The most hated family in America

This is a review of ‘The Most Hated Family in America: Louis Theroux meets the Phelps’, April 1 2007, BBC2

Louis Theroux, the seemingly innocent-abroad interviewer who steps in to meet subjects where angels fear to tread, has in the past given us documented encounters with the stranger ends of the American cultural spectrum, as well as (among others) our own home-grown Sir Jimmy Saville and the Hamiltons.

In his programme shown on April 1, Theroux shows the results of an encounter of apparently several days with Westboro Baptist Church, better known as the church of Baptist minister Fred (‘God hates fags’) Phelps and his extended family who form the majority of the congregation.

Part of Theroux’s skill is that he comes across as a slightly whining liberal upper-class Englishman, which one can only assume puts his subjects off guard and leads them to speak more freely. This was the case in the programme, but viewers tuning in for fresh insights into the mentality of the Phelps group, the theology of their leader or how their fellow citizens regard them would have been somewhat disappointed. Phelps himself was a somewhat reclusive figure, coming out only a couple of times to speak to or in front of the camera.

Nothing new

There was nothing new in his message (perhaps unsurprisingly) but nor was there any insight into the person, who can almost simultaneously be quite jocular and abrasive, if not downright and needlessly rude, as well as occasionally giving the impression of a pent-up bear in a cage. Instead, much of the day-to-day running of the group’s activities was left in the hands of his daughter, Shirley Phelps-Roper, a steely woman who was both mentally and verbally sharp. In fact apart from one non-family member, a documentary maker who had moved from Florida to join the church, all Westboro Baptist Church members shown in the programme were members of the Phelps family.

Obviously, the parts of the programme that many would have found most odious (I certainly did) were the pickets carried out by the group at the drop of a hat, but especially at the funerals of fallen US soldiers. The bizarre rationale for this was that the US had made itself God’s enemy by embracing (as Phelps saw it) homosexuality. As evangelicals, of course, we believe that the gay lifestyle is wrong, displeases God and also brings its own sorrow. However, in Theroux’s programme we were treated to the grotesque spectacle of a group supposedly preaching the gospel and a turning from immorality actually using young children (seven years old, in one case) to carry signs with graphic depictions of matchstick men engaged in what was obviously meant to be anal sex. The irony (for want of a better word) of this seemed to be completely lost on the group, who protested that they were doing their involuntary hearers a ‘courtesy’ by their picketing. The group also seemed incapable of grasping that people could be opposed to the gay lifestyle and yet still not want to ally with them because of their incendiary and open hatred.

Theroux himself started by making little comment throughout the film, but as time went on he started to make small protests about the younger women’s apparently self-imposed singleness or the way that the group interpreted the Bible. Unfortunately Theroux himself gave no indication that he knew the Bible himself that well, and in an interview on the BBC2 website mentioned his opinion that part of the problem was ‘weird bits of the Bible’.

Presenter’s role

Perhaps we should not quibble, since his own role in these programmes seems to be as a stalking horse to flush out the big beast: nevertheless it would have been nice to see somebody from the evangelical camp giving an informed commentary (as Josh Moody did, see below) on where Phelps goes wrong without using this as an excuse to justify a gay agenda. Theroux himself has a female partner and a child and, as I am not one of those who sees ‘liberals’ (a contemporary hate-word) everywhere, I cannot discern his own beliefs or thoughts on the subject. In the Phelps church the camera was sometimes turned on to a placard explaining the Calvinist mnomic TULIP, but perhaps only the theologically-informed would have understood what this meant, or whether Phelps was a true Calvinist or, as his detractors claim, a hyper-Calvinist: to anyone else this might have been simply another sign of fundamentalist kookiness. Perhaps the key moment came very near the end, when Theroux got the non-family member to agree that he rejoiced in every calamity, death and disaster that befell anyone because he regarded it as a sign of God’s judgement.

No answers

Josh Moody, in the December 2005 EN, gave an informed commentary on the phenomenon of Fred Phelps which readers may find helpful. On the whole Louis Theroux’s programme was interesting, but offered no answers to the apparent schizophrenia of the individuals (charming one moment, ugly as soon as they picked up a placard) whom Theroux interviewed. There may be some unconscious irony in the fact that this programme was shown on April Fools’ Day.

Louis Theroux meets the Phelps

Nothing new

Presenter’s role

No answers

Nick Smith

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