Task 3: The Most Hated Family in America

‘The most hated family in America’ is a 2007 Expository documentary film written and presented by Louis Theroux about the family at the core of the Westboro Baptist Church. The organization is led by Fred Phelps and located in Topeka, Kansas. Westboro Baptist Church members believe that the United States government is immoral due to its tolerance of homosexuality; in addition, they protest at funerals of U.S. military killed in action with signs that display text such as "God Hates Fags" and "Thank God for Dead Soldiers".

1. Louis Theroux is an interactive documentary filmmaker. There are few codes and conventions that show this; such as the fact Louis ‘joins in’ with the families activities like joining them at church and attending their protests although the family sometimes offends Theroux about his religion. The interviews Louis has the family members are very informal and on the spot and open answered questions. Another code and convention of this is that Louis is always visible to the audience.

2. There are a few main subjects in the documentary; the main subject shown most on screen is Fred Phelps’ daughter Shirley; she interacts most with Louis and answers most of Louis’ questions. Then there is Fred Phelps; he isn’t shown on screen as much as Shirley but his conversations with Louis seem controversial in what he says. Another main subject is Steve Drain, Steve joined the church in 2001; the former filmmaker was making a documentary when he decided to move his family to Kansas and joined Westboro.

3. There are many themes and issues raised during the documentary. The church is noted for its anti-homosexual speeches, and runs numerous web sites such as GodHatesFags.com, GodHatesAmerica.com, and others expressing condemnation of homosexuality. There are also political issues within the documentary; such as the picketing at soldier’s funerals which have caused a huge amount of controversy worldwide. 

 4. The crew is very small and consists of Louis Theroux, a cameraman and a soundman. I think that this is because they didn’t want to disturb the naturalness of the family’s daily lives. I also think this was because they didn't want to draw anymore attention to the filming than they already had as the family could have been putting on an act. 

5. In this documentary there are many codes and conventions; such as Louis interacts with the family and joins in with their day-to-day lives. He also observes the subjects while they picket on the street. In some ways Louis try’s and provokes a response from the people he interviews, he asks difficult questions in which they usually do not answer. Fred Phelps is a prime example; when Louis asks about how many children he has, Fred asks to move on to the next question and then refuses to ask any more questions. Louis does break the boundaries of documentary by not sticking to one mode and taking elements of different modes to make his documentary.

6. Louis has one-to-one interviews with the family members to get their opinions on

their own, his interview techniques are to ask personal questions. The interviews are also informal, Louis does this because he wants to get their answers from their heart and not what he thinks are being put into the family heads. While asking his questions like this, the family gets very defensive towards the questions which causes the audience and Louis to think ‘do they really believe what they believe, or have they been brainwashed’.

7. Louis’s main objectives during filming this documentary were to understand the family, their views and values, maybe expose the truth of the family and maybe the little humanity within the church.  He wants to provoke the audience and cause debates from them while watching Louis wanted to question things during the documentary, such as if Fred Phelps was brainwashing his family into behaving a certain way and thinking there was only one way; the church’s way. He wanted the audience to be shocked by what they were saying. Louis also wanted to create good television, as an audience we like to watch things that will cause controversy.

8. I would describe this documentary as extremely provocative and controversial yet effective in the way it was meant to, it gets the audience talking. I think Louis was a good film-maker for this documentary as he was open minded while interacting with the family, he didn’t try and argue with the family or make his

view seem the better one, he took time to hear the families point of view of why they do what they do, and their opinions. Louis manages to keep a level, unbiased opinion; even when the family say things that may offend him, of the family despite their extremism, accompanying them on protests and seeing their whole belief “system” for what it is.