Laugh and Shoot

Practically every single tactic for appealing to pathos given in “Thank You for Arguing” is present in Bill Maher’s documentary “Religulous”. The documentary’s end is especially loaded with the rhetorical conundrums, as it is the most important place for affecting an audience’s judgment by changing their emotions.

Maher uses humor throughout the documentary to calm people down from the extreme ideas he has and is about to present. His jokes also make him appear to stand above any petty squabble in the polemic. In minute 90  Maher says, “There is more than one mosque in the world that used to be a church and before that was a temple, because it is easier to change the sign on the top and say Under New Management than it is to change the whole building. I worked in a lot of comedy clubs in the eighties that still had the disco ball on the ceiling, and in the nineties, they became strip clubs, and now they’re a Starbucks.” The factious joke certainly ridicules the situation, but its purpose is mainly to appease the audience from whatever harsh stuff Maher has said.

The documentary’s last scene, nonetheless, is a feast of rhetorical tactics. Violent images of atrocities caused by the religious accompany Maher’s monologue, where he constantly instigates the audience with fear of “the irrational, the religious”. Maher is close to mimicking what he criticizes when he says, “The irony of religion is that because of its power to diverge man to destructive courses, the world actually could come to an end.” His language also gets progressively simpler as the music becomes more dramatic. The images of 9/11 and other terrorist acts direct the audience’s anger away from him. Maher’s very last monologue shows him in a frontal shot, portraying his anger by underplaying it, portraying his disgust by being civilized. In the end, the music becomes so dramatic, and the speech so simple that the film culminates in an explosive “Grow up, or die!”

Bill Maher, is evidently a master rhetorician using his ethos to his benefit, presenting very serious ideas in frivolous ways. An entire blog post could be dedicated to his use of decorum. But his appeal to pathos is even more masterful. He uses the very same fear-indulging tactics that his religious contenders have used through the ages. He knows how to set up the audience to become afraid and susceptible, eagerly awaiting for whatever answers Bill has to say. It is difficult to end the movie without feeling hatred for religion. The purpose is masterfully accomplished. He makes his audience hate religion and love Bill.