Guardian about meeting the Phelps's:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/features/story/0,,2046604,00.html
Yeah, the wretched Phelps is like the preacher in Poltergeist 2 although I doubt the brilliant Julian Beck who played the role would relish the comparison. If you want some irony, Beck was founder of the Living Theatre and according to the ubiquitous Wikipedia:
"...was indicted a dozen times on three continents for charges such as disorderly conduct, indecent exposure, possession of narcotics, and failing to participate in a civil defense drill. Beck and Malina were life partners in an open marriage, and Beck had a long-term relationship with Ilion Troya, a male actor in the company."
Posted by: John C | Apr 2, 2007 4:45:43 PM
Sheeeeeesh! Guess they wont be attending Lobster Fest @ Red Lobster. Why arent they picketing the mall?
Leviticus 11:9-12 says: *9 These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat. *10 And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you: *11 They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination. *12 Whatsoever hath no fins nor scales in the waters, that shall be an abomination unto you.
Deuteronomy 14:9-10 says: *9 These ye shall eat of all that are in the waters: all that have fins and scales shall ye eat: *10 And whatsoever hath not fins and scales ye may not eat; it is unclean unto you.
Posted by: Joe | Apr 2, 2007 4:53:24 PM
Thanks John for such interesting information about a truly great actor... that character he played was one of the creepiest portrayals of evil I've ever seen on screen. With Phelps, it seems that life does indeed imitate art.
Posted by: Brian | Apr 2, 2007 4:55:31 PM
I watched this knowing that my blood was going to reach boiling point. It was appalling beyond words. A particularly disturbing moment was when one of the poor kids of these psychos sustained a nasty blow to the head from a carton of drink thrown from a passing car during a "protest". These children - frog marched to protest along with their irresponsible hate-filled parents - didn't even know why they were there and didn't understand the messages of hate that they held up on placards. The children of Shirley Phelps Roper are threatened with ex-communication by their mother if they do not abide by this brainwashing.
According to the four of Fred Phelps' children who who managed to escape the cult, Phelps' "religious beliefs were either nonexistent to begin with or have dwindled down to nearly nothing. They insist that westboro actually serves to enable a paraphilia of Phelps, wherein he is literally addicted to hatred". (Wikipedia).
The sooner he hits the concrete slab, the better for all.
Posted by: atheist | Apr 2, 2007 4:56:55 PM
Fascinating work. Definately the best expose into the Westboro hate group that I've seen.
Posted by: Aaron | Apr 2, 2007 4:57:49 PM
OMG nice try Joe but don't even bother. They don't care that they're ignoring the rest of Leviticus. All they care about is finding Biblical justification for their own pathologic hatred, and identifying passages in the Bible that help them to feel less like the troglodyte freaks that they really are.
Frankly, I could break into my neighbor's apartment and leave a big ol' Cleveland steamer on his chest, and still find a Biblical passage that justifies it. Because of this maddening characteristic of the Bible, it's best to avoid fighting via chapter and verse. It gets you nowhere.
Posted by: Brian | Apr 2, 2007 5:00:29 PM
People will justify their hatred anyway they can.
The mother and her two daughters were on Tyra Banks' show a couple months ago. They said they watch America's Next Top Model. Could you believe that? The show has so many gay people in it that you would think they would avoid it. Maybe it might help the younger kids see how nuts their parents are.
Posted by: Jack! | Apr 2, 2007 5:11:13 PM
And people ask me how I can live my life without faith....it's pretty easy, actually. I detest organized religion, God is not religion, church or the Bible. What a sad, sad family; if I told my kids to hate people like that, the state would take them away from me, so why are the kids allowed to stay with the Phelps'?
Posted by: Arron | Apr 2, 2007 5:11:37 PM
As a Christian, I believe in loving everyone and everything that God has made.
...and I would love picketing Fred Phelps' funeral.
Posted by: Jackie | Apr 2, 2007 5:14:54 PM
"an activity that is so antisocial, so strange, so futile and AT ITS WORST, so cruel"?
I'm sorry, just what would the "best" part of Phelps' ministry be? Kind and sensitive people don't behave in a cruelly hateful manner, but hateful people can and do pretend to be kind. Sweet Jesus. Did the film makers really take the "love the sinner, hate the sin" rhetoric of these backwoods morons seriously?
Posted by: Christopher | Apr 2, 2007 5:16:23 PM
While these anthropological documentaries can be fascinating, this one repeats the same intellectual mistake of many like it: believing that psychopathic behaviour is invariably manifested only by people odd and extreme in every aspect of their lives. Hannah Arendt addressed the issue long ago in her essay on Adolph Eichmann, and films have repeatedly dramatized the kindness of serial killers, even mass murderers, to others.
