Culture

The Vatican has confirmed that Puerto Rican singer, Bad Bunny, held a private audience with Pope Leo on June 8 at the Santiago Bernabéu stadium, and MAGA did not take the news well.

Rich Raho Teacher-Theology Department at DePaul College Prep of the Lake Chicago, made the announcement on X, saying the meeting took place after the pontiff's gathering with the Madrid Archdiocesan community. The Catholic News Agency similarly confirmed the meeting. But before the end of the day on June 9, MAGA posters were already slamming the meeting.

“Just wonderful, the Pope hanging out with a gang-banger,” claimed one MAGA critic, before his post was buried on X by angry hecklers.

“Wait til you find out who Jesus hung out with ... also Bad Bunny isn't a gang banger,” one X user retorted.

“Not a gang-banger, weirdo,” replied another.

“The Chicago democrat pope meets with anybody. He's wonderful,” insisted another on X.

“So Pope Leo would rather have a meeting with Bad Bunny who promotes degeneracy than visiting the African countries where Christians and Catholics are being murdered by Islamists? Ok. Got it,” yowled another critic.

But the pope has his own standing on X, and his fanbase immediately pounced.

“Such a stupid uninformed comment,” one of them barked in reply on X.

MAGA’s hostility toward Pope Leo stems from the one-sided rivalry President Donald Trump has imposed on the Vatican.

In April, Pope Leo XIV chronicler Christopher Hale said he had confirmed that Trump’s Pentagon threatened to declare war on the Vatican. In January, the White House issued a threat behind closed doors at the Pentagon, when Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby summoned Cardinal Christophe Pierre — Pope Leo XIV’s then-ambassador to the United States — and delivered a lecture, said Hale.

“America has the military power to do whatever it wants in the world,” Colby and his associates informed the cardinal. “The Catholic Church had better take its side.”

As the room temperature rose, Hale said he confirmed that one U.S. official “reached for a fourteenth-century weapon and invoked the Avignon Papacy, the period when the French Crown used military force to bend the bishop of Rome to its will.”

Hale said the report confirmed that the Vatican had reason to decline the Trump-Vance White House’s invitation to host Pope Leo XIV for America’s 250th anniversary in 2026 two weeks after the confrontation.

But the pope remains a much more popular figure than the combative president, and columnists noted Trump appeared to go down in a bitter trample of screeching beneath the wheels of the papacy.

President Donald Trump’s controversial America’s 250th anniversary includes a set of mobile museums carrying displays about the nation’s history and prominent figures. But one of the displays is angering the religious community because it falsely claims that Muhammad Ali disavowed Islam.

“It is a stunning slight to the man — a beloved global icon, ambassador of peace, athletic legend, and cultural titan — and to Islam, a faith under siege by the Trump administration and others and for which Ali was a powerful envoy to mainstream America,” said former MS NOW analyst and producer Jonathan Larsen, describing the Freedom 250 organization’s so-called “Freedom Trucks.”

“After converting to Islam, he changed his name to Muhammad Ali though he later disavowed the religion,” the Freedom 250 truck Muhammad Ali display claims. But Ali never disavowed, renounced, or converted from Islam, said Larsen. “He died a Muslim and reportedly had a Muslim funeral.

Regardless, six of Trump’s trucks are currently traveling the country as part of the 250th anniversary commemorations.

Larsen reports the nation’s leading Muslim advocacy organization, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), is horrified at the untruth, responded to the falsehood, saying, “We call on the Freedom 250 Mobile Museum to correct the record.”

The displays were produced with the help of two right-wing Christian organizations — Hillsdale College and the media company PragerU — so Larsen said it is no surprise the Freedom Truck exhibits “predictably skew toward Christianity, elevating its role and focusing more on Christian figures, some of them with little relevance to the arc of America’s story and obscure even to history buffs.”

But Ali is one of the most famous Muslims in the world, as well as possibly the most famous American Muslim in history, said Laesen.

“His conversion to Islam was a seminal moment of the 1960s, setting up the legal battle over his refusal to fight in the Vietnam War that robbed him of more than three years of boxing at his peak,” Larsen added. “A fearless advocate for racial equality and justice, Ali spent much of his life after leaving the ring as an ambassador for peace, especially in the Muslim world.

