I saw that guy, had never heard of him, and didn’t pay a lot of attention. But it sounded like pure quackadoodle. I didn’t realize is was more HIV quackadoodle. What I remember about him was that he insisted on a view of science that I try to disabuse people of. That is, he claims that it’s nonsense that science functions by gradually developing consensus through the hard toil of millions of scientists working at away at a problem. No, according to this guy, science really only advances when individual geniuses such as himself have huge leaps in understanding. This is of course the same romantic notion of science that climate-change deniers and creationists rely on to insist that their claims are just as weighty as any amount of contrary professional opinion.
I think his biggest fans probably also consider him a narcissistic dickhead. It used to be that I would watch him and think, “So why are you a liberal, since you clearly despise people?” Lately, he hasn’t been nearly so strident at sneering down at the very people liberal causes are supposed to defend.
Is it just me, or was he a better discussion moderator on Politically Incorrect? Maybe it was just having that extra panel discussion person that made him better at that job.
I thought about starting a separate thread on “the petition” but since it was previously discussed here I’ll just throw it in here as an update.
For those who don’t know, on the first show of the new season in January, Maher was lamenting the fact that President Obama has seemingly been on every TV show in existence except Real Time (including, I might add, Seinfeld’s webcast Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee where Seinfeld asked Obama momentous questions like the color of his underwear and who sets out his suits in the morning). So he asked his audience to sign an online White House petition to have Obama come on his show. It reached the requisite 100,000 signatures requiring a response within a day or two (would have been sooner but apparently the traffic crashed the system) and then went to over 320K.
So after a little more than a month, there’s an official White House response. You can read it here. It’s actually very well written. It was rather suspiciously complimentary, though, in a way that sounded like the brush-off. It seemed to be saying “Everyone here loves you, Bill, but we make the decisions about where the president appears.” It wasn’t a “no”, it was more like a Japanese no – i.e.- “we will give it most respectful consideration, Billy-san. Have a nice day and sayonara!”
A while back, I was really struck by a TED Talk by Jonathan Haidt, called The moral roots of liberals and conservatives. [Video | Transcript] One “ah-ha” moment I had was that one of the foundations of our morality is based on purity…
With this in mind, the root of Maher’s obsession with organic foods, pharmaceuticals, etc. (one that is particularly common in LA celebrity circles, which he is always sucking up to) starts to be easier to trace.
Whatever his virtues are, I find Maher an example of taking several tenets that I share, but pursuing them to such an extreme degree, sometimes with a considerable degree of venom, he becomes a self-parody. For me, he’s turning into a cautionary tale.
I understand your reasoning and I see some basis for it, but I think the “purity” meme is quite a stretch. Sure, Maher likes spreading his organic multigrain bread with organic goat-milk butter, but so does everyone in the upper echelons of LA society. I don’t think Maher is “sucking up” to those circles, I think he’s in them. He’s certainly not sucking up to A-lister Ben Affleck. And I don’t think he’s “obsessed” by any of this stuff. He likes California sunshine, good food, good living, and organic produce. Good for him.
If Maher is so anti-pharma and obsessed by bodily purity, it’s hard to explain why he’s basically a dope fiend, to use an antiquated but colorful term. He’s been pushing the marijuana agenda since long before it went mainstream. In a recent episode of Real Time, he and a number of his guests lit up on live TV – that had to be an HBO first!
I think his anti-Muslim thing is driven by his general anti-religion sentiment and is actually a bit more nuanced than many might believe, directed at the beliefs, not the people. And I think much of the anti-vax associations really stem from his skepticism about the flu vaccine which, let’s face it, is not very effective in some flu seasons.
There are factually supportable negative things one can say about Maher. I don’t mean his cynical and sarcastic personality which offends some people and which I personally love, I mean the fact that when your whole persona and the thrust of your TV show is to be provocative and leading-edge, you’re bound to get some things wrong. It doesn’t happen often, but two examples that come to mind are a special guest he had on last year and one this year for the one-on-one before the panel segment. Last year was Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who went on about his crackpot theory of thimerosal in vaccines causing autism. This year it was an appearance by Sam Chachoua, who AFAICT is a complete fraud claiming to have a “cure” both for AIDS and many forms of cancer, and many of whose claims are demonstrably false.
But my point is that this is not typical. The vast majority of these one-on-one guests are respected, accomplished individuals, often leaders in their academic fields, senior members of government, or other noteworthy contributors to the public good. His panelists always have informed and thoughtful observations even if they’re often on the opposite side of the political spectrum. It makes for great TV and that’s why Real Time has had such a long string of Emmy nominations.
To quote from the above-cited White House response to Bill Maher’s invitation to President Obama to appear on his show:
Plenty of us around here watch Real Time because we admire Bill’s passion for spreading the science on climate change, asking tough questions about money in politics, and trying to burst “the bubble” where some of our politicians – and too many of our nation’s critical political debates – exist.
I think its funny as Hell (or a Trump Presidency, whichever comes first).
I watch it weekly. I’d love to see it made or even sit in the audience, but I’d be worried I’d laugh for too long or too loudly. Worse, what if I met him? What if I opened my mouth, actually spoke, and he actually laughed?
