Discuss: Is 'The Invention of Lying' Just an Atheist Screed?
Filed under: Comedy, New Releases, Movie Marketing, Politics
Ricky Gervais's The Invention of Lying is taking hits in some places -- and earning praise in some other places -- for sneaking an unabashedly atheistic message inside a fairly conventional rom-com structure. I agree that the movie is astonishingly gutsy in this respect: in a country where a politician cannot publicly avow a lack of belief, a movie that declares religion to be a sham to comfort the gullible got a major distributor and a 2,000+ screen release how? (The obvious counterpoint is Bill Maher's Religulous, but that was a niche documentary that preached to the choir and was honestly marketed as anti-clerical; The Invention of Lying is a mainstream comedy whose ads did not contain a hint of where it was heading.) But is Gervais's movie really as anti-religious as it seems?
Consider that Gervais's portrayal of a world without religion is hardly utopian. His Mark Bellison lives in a shallow, blatantly classist society, obsessed with material wealth and physical appearance. His quest for romantic companionship is consistently undermined by his portliness and his "snub nose" -- obstacles in most civilizations, to be sure, but here the grounds for denying him sex and companionship are downright eerie. It's not just that the beautiful, successful Anna McDoogles (Jennifer Garner) isn't physically attracted to him. It's that, she tells him time and again, the two of them are not an optimal "genetic match." Mark's hunky colleague (Rob Lowe), on the other hand, is a far better "genetic match" -- and thus a better mate despite being, by all accounts, a huge douchebag.
Now, maybe this was a way for Gervais and his co-writer Matthew Robinson to more "honestly" portray why chubby guys with snub noses are likely to get less action. But if so, that's downright weird: who really, even subconsciously, makes the likelihood of good-looking offspring the decisive factor in romantic decisions? There's something else going on here.
That "something else," I think, is another layer to the film's take on religion. It pretty clearly takes the position that religious claims are empirically false -- as Mark at one point declares, "there is no man in the sky." When everyone must tell the truth, God is a foreign concept; when lying is spawned, so is religion (albeit with the best intentions). But the film also gives credence to the claim, frequently made in real-life debates on the issue, that atheism entails a corrosive form of Darwinism: a merciless universe where survival of the fittest is all that matters, and the weak and useless are cast aside. (Note the nursing home in the movie, a.k.a. "A Sad Place for Hopeless People"; note how that poor, bullied kid whom Anna at one point comforts calls himself "Short, Fat Brian" with heartbreaking resignation.)
In other words, I'm not so sure that Gervais and The Invention of Lying are as anti-religion as some would have you believe (although Gervais is himself an atheist). I wouldn't want to live in the atheistic world portrayed at the beginning of the film, but the mass conversion that takes place halfway through seems to make everyone a little kinder, a little softer-edged. The movie is exceptionally daring in its take on religion -- but what makes it interesting is Gervais's refusal to turn it into a Christopher Hitchens- or Richard Dawkins-esque screed. There are dimensions to this thing. What do you think?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-15-2009 @ 11:38PM
Raymond Woods said...
There was no subtely in this movie my friend when it came to religion. Even someone with the most simplistic view of world culture can notice the satire. I believe one person says @#$% the big man in the sky at one point. Now I can take a movie not being funny (which this one sadly wasn't) but i never thought that gervais would subcome to using such a thick hammer to get his message across. this is one of the most droll guys on the globe and he constatly leaves me in stitches with his awards show appearances. Maybe he thought that by being so heavy and broad (a la mel brooks) it would be thought of as different and unique. Instead it was as if he took the present day national lampoon movie comedy asthetic and fused it with the communist manefesto and orgin of the species. Unfortunately this is not the only movie to commit the same folly this year. Remember Year One. A movie that traverses similar terrain but just as clumsly and with the same lack of tact. The fall of that movie was equally as painful seeing as it was in the hands of the great harold ramis. When I want my athesim I'll watch woody allen. at least he is a good filmmaker who knows how to display his beliefs with at least some style and taste
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10-13-2009 @ 10:42AM
Robin said...
Comparing anything Gervais has done with "Year One" is asinine. If you don't get the joke, that's different. There are a lot of other comedies out there for your viewing pleasure.
That being said, I see the movie like a parable told from an atheist's perspective as opposed to being blatantly anti-religious. It's supposed to make you think and question things.
10-12-2009 @ 7:07PM
Slappy said...
"His Mark Bellison lives in a shallow, blatantly classist society, obsessed with material wealth and physical appearance." and this is different than our world with religion?
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10-12-2009 @ 7:16PM
Jonathan Kuhn said...
No, it's basically the same, which was the author's point. That Gervais doesn't seem to be saying that life without religion would necessarily be better.
10-12-2009 @ 7:16PM
Batzarro said...
I was bothered by the logic that a completely honest world would be devoid of any beliefs at all. I mean, let's say I take some crazy herbs, right? And I "SAW" something that "TOLD" me things. And I tell those things to others. It's not a lie because it happened to me. I tell it to others. They believe it because lies don't exist. Boom. And that's without considering how Insanity would exist. The insane converse with the sane, which believe them because there are no lies. I mean, I know
I man infinite honesty doesn't lead to infinite knoweledge.
