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Bill Maher Live
Thurs., Dec. 3, 7:30 p.m., Carol Morsani Hall-TBPAC, Tampa, $45.50 and $68.50, tbpac.org.
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Bill Maher is many things to many people. The L.A.-based comedian and talk show host is a committed vegetarian, an animal rights supporter and an outspoken advocate for the legalization of marijuana. Although he still calls himself a Libertarian, and is as critical of Democrats as he is of Republicans on some issues, he's surpassed Michael Moore as perhaps the most articulate pop culture figure in America today who represents a progressive political point-of-view.
And because of that, his detractors have trashed him as him un-American, elitist and even blasphemous.
Although usually placed by television critics in the same pantheon as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, Maher's comedy can be more caustic, and sometimes more offensive.
For the past seven years, HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher (currently on hiatus until 2010) has showcased His formula of talking politics in a monologue and then chatting over the issues of the day with celebrity guests. Though it can sometimes be a little racy (it is HBO, after all) and Maher's insights are arguably more evolved, Real Time is not that dissimilar to Politically Incorrect, the host's early-'90s gabfest that aired on Comedy Central, then moved to ABC before being canceled amid a firestorm of controversy in 2002.
In a phone interview with CL conducted on election day earlier this month, Maher talked about Barack Obama, Fox News, upsetting people who attends his shows, and the recent dust up over his comments regarding the swine flu vaccinations. A year after Obama's electrifying victory over John McCain, the talk show host sounded almost bitter, epitomizing conversations that one hears from some disgruntled liberals about their frustrations with the Obama administration.
"I feel a little bit like a sucker," he said, acknowledging that while it might have mostly been media hype, "I believed all that stuff about the first 100 days. I thought change was going to happen quickly and radically, and we'll never know, because that didn't happen ..."
But now? "That moment has passed," Maher lamented, "and what we have now is business as usual." For Maher, the President is simply too beholden to an establishment he felt he would upend: the banks, the credit card companies, the pharmaceutical lobby and the Pentagon, among others.
"He RAISED the Pentagon budget!" Maher shrieked. "That's something that's so completely bloated that we've been waiting for a liberal to come in and say, 'enough is enough.' Most of this money is corporate welfare for defense contractors."
But Maher then catches himself, realizing he may be a bit too extreme in his critique of the new president. "It's only been a year. He's got four and maybe eight years [in office]. Maybe what he feels he has to do is not rock the boat in the first year ... but I read in the paper yesterday that the number of people who identify themselves as Republican is 17 percent. If he can't win now, when?"
Of course, a week later another poll, this one from Gallup, showed that generically speaking, more people would rather vote Republican than Democratic in next year's Congressional elections. But Maher's point is taken: He's a progressive who speaks for a segment of the population that thinks Barack Obama hasn't been liberal enough in the early going, and unlike most of them, he's got a large megaphone on premium cable to articulate those sentiments.
Maher also speaks for another underrepresented (though not necessarily mutual) group of the public: pot smokers. But he says he's weary of being the public face for the burgeoning legalization crowd.
"I've been talking about this for 17 years on television. It's certainly something I believe in strongly, but I like to keep things in perspective, and it's not our biggest problem right now."
But when pressed, he expressed more disappointment with Obama. "His drug czar (Gil Kerlikowski) -- and by the way, why do we even have a drug czar? -- said 'legalization is not in my vocabulary, and it's not in the President's vocabulary.' Well, that's sameness I can believe in."
Maher's sharp and informed opinions on politics and culture give him more exposure and credibility than most other comics, which is why he's an occasional guest on shows like Hardball and Larry King Live. Many of his fans loved his appearance on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer earlier this year, when he called America a "stupid country." After a commercial break, the always-cognizant Blitzer worried aloud that Maher might feel an immediate backlash, and offered him the chance to apologize. But Maher refused the lifeline, saying he stood by his comment and adding that any country that would allow Sarah Palin to rise to fame should be classified as stupid.
But the reaction wasn't so positive amongst his base after Maher told his Twitter followers, "People who get the swine flu vaccine are idiots." He followed that up with an on-air interview with physician and former U.S. Senator Bill Frist, where Maher said he did not believe that healthy people were vulnerable to dying from the H1N1 virus. He also discouraged pregnant women (which the World Health Organization cited as the group most vulnerable to serious complications from the virus) from getting vaccinated.
Maher was blasted by journalists all across the country for his comments, and appeared flustered the following week on his own show after Chris Matthews asked about the issue. When CL brought it up, Maher said he had no regrets.
Well, almost none.
"The only thing I regret is I do a show that's off the cuff, and you get cut off, and very often you don't have a chance to explain everything that you like to say, especially about a complex issue like that," he said.
Explanations aside, it's apparent that his criticism of the dominant American culture -- specifically, of the average American diet and the medical profession overall -- seemed to color his opinion: "Am I telling any specific person not to take the swine flu shot? No, if you have a compromised immune system, from, say, eating a crappy American diet that a lot of people eat, maybe the swine flu vaccine is the best thing for you. But somebody needs to represent the underreported and underappreciated medical point of view that the preferred way to handle the flu is to have a strong immune system to begin with, and getting a lot of vaccines might take a toll on your immune systems ... But, I mean, I do get it that vaccines have been valuable in Third World countries."
Maher also stands out for his relentless attack on organized religion, exemplified in his hilarious October 2008 documentary, Religulous, a movie that garnered wildly divergent reviews but a very respectable (for a documentary) $12 million at the box office. Some critics wrote that Maher was an imperfect messenger to deliver an attack on religious hypocrisy, but others, such as USA Today, found the film, "funny, enlightening and disturbing." Many reviewers included both thoughts in their critiques, like the critic for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, who said the film "had numerous blasts of raucous humor and passages that feel like a screed."
Religulous came out during a near harmonic convergence of what has been called an "atheist offensive," manifest in recent bestsellers from authors like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. But Maher says that his religious broadside brought in the masses not necessarily familiar with those tomes, "because we know only a certain percentage of people read books in this country. So if you really want to reach a mass amount of people, you have to do it in the medium of the modern age, which is film, television and the Internet."
He also knows that despite his reputation for being a critic of organized religion, some audience members are apparently still stunned when he wades into that wicked thicket during his live performances. His feelings on those walkouts embody his approach overall to his comedy.
"I wear it as a badge of honor," he says of angry patrons leaving his show prematurely. "I think if you're not unsettling people a little bit, if you're not challenging their prejudices, then you're just going along ... We all gotta be true to the kind of comedy that we do. And the kind of comedy that I do," he said laughingly, "I guess it still gets people to walk out of my show."
COMMENTS
RE: Comedian Bill Maher shakes up modern American culture
Posted by Marcella on 12.05.09 @ 09:54 AM
I don't get HBO so appreciate your excellent interview as I use to be great fan of Politically Incorrect. I absolutely must see his Religulous documentary and only thing if people don't see this or walk out on his Live shows when he gets edgy, he ends up preaching to the choir. I have discovered he will not venture into areas where I see Jesse Ventura going as his approach seems to have no censorship as to subjects discussed so his first investigational journalism on HAARP last week was very provocative. He is extremely intelligent and articulate
I'm wondering if Jesse Ventura, a former governor, Navy Seal and professional wrestler may have more credibility with a broader or new audience as he is not part of Hollywood establishment. If you watch his 7 week series on conspiracy theories Wed at 10pmEST on True TV, and the streaming video where he answers EVERYONE'S questions on anything and everything, I think you will see why I think he may be the new POP hero and hope you get an interview with him too as he doesn't seem to have any subject that is "off topic" Thanks Mitch.