OPINION Why Is Bill Maher Still a Thing?
Bill Maher’s new movie-related tirade is the latest piece of evidence he ought to leave such discussions to actual experts.
On Friday’s episode of his HBO show Real Time, comedian and political commentator Bill Maher devoted the final stretch of his “New Rules” segment (a series of comedic proclamations followed by a monologue on a specific current topic) to the Oscars. Specifically, he complained about this year’s Best Picture nominees being uniformly depressing, with this opening salvo: “You couldn’t have a worse time at the movies if there was an active shooter in the theater.” He then summed up the plot of seven out of eight nominees, with the punchline “The 2021 Oscars, brought to you by razor blades, Kleenex and rope.”
“Would it kill you to once in a while make a movie that doesn’t make me want to take a bath with a toaster?”, asked Maher, who clearly hasn’t seen the movies he’s attacking (alternatively, his writers merely skimmed the summaries on Wikipedia): Sound of Metal is the story of a man overcoming hardship and embracing the good things in life, The Trial of the Chicago 7 deals with a topical subject but is also frequently hilarious (an Aaron Sorkin trademark), and Promising Young Woman, hard though it may be to watch in places, is also partly a very dark comedy. It’s also telling that he left out Mank, which may not be a laughfest but does include multiple moments of levity, particularly when mocking that film industry Maher appears to despise.
Furthermore, he referred to the Best Documentary category as “the part of the Oscars show where you got up and went to the bathroom” – perhaps he is still annoyed because Religulous (2008), in which he starred and unabashedly poked fun at all organized religions (Maher, who was raised Catholic but has Jewish ancestry on his mother’s side, generally describes himself as an atheist), failed to secure a nomination back in the day.
His comments are remarkably misinformed, for at least four reasons: firstly, the Oscars are not generally known for embracing the escapism Maher so loudly yearns for in the segment; secondly, a few potential nominees (most notably Spielberg’s West Side Story remake) were postponed for obvious reasons; thirdly, his claim that Hollywood used to know how to make movies with a message that were also entertaining was accompanied by stills from, among others, Schindler’s List and 12 Years a Slave – hardly two titles one would pick for a good time at the pictures; and last but not least, how can he lament the disappearance of “fun” movies, when the general complaint about global moviegoing is that screens are largely dominated by blockbusters and studio comedies?
In fact, the most infuriating aspect of his tirade isn’t that he’s factually wrong about the state of Hollywood (just look at the upcoming slates for the major studios and count the movies that aren’t tentpoles or box office-friendly low-budget fare like Blumhouse), it’s that it contradicts a previous rant, from back in 2018: mere days after the death of Stan Lee, Maher dismissed comic books and superheroes – two prime examples of today’s escapism at the movies – as childish trash, and used his show to defend his right to do so. Amusingly, the highest-grossing movie he’s ever appeared in is Iron Man 3, where he cameos as himself.
Of course, none of this is particularly surprising, since it’s all very on brand for Maher: while ostensibly a Trump critic (he famously referred to him as a “whiny little bitch”), he not-so-secretly relished the four years the former president was in office, as it gave him an opportunity to regularly bash “snowflakes” on his show; and in the wake of his Oscars segment, multiple Twitter users pointed out that he’d be naturally inclined to attack movies dealing with racism and rape culture, given his comedic leanings – his entire television persona is built around the notion that he should be allowed to joke about anything, without paying the consequences (although he did apologize for using the N-word in a 2017 episode).
Sometimes, that notion leads to instances of unmistakable cruelty, such as a 2019 “New Rules” rant where he basically advocated for fat-shaming, saying “[it] doesn’t need to end; it needs to make a comeback. Some amount of shame is good.” It was a typically surface-level observation, which prompted a response from fellow late-night star James Corden, who knows a thing or two about weight issues, and widespread condemnation from other entertainers (all of whom pointed out that, contrary to Maher’s quip, fat-shaming never actually went away).
More than anything, though, Maher is quintessential proof of the simple fact that “cancel culture” (as opposed to holding people accountable for behavior) isn’t a real thing. How so? Because he’s been complaining about excessive “wokeness” for almost three decades, first with Politically Incorrect (1993-2002) and now with Real Time, which is currently airing its 19th season. As the host of both shows, he has made remarks that, by his own logic, should have resulted in his termination a long time ago.
He has 11 million Twitter followers (plus another 195,000 for the show’s own account), and Real Time has over 2 million subscribers on YouTube (although that might be another sore spot for him, since Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which airs on the same network and is considerably more “woke”, has four times as many subscribers). That he views himself as the underdog, or speaking for them, is preposterous.
And it’s not the first time this year that he has falsely asserted Hollywood caters exclusively to a select group of people: when Gina Carano was removed from the cast of The Mandalorian, Maher was – predictably – one of the few media personalities to jump to her defense, claiming that Conservatives are oppressed in the movie industry. Except, of course, they’re not: Sylvester Stallone, Kelsey Grammer and John Ratzenberger all voted for Trump, and they all have high-profile projects in the works or due for release. Why? Because they didn’t make social media posts that were deemed hateful or actively dangerous.
If cancel culture were real, Bill Maher would not have a platform anymore (not gonna happen, of course: his show has been renewed through 2022). Not because he’s a politically incorrect comedian, but because he’s an ill-informed and irrelevant one, who takes whichever side allows him to be angry for an hour a week most weeks of the year, consistency and integrity be damned. It must be exhausting flip-flopping the way he does on a regular basis. Maybe that’s the real reason he often falls asleep at the movies…