Prager U is known for hacking together inaccurate history videos that enrage historians. Despite its name, PragerU is not a university. It is a conservative nonprofit that produces short videos on historical, economic and climate topics. The organization is founded and run by conservative talk-show host Dennis Prager and funded by a number of like-minded philanthropists.

One of the videos in its history series, in which two modern-day animated kids travel back in time to talk to abolitionist Frederick Douglass, has come under some of the harshest criticism from historians and academics.

The video suggests that Douglass, a former slave, believed founders’ decision not to abolish slavery in the U.S. Constitution was worth it because it helped convince the Southern colonies to join the Union: “Our system is wonderful, and the Constitution is a glorious liberty document. We just need to convince enough Americans to be true to it,” says cartoon Douglass.

At one point in “Pressure,” meteorologist James Stagg (Andrew Scott) explains to General Dwight D. Eisenhower (Brendan Fraser) that an impending storm will make it impossible for the Allied troops to successfully invade Normandy as planned. As he attempts to break down the meteorology, his competing scientist Irving P. Krick insists on rudely interrupting with his own ill-informed point-of-view. Eventually Stagg tells Krick what he — and the audience — needs to hear: That Krick is “a confident moron.”

With a single insult, Scott’s Stagg sums up both the chief lesson of “Pressure” and its primary pleasure as a source of entertainment. Much like a similar recent World War II-themed blockbuster, “Oppenheimer,” “Pressure” is at its core a story of hard-working, well-informed scientists fighting against arrogant ignorance. While the primary ignoramuses in “Oppenheimer” were political reactionaries and Krick is merely a blowhard, both emerge as antagonists because their hostility toward experts imperils the security and values of the free world.

Directed by Anthony Maras, who co-authored the script with David Haig based on the latter’s stageplay of the same name, “Pressure” follows Eisenhower, Stagg, Krick, Eisenhower’s secretary Kay Summersby (Kerry Condon) and Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (Damian Lewis) in the days before the June 1944 Normandy invasion known today as “D-Day.” The Allies would be unusually dependent on favorable weather to win the battle, so Eisenhower demands to know what the weather will be. Krick, using so-called “analog” maps that rely on past weather conditions to predict future ones, anticipates sunny skies and clear weather. Stagg, by contrast, relies on sophisticated data collection to anticipate a jet stream will push a major storm into the area.

The main drama in “Pressure” therefore involves the clashing egos of Stagg and Krick (who are equally full of themselves) as well as their clashing intellects (in which Stagg is clearly Krick’s superior). Eisenhower is thus placed in the unenviable position of needing to figure out which one is more reliable. From this potentially dry premise, “Pressure” creates a deeply engaging and fast-paced work of art.

I am not alone in this assessment. Ali, a 13-year-old self-described “history buff” who lives near the Pennsylvania theater where I saw “Pressure,” was very enthusiastic, gushing about how much she enjoyed seeing history brought to life and explaining she chose “Pressure” because it was the only film in theaters that looked interesting. Seven other theatergoers echoed her view, and that was only a small sample of the (for a Friday matinee) surprisingly packed auditorium.

To be clear, “Pressure” does not get the history 100 percent correct. Retired meteorologist Glenn “The Hurricane” Schwartz, who worked for the eastern Pennsylvania NBC affiliate from 1995 to 2022, broke down several aspects of the history that the film missed. It does not mention “pioneering meteorologist” Sverre Petterssen, a key part of the team who Schwartz explained “confidently predicted a bad storm for the 5th. Petterssen literally ‘wrote the book(s)’ on weather forecasting that I actually had to use as a [meteorology] undergrad in 1972!" It overlooks Krick’s post-war disgrace, not even mentioning it in the ending credits text. As Schwartz explained, he interviewed Dr. Francis Davis, who served “on Krick's team. Amazingly, Krick bragged about his role in the D-Day forecast EVEN THOUGH HE WAS DEAD WRONG! Even Davis admitted as such in my 2002 interview. ‘....it didn't work out very well.’” He later added that "Krick was so controversial and his ‘analog’ methods were so criticized by the meteorological community that he was about to be the first person ever thrown out of the American Meteorological Society for violating their Code of Ethics. He resigned instead. His methods live on in the private company, Planalytics, which happens to be located in the [Philadelphia] area. And believe it or not, AI appears to use analogs to make their forecasts, which happened to beat the National Hurricane Center and ALL computer models last season."

