Come on people... - Marjoe (1973) Discussion

[–] tornew 17 years ago

Didn't find it offensive. My take is that it is proabably still the way it is. Mega churches, etc..

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Finally somebody started a thread. I think maybe no one's offended anymore because they can say Marjoe was a sinner and an abbheration and the only crooked evangelist in the movie was him. Because born-agains are extremely practised at denial.

Or they've been silenced by the outing of yet another power-mad greedy bigot preacher, Ted Haggard, who recently appeared in two films, JESUS CAMP and the soon to be premiered CONSTANTINE'S SWORD documentaries. I will never understand why thinking people can't also be in tune with their intuition. You have only to experience Ted Haggard and look into his face to know he's a dangerous phony.

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[–] Courtesy_Flush 17 years ago

Wow. I thought the discussion board for this would be filled to capacity! I really enjoyed this doc. I'd like to see a follow-up.

(Didn't you guys think Marjoe's lady friend Agnes was stunningly beautitul? My word.)

Foo

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[–] profrabbit 17 years ago

I guess there'll never be a follow-up because Marjoe doesn't want to talk about the past at all! He's got a good career going as a celebrity charity event organizer, those big star-filled extravanganza golf tournaments etc. you see on TV. He did say in the movie he wanted to be an actor or a rock star, and he definitely got a shot at both those but ultimately didn't click. As for Agnes, I wonder what became of her.

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[–] Mister_Scratch 17 years ago

I just read the book "God Is Not Great" by Christopher Hitchens and he mentions this film. I had never heard of it before and am glad its on DVD. It is now on it's way to me via Netflix. When I see it, I'll definitely be back to chat.

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[–] profrabbit 17 years ago

Yes, Hitchens gave it some serious space! Which is great, because this film was out of print up til 2005 so it's taken awhile for people to be aware of it.

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[–] The_Man_in_the_Planet 16 years ago

You may also want to watch Jesus Camp, another outstanding doc.

Next time you see me, it won't be me

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[–] profrabbit-1 16 years ago

There's also the doc CONSTANTINE'S SWORD which is partly about born-agains in the military agressively trying to convert fellow soldiers.

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[–] 16 years ago

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[–] profrabbit-1 16 years ago

personally i like God. but i like this movie also because it exposes what organized religion is really all about: power

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[–] Mister_Scratch 17 years ago

OK, I just watched it and thought it was fascinating. On the surface, it's very funny. But you start to think about these people and that they are real and that this still goes on today... its scary. I sympathize with Marjoe and I don't think anything he did was wrong, even his preaching as an adult knowing it was all a con. He did right by exposing it, even after making a living off of it for a while. Nothing he did was illegal. Though he barely touches on it, his childhood must have been hell. Besides that, I just don't have sympathy for the gullible. These people willingly give their money over to these hucksters.

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[–] profrabbit 17 years ago

You could look at it another way: the preachers give good entertainment value, and the people pay for it, like at any theater. For their dollars they get music and catharsis. What makes me cringe is that the relatively benign worship of Jesus gets all twisted up with political platforms and bigotry and fear-mongering (you're going to hell, etc.) There is a great myspace cartoon you have to see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2bpc7LSRZc

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[–] Mister_Scratch 17 years ago

You could look at it another way: the preachers give good entertainment value, and the people pay for it, like at any theater. For their dollars they get music and catharsis.

Yes, I did consider that. It is entertainment on a certain level, they could easily charge tickets to stuff like this I'm sure. But instead they practically hit them with the bill when they are in that state of catharsis, as you say. Pure manipulation.

What makes me cringe is that the relatively benign worship of Jesus gets all twisted up with political platforms and bigotry and fear-mongering (you're going to hell, etc.)

Yep, that too.

There is a great myspace cartoon you have to see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2bpc7LSRZc

I'll check that out.

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[–] 17 years ago

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[–] profrabbit 17 years ago

Yeah I met him in Santa Fe at a party, he has a house there.

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[–] 17 years ago

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[–] profrabbit 17 years ago

Met him in 2003. Thought he looked great, still handsome, though clearly suffering from what he said was a bad back. Came in on a motorcycle. If he's aged so much, I wonder why. Where did you see him? And what do you mean "word among the staff"? What staff? Just curious.

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[–] fruit_lounge 16 years ago

I would pay a lot of money to jump around and yell and scream and have people encourage me and actually join in. You can dance at a nightclub, but pull any of that stuff and your out, and people just think your weird. Same goes for a rock show. It must feel so euphoric to fall on the ground and flop around like a fish. I've never let go like that in my life. This movie let me see whole other side to that type of activity, but I still don't think I'll be joining in anytime soon.

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[–] profrabbit-1 16 years ago

What a great idea for a cult! Get your freak on while everyone gives you encouragement. It's very shamanic right? We need a sort of benign exorcism rave-type outlet.

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[–] rgcustomer 11 years ago

"like at any theater."

I challenge you to find even one non-religious theater that openly asks that some of the audience literally put off paying bills, and do so visibly, so they can put on their show.

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[–] Jerry_Sprinkle 16 years ago

This documentary is fantastic.

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[–] Yinky 11 years ago

I think it's possible it's lack of popularity could be due to the worship scenes being entirely too long. I would have liked more interviews of Marjoe, rather than five or six really, really long scenes of people speaking in tongues and flopping around. By the third one, I said, "all right, I get it awready." I think maybe if they could have gone further back to his childhood, or maybe more on what he does in his free time would have been more interesting. He said he'd like to be a rock star or actor; did he ever do anything like that? Was he in a band, or active in theatre? I think that would have made it more captivating.

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[–] carlystur 11 years ago

I just saw it for the first time tonight and I completely agree with the worship scenes being too long. They were wayyy too long for me. We would have gotten the picture from just a minute or so of each worship scene. My guess is that they wanted filler so that Marjoe didn't have to mention anything he didn't want to.

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[–] cookiela2001 11 years ago

I would have liked more backstage footage. The (long) filmed sermons are valuable in a time-capsule sort of way...but really, we've all seen that sort of thing before. (In fact it's on TV 'round the clock.) The interesting stuff is the footage offstage.

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[–] juneteenth22 10 years ago

Going off of what some other people have mentioned I would have also liked to see "the big reveal", so to speak. He talked a lot about wanting to get out of it, and I think one of the camera crew members asked if they were going to be around for the end of it, but then they never showed him coming clean to the parish. I would have liked to see the worshipers' reactions and how Marjorie handled it.

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