I mean if he didn’t, well thats easy… he’d just flick lit joints at me while I ducked behind folding chairs… but what if he laughed?
That pot would have to be some Really Good Shit, huh…?
He’s free to like anything he likes — but you are underselling the degree of his food and pharma advocacy. To take just one example: Sugar is poison. It’s ironic that his guest had to reel him back in from hyperboleville when even the doctor’s documentary’s central thesis is dubious. This is my central point: Maher is great at calling out bullshit, but his purity biases blind him to his own. This happens to all of us, but when his brand is about standing up to popularly-held ideas that are bullshit, it undercuts his own mission.
I still watch the show (while folding laundry and changing sheets on Sundays), but the free-form panel discussion often turns into a situation where you can’t hear anyone’s points and I wish Maher would reel them in sometimes.
I do like that he challenges bullshit when he hears it (except for anti-vax and other health nuttery).
ETA: I thought it was great when he and all the guests except the uptight woman passed around a spliff.
Older.
We get older and our attitudes and biases harden. I’m seeing it happen with my mom – she no longer says the word “Republicans”; she says “bastards” instead.
Since this is the thread that discussed Bill Maher’s petition to the White House to have Obama appear on his show, it’s probably a good place to note that it’s finally going to happen! Well, sort of.
The unique feature of Real Time is that it’s live, broadcast at 7:00 PM Pacific time, 10:00 PM Eastern, but in this case Obama’s appearance will be neither in person nor live, at least according to what’s been publicized so far. It seems that Obama has agreed to an interview, but Maher is flying to Washington this week to tape it there.
Still, pretty cool, because Maher and Obama – two of my favorite people – finally get to meet and chat for the first time, and it will be seen on the November 4 broadcast of Real Time with Bill Maher, 10:00 PM EDT on HBO. Four freaking days before the election, too.
They started showing the show in Britain on Sky Atlantic towards the end of last year but it’s not on tonight. Anyone know why? And has it moved to another time or another channel?
I gather Piers Morgan was on and was told to **** ***.
I’m on the right and Bill Maher is the only late night show I enjoy. He’s liberal of course but he’s a liberal who refuses to be pigeon-holed and can often take surprising positions. He’s fair and open-minded and an astute interviewer. I like the guy.
A year has passed… and yes, a Trump presidency came first.
Maher is still funny. I get him. People say he’s touchy & will go off on you, but its his show so don’t step on his lines or piss on his shoes.
Shows like that keep people incredibly busy, so meeting him will never ever happen. In an aside to the audience on the day I was at The Late Show, Colbert was asked what he’d do if he had more time.
“More time? What I’d do? Umm… whats that thing where you close your eyes and don’t move for a few hours?”
Maher is on that tread-mill too… so if he gets cranky, he’s probably filming on 3 hours sleep. Sure, I like the guy & I’d love to meet him, but he (and everyone else on that tread-mill) works like a marathon runner or maybe swimmers doing 80,000 laps,
so realistically that will never ever happen. Even if I DID happen to meet him, given everything he needs to get done in a day, he’d probably say,
“Well? Well say something. Look… Hurry the fuck up, will you? There are people waiting on me. That’s nice… look, I’ve gotta go. Watch the Show.”
And that’s NOT him being a dick… that’d be him being drop-dead Honest.
I say that because after the filming is done, he’s off to short meeting on the side with the stage manager to discus what worked & what didn’t and what might have been weak.
Then he’s off for 8-12 straight hours of editing room eye-strain where every 10 seconds of film/tape gets reviewed, dissected and discussed. Once its all done and in the can, he can finally take a dump, finally eat, finally sleep…
Oh wait, no he can’t because there’s more shit happening on the news that he needs to watch, list down in bullet points, and create bits for so there’s something funny and relevant for the NEXT weeks show.
He also needs to book panelists and try really hard to get them to say yes.
My best guess is that being a comedy host on a show like that is almost like being constantly anally gang-raped, but with direct deposit. Yeah, those guys can probably get pretty pissey.
The last one was particularly entertaining throughout. The previous one was good with Sam Harris and Bill trying to explain to “liberals” in denial about the Islam problem
Maybe I missed something, but I don’t see anyone here actually mentioning going to Maher’s stand-up on the road. I did last year. He was less strident than the individual comments here make him out to be. He spent time carefully backing off the remarks about Muslims. And he went off on politics and the election. The crowd was 100% for him and they howled with laughter. Mayer was funny and pointed and a great storyteller. Nothing in his routine gave any hint of anti-science or pro-woo, BTW. If he appears near you and you like left-wing humor go see him.
I just picked up HBO, so I saw Real Time last week. If Mayer likes people who put up opposing views, he sure didn’t show it with Piers Morgan who merely said that people should chill out a bit. He didn’t do a KellyAnne but he got slagged regardless.
Maher has as much of a formula as Oliver, and probably more. (I’ve seen lots of Last Week Tonight online.) Formulas are needed for weekly comedy. That can lead to weak episodes, but if it clicks provides a dependable framework. Maher has that and so does Oliver.
He’s been pushing the marijuana agenda since long before it went mainstream. In a recent episode of Real Time, he and a number of his guests lit up on live TV – that had to be an HBO first!