Paul the Appalling Movie

If you are worried about spoilers, relax. In the first place, Paul is an utterly predictable parody of E.T. Only if you haven't seen the latter will anything come as a surprise and in that case you'd be missing the point. In the second place, Paul is one of the most offensive movies I have ever seen. If I am spoiling it for you, you probably deserve it.

Paul stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, who also wrote the screenplay. These two limey clowns were responsible for Shaun of the Dead, a brilliant parody of the zombie genre. SOTD managed to lampoon the zombie movie while preserving some of its visceral force. That was an achievement. I was hoping for something at least as genuinely funny tonight. What I got was, at its best moments, E.T. with a foul mouth, a smoking joint in one hand, and an extended middle finger in the other. I also got something much uglier.

Pegg and Frost play two comic book nerds on a dream vacation in America. They attend a Sci-Fi convention in San Diego and then set out in a rented RV for a tour of our most famous UFO sites. On the way they pick up Paul: a real live Alien escaped from Area 51 who has managed to phone home. He needs to get to a secret spot (Devils Tower) where he can be picked up by his homies. They also pick up a girl. Pegg's Graeme Willy connects with her. They are pursued by a trio of men in black, commanded by Sigourney Weaver.

Paul is a standard issue Area 51 alien: he has a large cranium tear drop head and stands about four feet tall. He has the power to resurrect the dead. In one scene he brings a dead bird to life and then promptly eats it. That would be inventive if it weren't stolen from Shrek. You would have to be asleep not to guess, at that moment, that Paul would use that same power to save one of the characters later. You would be sound asleep if you didn't expect that, at the end, a flying saucer would show up to take Paul home.

All that was mildly entertaining and very funny in spots, if not quite funny enough. Unfortunately, the writers weren't as interested in being funny as they were in expressing their utter contempt for America in general and Christians in particular.

In a café devoted to UFO culture, our heroes encounter two belligerent, homophobic rednecks. A bit down the road they encounter a sheriff who, upon learning they are English, expresses his dismay that British cops don't carry guns. "How can they shoot people?" he asks, disdainfully. That's what Pegg and Frost think of America. Just in case we don't get the point, we see an image of George Bush (41) on their laptop with a derisive slogan attached.

When our heroes pick up the girl, she is managing an RV park. She is wearing a t-shirt depicting Jesus shooting Darwin. She believes the earth is 4,000 years old and cannot believe in other worlds. She is blind in one eye. Subsequent dialogue makes it clear that she and her Bible toting, gun wielding father are retrograde, evolutionarily slow creatures. The comic nerds are, of course, more advanced. E.T., foul mouthed and stoned, is where evolution is going. In short order extraterrestrial Paul cures her. Her blind eye is restored. She immediately learns how to weave profanity into everything she says and she wants to have lots of sex. At the end she declares she has been liberated. That's progress!

Paul is a work of left wing bigotry. Young Earthers, and probably all Christians, aren't just wrong: they are stunted people. Probably half of Americans are right wing, Bible besotted, gun clinging Neanderthals. This message is delivered throughout the movie and reemphasized at its end. If this movie had put fundamentalist Muslims in place of fundamentalist Christians, Pegg and Frost would be on trial in Europe.

I will confess that this movie offended me for personal reasons. I am a Darwinist by training and inclination. I am a professor of political science and philosophy and I teach Darwin's theory in both contexts. I have many students who are resistant to evolutionary theory for religious reasons. I occasionally have students who believe in literal or even young Earth versions of Biblical faith.

It's my job to respect their persons and their beliefs. In fact, that isn't hard. I know for a fact that even the Biblical literalists are frequently both intelligent and admirable people. They have to be. The larger culture around them keeps telling them they are inferior and that they ought to get with the program. They manage to say no to power, which is something that liberals claim to admire but don't.

I try to show my students that Biblical Religion and Darwinian theory are not mutually exclusive. I try to show them that, even if they can't accept the evolutionary account of human origins, they can still see natural selection at work in creation and use Darwin's theory at least in an instrumental way.

And then along comes a movie that tells them that they are idiots. Their pastors have been telling them that evolutionary theory is just another religion and along come Pegg and Frost to shout that anyone who does not believe in evolution is a retarded heretic.

I didn't like this movie.

Comments

[Fr. Andrew]

Thanks for the heads up. I've enjoyed Pegg and Frost before (liked Hot Fuzz more than SOTD). I'm no creationist but will avoid the bigotry.

[larry kurtz]

Thanks, Doc; you sound like a superlative instructor living your own Road to Damascus movie. How do you reconcile american capitalism with a christ-like life without invoking John Calvin?

[Ken Blanchard]

Fr. Andrew: I think Creation science is a pretty goofy business. We can agree, I am sure, that the people who believe in it are not inferior beings.

[Donald Pay]

A lot of satire is directed one way. The best satire is directed both ways. What makes you think this film isn't satirizing everything and everybody? Why assume it's left wing bigotry?

The fact that the two "heros" are comic book nerds ought to give you a hint that maybe you aren't to take these people seriously either. My experience is that the out-there comic book nerds who attend sci-fi conventions would fit nicely in the same loony bin as flat earth Christian fundamentalists. They are both, in your words, "stunted." The foul-mouthed, stoned E.T. may be where evolution is headed "far out" there in space, but I don't know any lefty evolutionist who believes that's where human evolution will go, other than a movie that satirizes parts of current world culture.

[Miranda]

As a sci-fi fan and a Christian fundamentalist, I'm afraid I must be doubly stunted. Maybe an Ardipithicus ramidus?

Movies like this aren't much of a threat to the fundamentalist Christian (at least they aren't to me). If the person criticizing you is acting like an ass, it is fairly easy to dismiss his arguments and opinions. Compelling and reasonable arguments offered respectfully are the kind that are truly and constantly tormenting.

[Ken Blanchard]

Miranda: you are right, of course. This movie is no threat to Christians, nor does it amount to any argument that Christians need to take seriously. It is just offensive.

Donald: I don't know if you've seen the film, but the comic nerds turn out to be heroes. They are presented as the best of humanity. If this movie had treated Muslims and/or immigrants the way it treats Fundamentalist Christians and rednecks, the New York Times would have denounced it and protesters would march around theaters. We are so used to the license to abuse Christians that no one pays attention. I paid attention. This is not because I share the beliefs of the people derided in the film. I do not. I just recognized bigotry when I see it.

[a Cohen]

Your comments are childish and stupid. The movie is brilliantly written and acted.
Their are more people like them in the movie than there are Religious fanatics on this little planet we share called Earth. If you just shut up and enjoy the movie
you will see that there are are millions of fans that thinks just like the writers
Pegg and Frost. Enjoy the freedom of what we call movies, while we still have freedom of speech and freedom from religion which is what our founding fathers actually wanted.

[Ken Blanchard]

a Cohen: and you are a moron. The movie was not brilliant by any standard but it was well-acted. It was also bigoted, as I demonstrate. Freedom of speech includes the right to make such a movie. It also includes the right to criticize it. Am I going to fast for you? I thought so.

[cufflink]

Suppose a professor of astronomy said, "Some of my students believe the earth is flat. I happen to think it's round, but it's my job to respect their beliefs." Really? It's your job to respect what you know (if you deserve to be called a science teacher) to be false?

What deserves respect is a person's RIGHT to believe whatever he or she wants, not necessarily the beliefs themselves.