For Eisenhower buffs, perhaps the most notable omission is the widely substantiated (but technically unconfirmed) affair between the general and Summersby. Shortly before her death, Summersby admitted that she had to "disguise as best I could the intimacy that had grown between General Eisenhower and me. It was better that way.” While that omission was arguably defensible during Eisenhower’s lifetime, it becomes considerably less so in a movie intended to accurately reflect their interactions. One does not need the steamy indulgences of Oppenheimer’s affair in “Oppenheimer” to at least get that part right.

Yet there is also much for history and science buffs to love about “Pressure.” When it comes to the fundamental contours of the plot, science, military strategizing and overall history, “Pressure” is accurate. In the words of Dr. Michael E. Mann, the Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, “weather forecasting back then, before the age of numerical weather forecasting (which began in 1950 courtesy of the ENIAC computer at my university, Penn) was fairly primitive. It mainly consisted of using printed out weather maps and the elementary approaches we teach students in introductory courses on meteorology, which consists of taking the surface features (highs and lows), estimating the upper level steering winds, and predicting where those lows and highs are going to end up days later (it’s called the ‘steady state’ approach to forecasting).”

Perhaps most notably, “Pressure” subtly but firmly establishes the link between ignoring science and supporting reactionary political structures. Speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle’s G. Allen Johnson, Fraser explained that “it is a story that speaks to us 80-some years later. We see soldiers deployed again. We ask ourselves why, and then we ask ourselves why compared to 1944. The reason for even fighting (World War II) at all was to end fascism. To partner with nations and allies, later to become NATO, NASA, civil rights. I could go on.”

Maras elaborated on the scientific point.

“Eisenhower had those magnanimous examples of leadership that I think the world could benefit from now,” Maras told Johnson. “He took seriously the points of view of experts. We live in a specialized world, and it’s less about what any leader in particular knows and it is more about having the wisdom of who to trust and why you trust them.”

Dr. Federico Finchelstein, University in Exile Research Professor and Professor of History at The New School for Social Research and Eugene Lang College, told AlterNet that this link is far from coincidental. Indeed, Eisenhower himself famously liberated many concentration camps during the Holocaust so that the Jewish community could prove the atrocities that happened, and explicitly recognized the junk science used by Nazis to rationalize their oppression.

“I can say that historically fascism has had an ambiguous relationship with science,” Finchelstein said. “It instrumentalized rational means to achieve irrational ends. Science per se was not a problem for them insofar as it did not contradict their unreason, their ideological irrational being. Current wannabe fascists, including the Trumpists, tend to do the same but they are even more anti-science and more irrational regarding their means.”

While Krick is not a fascist, his ignorance is part of the same erroneous line of thinking that informs the Allies’ fascist foes. They first come to a conclusion, then retroactively create a logic to support it. Good leadership requires following the facts, even when they are inconvenient and especially when they disprove one's own prejudices. As Eisenhower himself famously told President John F. Kennedy near the end of Eisenhower’s own administration, the Allies won because they had better meteorologists than the Germans.

As President Donald Trump attacks the reality of man-made climate change and slashes federal funding to science programs all over America, this message is both relevant and poignant. Eisenhower was a firm supporter of funding scientific research and education.

“Science education is not only crucial for students with science ambitions,” Schwartz explained. “It's important to understand the basics of how science works to responsibly argue about climate, for example. And scientific research is crucial for the advancement of any branch of science. Cutting observations, research, or efforts to improve forecasting would horrify Eisenhower today.”

Or as Mann told AlterNet, “Not only did Eisenhower understand the importance of embracing science; he understood the pernicious consequences of bigotry and the importance of fighting back against it.” Connecting that point to today, “look no further than the latest effort by Trump and the polluters that he represents (and their hired propagandists) to attack the work of the international climate science community by misrepresenting the latest findings regarding the threat of climate change.”

At one point I quoted Eisenhower to Mann as a way of explaining how the film’s message is relevant to the Trump era.