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10-12-2009 @ 7:24PM
Eric S. said...
You want a real atheist screed? Watch Toy Story, partially written by the famous atheist Joss Whedon.
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10-12-2009 @ 10:21PM
Ryan said...
If this statement is serious, then I disagree wholeheartedly, in part considering that Toy Story is also partially written by Pete Docter and Andrew Stanton, both of whom are Christians.
I assume you are referring to Buzz's delusion that he is a space ranger as a representation of religion. I'd say that isn't true for several reasons. For one, it is paralleled with Woody's elevated self-image. Both Buzz and Woody are delusional about their place in the world. When Buzz's delusion gives out on him, and he is left broken, Woody convinces him that its better to be a toy than a Space Ranger, not because being a toy is just better, but because he gets to love and serve Andy, which is worth more than any self-goals he could have. I think religion comes out of Toy Story rather well.
10-13-2009 @ 9:32AM
Eric H said...
I think its a movie about toys that can walk and talk, what the fuck did you guys watch.
10-13-2009 @ 12:44AM
Jay Seaver said...
I think the film's most basic message goes beyond being anti-religious; that's just one facet of it. Essentially, what Gervais and company are saying is to question things. The completely honest society presented leads to a treacherous sort of circular logic - people blurt out their first impressions, and then, because dishonesty is impossible, believe them. The most important moment in the movie isn't any of the comments about the Man in the Sky, but when Anna is looking at the nerdy-looking couple, blurts out "losers", and then has Mark tell her to stop, really look, and think about it.
Sure, religion is one of the things we're being asked to question. But also politics, how we judge people by appearances, how we respond to advertising, etc. Excessive faith and trust are bad not just because religion is silly and self-contradictory, but because it leads to laziness - even if we believe/"know" something is true, as the people in this film do before Mark ever tells his first lie, it's still worth looking closer not just because what we know might not be the whole truth.
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10-13-2009 @ 12:52AM
John Dale said...
I think you (and many others) are reading too much into this. The religious are being far to precious as usual, finding slurs and taking offence wherever possible.
The film's plot is straightforward enough (maybe too straightforward to be worthy of plaudits) in that its about the lies that we all tell each other every day, and when writing such a film, its perfectly obvious, especially when the writer is an atheist, to include religion in that as the this biggest lie of them all.
Just because someone is an atheist doesn't automatically make them virulently anti-religious. Rather than "making a statement" by including religion as a lie, it would just be the obvious main lie to include in the film.
Do you automatically think that the inclusion of the fat/snub nosed line was a strategic piece of propaganda in the battle for the rights of fat/snub nosed people?
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10-13-2009 @ 1:25PM
scottR said...
"The religious are being far to precious as usual, finding slurs and taking offence wherever possible"
It seems to me that the anti-religious are taking offence at religious people taking offence, as usual, trying to find the most idiotic religious person out there to make their case.
10-13-2009 @ 1:44PM
Colin said...
Lying really tackled a lot of things: people have been misinterpreting survival of the fittest for years; it never was fittest it was most adaptable. Religion immediately discredits any form of looking into things past the surface and the overall message was great: be good to people while we're here on earth, we don't have enough time to be shitty to one another.
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10-20-2009 @ 11:49PM
SoFlaTechie said...
I think some of you are missing the point of this movie. It is not about pushing atheism, or being anti-religion. It is simply that there is no real truth if we cannot question everything.
The people in the beginning of the movie had lived all of their lives with a set of truths, and never questioning that "truth". The truth is - they were all living a lie. The movie effectively uses religion to deliver this point.
The main character created a fictitious religion. The fact that it was a lie doesn't really matter. The point is that it caused people to question their very existence - where they came from. Once they did this, this were able to start questioning everything else in their lives, and therefore come to a better understanding as to what truth really is.
Religion is based on faith. But no one is born with a faith in God. That faith grows AFTER we learn to question where we come from. These people did not question anything, and therefore had no faith, and were therefore living a lie.
When Ana started to question her long held beliefs, her belief in the perfect genetic code was questioned. When she was able to question those beliefs, she was able to have faith - faith in the main character, faith that her children would be beautiful regardless of their outward appearance.
Think about it.
The movie is NOT anti-religion.
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10-26-2009 @ 11:07AM
Daniel F. Wells said...
Interesting thoughts. In my recent review I viewed TIOL as critiquing "two worlds" and offering a third way to go in rejecting both harsh, bitter ideological Darwinism/scientism and incoherent/hypocritical religion. The solution seems to be this vague mixture that is open to spirituality (in the Oprah sense) while also wanting the peace and tolerance not offered by radical empiricism/scientism.
At the end of my review I offer a different (fourth) way from my perspective as a Christian. I'm sure many will disagree with my solution, but perhaps it will be intriguing reading nonetheless.
Sorry for the big words in my review, but I was a philosophy and religion double major in college.
http://danielfwells.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/movie-review-the-invention-of-lying/
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