The danger is diluting the recognition or somehow diminishing the rejection of the evil they do by talking about their allegedly admirable characteristics, from Jasmyne Cannick's embrace of Isaiah Washington to the apparent journalist clique agreement that rabid homophobe, racist, sexist, antiSemitic Pat Buchanan is "a nice guy," to the idolizing of unindicted mass murderer Ronald Reagan, even by some gays, to news stories this weekend that fascistic Pope Benedict is being urged to bypass the usual process of canonization and declare Pope John Paul a saint outright, despite the fact that not only was he also rabidly homophobic but worked with Benedict when he was Cardinal RATzinger to destroy Central and South American "liberation theology." In my opinion, John Paul died with the symbolic blood of assassinated Archbishop Oscar Romero on his hands.
At the same time, we must not let homophobes who turn their nose up at his tactics forget that there is a thread that runs from their "nicer" bigotry to the "lunatic fringe" and back again.
Posted by: Leland | Apr 2, 2007 5:19:36 PM
Its true the bible leaves many ideas questionable. Honestly, though disgusted, Im almost more fascinated by the extent of control Fred has over all. Absolute and incontestable, his "defense front" was clearly evident by his reactions of hostility. How all the others would just back him up with no reasoning or thought. Does this differ from Heavens Gate or Waco? The one daughter seemed to be hiding some past indiscretions which I wish were discovered. What it did accomplish was by going to an extreme, it further alienates these people and perhaps, due to the intensity, will spark some positive thinking in others.
Posted by: joe | Apr 2, 2007 5:26:01 PM
Damn, Leland... right on...
Posted by: Brian | Apr 2, 2007 5:34:50 PM
Talk about soul searching, the portrayal certainly forces everyone to question why they do or do not support various political positions. George Bush certainly does not have a pro-gay agenda, yet Phelps tosses him in the hopper as a dupe of "evil advisors", which is exactly what left-wingers have been saying all along. Right-wing military types have been anti-gay forever yet they get tarred by Phelps for being pro-gay idolotrists. The ex-documentarian who joined the church voluntarily seems to have "explained" things the best by suggesting that idolotry was really the heart of the metaphor of their anti-gay rhetoric, which certainly doesn't come across in their protests. Likewise, this has to be the most pro-war BBC documentary in years, with a sympathetic portrayal of a US soldier, something almost unthinkable after Abu Ghraib. In the end you don't get the impression that Louis actually hated the Phelps. How ironic is it that Phelps and people opposed to the war agree on so many things, such as Bush's hubris and evil, but for such widely different reasons. How ironic is it that Phelps' main targets are other right-wing churches and the military. What must they think of gays now? Are we to blame for Phelps in their minds? Are they forced to admit a humanist connection to gay-america to contrast themselves with Phelps?
I somehow doubt they will be protesting mosques or in the middle east any time soon. Their rhetoric seems well suited to any imam preaching on behalf of OBL: America is dooomed and godless, full of whores, etc. That's the real show, Phelps going after Islam. People would pay to see that.
Posted by: anon | Apr 2, 2007 5:59:25 PM
plenty of spot-on comments....disruption of hateful platforms creating numerous limitations while i am continuously surprised by some people who applaud other events by ignoring or missing those subtextuals connections -- perhaps, why the pervasiveness of a specific malaise is so apparent provided one can plug-in and download.
Posted by: ricardo | Apr 2, 2007 6:01:01 PM
Another thing: as an American, I found it pretty nasty that Sweden is locking up preachers for their sermons, unless they were specifically inciting violence, yet WBC flips it on its head. Would they protest if a pro-gay preacher were locked up?--ostensibly not.
Posted by: anon | Apr 2, 2007 6:15:16 PM
That was fun. Now I'm off to eat my babies. Oh, and to wash it down with poop apparently.
Posted by: Ridwah | Apr 2, 2007 6:59:24 PM
Why would nice people do such horrible things?"
What about them justifies being called "nice people"? They seemed deranged and grotesque to me. Hate speach needs to be a Federal Crime. This encourages violence among gay people. So much for the righteous.
Posted by: lee Gordon | Apr 2, 2007 8:04:31 PM
The funny thing is that if it had been the n-word they were using, someone would have knocked them off by now (or at least sent them to rehab a la Isaah Washington ... and then given them an Image Award of course).
Posted by: Michael | Apr 2, 2007 8:19:09 PM
Not a chance, poopie pants.
Posted by: joe | Apr 2, 2007 8:47:08 PM