I watched this movie with my mouth agape for most of it. The monumental level of ignorance and the power that it holds over so many Americans is staggering. No matter how many times I read news stories about it, see it represented in films or even in actual documentaries like this one where the masses hang themselves with their own words and actions it still sends me into a frenetic spell of anger and frustration.

If I could sit down with these people one on one and try to answer their questions and make them see how ridiculous they are being I would do it in a second. The older people are probably not worth the effort but there is still hope for the younger generations who are just constantly force fed this message of intolerance, hate and innate Christian superiority. (Sound at all familiar? Similar to a group from circa 1930-ish?) Yeah, exactly.

What’s the Matter with Kansas? is a documentary by Laura Cohen and Joe Winston based on the book by Thomas Frank of the same name that examines historically the sociopolitical condition of the Sunflower State. Although widely regarded as a typical conservative “fly over” state, Kansas in fact has deep roots in the liberal movement and democratic thinking. Recent changes in the political landscape have pushed Kansas back into the red but that wasn’t always the case.

The filmmakers do a good job of showing the many sides to this story. Going in one would expect to see the depiction of the Bible thumping radical Republican on one side and the educated liberals on the other. Now, don’t get me wrong they are there but there are also a few other types of people that show up to muddy the waters a bit.

My favorite is a seemingly crazy man who works as an artist in a big open field constantly displaying his pieces that are all in one way or another politically driven and shouting that he doesn’t want to get involved. He says about the debate over abortion, “until I grow breasts and a vagina I don’t think I can enter into that conversation.” Genius. And about gay marriage, “Gay marriage? Gay marriage,’ he exclaims, ‘who the hell cares? It doesn’t affect me so why would I care?” also… genius.

Now that voice of bipartisan reasoning doesn’t really show up anywhere else, the rest of our ‘cast of characters’ are all pretty frightening. At one point a man describing the decline of God Fearing civilization and the ‘moral decay’ of our once great ‘Christian society,’ by equated himself and his ‘Christian’ friends as a snake in a hole who you think is gone but just when you think he is he jumps out and bites you! Sooo…. let me get that one straight, a Christian religious zealot who looks to

the Bible for the answers to EVERYTHING in life just equated himself and everyone who agrees with him with a snake… also known as a serpent… which in the Bible is the devil. Ummm… really? Sometimes they make it so easy.

Probably the most disturbing of the images and sequences in the film is one happy families’ trip to the Creation Museum in nearby Kentucky. Yup, it exists. And not only does it preach the foolishness of evolution and the lunacy that is science it looks like some weird combination of Jurassic Park and Children of the Corn; because ya know God created Adam then Eve and then a T-Rex.

Most frightening at this ‘museum’ and I use that term as lightly as possible, ‘Christian Fun House’ might be a more apt description, there is a terrifying room that looks like a serial killers lair with minimal lighting, strobe effects, demonic music and newspaper clippings and videos talking about (among other things) homosexuality being the devil and pro-choice people being brutal vicious murderers. Obviously designed to scare little children into believing these lies we see it have that exact effect as the young son of this ‘Midwestern mom’ clings to her and buries his head in her stomach. Don’t worry though, he felt much better when they sat down to watch the flashy well produced and highly stylized ‘movie’ that takes you through the creation of the world in those wondrous seven days.

Also part of the explanation as to why evolution can’t possibly be true is that without religion and ‘our lord and savior Jesus Christ’ there might not be answers to questions like, ‘why are we here?’ ‘Why is there suffering?’ ‘What’s the meaning of life?’ You know those easy to answer questions. Forgive the expression but God Forbid there be questions without answers! If there are no answers then there is fear and the masses (or the asses) of the world can’t deal with that. Seriously people read a book that doesn’t begin with ‘Bib’ and end with ‘le’ every now and then and you might learn something.

A final nugget of wisdom from our Sarah Palin stand in is that 80% of the radical Christians who attend secular colleges lose their faith by the time they graduate. Yeah, that or they actually learned the undeniable, provable FACTS of life.

These people and their tactics are the most transparent (yet somehow successful) machinations I’ve ever seen. I’m sure it’s not hard to see which side of the political spectrum I fall into after this review but I will say that I will never hold ignorance against someone who is willing to learn. For those that stand around and preach hate and revel in the dissemination of misinformation, however, keep to your dirt roads and your small communities – steer clear of major cities,

universities and media outlets and eventually the stupidity will die off when you do.

The special features on this disc include a bunch of extended and deleted scenes which is not surprising given how much material filmmakers gather when compiling a feature length documentary. There’s also and audio commentary by the filmmakers and the author and an Audience Q&A. The Q&A is fantastic. A lot of interesting questions come up and we get to hear from some of the people who were in the film and what they thought about how they were portrayed.

No matter which side of the debate you find yourself on What’s the Matter with Kansas will have something for you because unlike yours truly, they don’t take a side. They present a lot of interesting facts and people and leave the final judgment up to the audience.

The test a good documentary is if two sides of an issue can sit down together and have a real debate after viewing it leading to new understandings on both sides. I think this movie succeeds in that sense. Fortunately for me and my sanity I didn’t have a Bible thumper nearby to discuss it with but I imagine he or she would have had a lot to say and would probably have been proud of how his or her side had been presented. For my part it definitely ‘got my Irish up’ as they say, but ultimately I was better for having watched it.