directed by Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey
Narrated by RuPaul Charles this an excellent documentary that I totally missed. It got mentioned by Hellen Rollins in this Emancipation video. It is about a very rare case – a televangelist power couple and in particular the life of Tammy Faye, that together with Jimmy Bakker established some of the pioneering Christian TV programs in the US (and probably in the world). The documentary is really intersting for several reasons, none the least that the Bakker couple and Fanny in particular was not demonizing queer people and was one of the first to not consider HIV/AIDS virus as a God-sent scourge (as the vast majority of charismatic pastors and conservative personalities did at the time causing much damage and suffering to the queer and AIDS patient community as a whole). It is therefore a rather quirky, zany and sympathetical documentary about televangelists and fundamentalist Christians in the US (who let’s not forget constitute a powerful Trump base and a powerful glue for Christian Zionists as well as Christofascist and Christian nationalist and Dominionist strains)
Secondly, I think one can follow the role of Christian faith under capitalism and in particular its US American arena. I do not say they are innocent in any way, but regarding the type of ultra-competitive and profit-oriented faith, the US was basically a piranha pool for faith healers, preachers of the prosperity gospel, and ideological entrepreneurs in the 1970s. The Bakkers, almost at each moment of their media carreer end up the victims of mergers, debt, tax evasion, and sex scandals. Is this really new? Does anyone expect anything else from the richest country in the world or from something that has now been labeled somewhat unfairly “Epstein regime”(unfairly not to the victims bc for them this regime war was very catastrophic and real), but because it seems like it was widely spread. From the beginning, the Bakker couple came up with a lot of ideas involving making Christianity cool again, of making conservatism “not seem conservative”(? ), altough this seems a dead end, since for us everything appears unbearably cringy, garish, and stuck up, it did strike a chord back then. It might sound absolutely outragous but the couple actually built Heritage USA, one of the first Christian-themed parks. They had puppets, they were on The 700 Club and established the PRAISE THE LORD (what else) CLUB aka the PTL network. If you are into movies like Network, you should also definitely watch this documentary. They basically established the televangelist mould.
One can also see the hostile takeover of a Christian ministry, Jerry Falwell – a powerful televangelist and leader of the so-called “moral majority”, a truly despicable figure and one of the main reasons Reagan came to power.
TimeSpace Warps 