"High-quality professional personnel in science, engineering, teaching, languages, and other critical fields are necessary to our national security effort,” Eisenhower said in 1958. “Each year, nevertheless, many young people drop out of high school before graduation. Many able high school graduates do not go on to college. This represents a waste of needed talent."

Mann replied, “Right on the money.” If I had to summarize “Pressure” in four words, those are the ones I’d choose: “Right on the money.”

Las Vegas has always had a reputation for doing things bigger, louder and glitzier than everyone else. On Sunday, May 24 2026 it continues that tradition when the inaugural Enhanced Games take place at a purpose-built entertainment centre at Resorts World, a giant hotel complex on the city’s famous strip.

Stephen Colbert’s final episode as host of “The Late Show” on May 21, 2026, won’t mark the end of his career.

Mark Fuhrman — the former Los Angeles Police Department detective who investigated alleged murderer OJ Simpson and was later accused of racist biases in that case — was reported on Monday to have died last week.

The reactions, at least on social media, appear to be split along political lines.

“Mark Fuhrman, the controversial LAPD detective whose testimony became a flashpoint in the O.J. Simpson trial, has passed away from an aggressive form of throat cancer at age 74,” tweeted retired Colorado detective Lisa J. Miller on Monday. “Years earlier, his fellow lead detective Philip Vannatter also died of complications from cancer. I had the genuine honor of meeting Phil and sharing lunch with him.”

Miller shared that Vannatter “was a kind, principled gentleman who spoke candidly about his deep disappointment in Fuhrman’s actions and the political circus that he felt undermined the case and contributed to Simpson’s not-guilty verdict.”

The former law enforcement officer concluded, “Two detectives, forever linked by history. May both rest in peace. #OJSimpson #MarkFuhrman”

Stand-up comedian Dave Landau echoed Miller’s criticism but with a much harsher framing.

“Mark Fuhrman passed away,” Landau posted. “His ashes will be spread unnecessarily all over a crime scene.”

Former Fox Sports and News Corp journalist Robert Lutesich criticized both Luhrman and Simpson in his commentary about Fuhrman’s passing.

“OJ got away with murder because of police & prosecutorial bungling - & crafty defense lawyering - but his luckiest break came when a predominantly Black jury heard Mark Fuhrman, who testified he'd never used the N-word, on tape using it,” Lutesich wrote. “He wasn't a good man; OJ wasn't, either.”

In contrast to more mainstream commentators, conservative and pro-Trump commentators have attempted to celebrate Fuhrman’s life in the wake of his death.

“R.I.P.,” wrote conservative commentator Michelle Malkin on Monday. “He was REDEEMED. Mark Fuhrman wrote the most powerful indictment of Oklahoma's death penalty machine, crime lab catastrophes, and wrongful convictions.”

Anthony Sabatini, a Florida Republican politician and past congressional candidate, expressed a similar view but more succinctly.

“RIP Mark Fuhrman—a great American & fighter for justice,” Sabatini posted.

A conservative commentator from the show Real America, Grant Stinchfield, went on in more detail about his thoughts on Fuhrman, who he personally knew.

“Mark Fuhrman dead at 74,” Stinchfield wrote. “I got to know and respect him. He solved a the cold case murder of Martha Moxley, that put Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel in prison. I spent every day with Mark during that trial in 2002. He will be missed.”

During the Simpson trial, Fuhrman was transformed from being a standard prosecution witness into a lightning rod for controversy after it was revealed he had used racial slurs and made racist comments in private. He also was accused of planting evidence in the Simpson trial, although that was never proved. Legal experts widely agreed that the controversies surrounding Fuhrman, which Simpson’s legal team discussed extensively, played a key role in the jury’s decision to acquit him.

During their high-stakes meeting in Beijing this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping reportedly asked US President Donald Trump if the two countries could overcome the “Thucydides trap”.

For years, scientists have researched whether there is any connection between genetic intelligence and political preference, yet the results were contradictory. By incorporating class into the research, however, one researcher has found a startling and consistent pattern: Intelligent people are inclined to be left-wing economically if they were born poor and right-wing economically if they were born wealthy.

“In this study, I argue that this puzzle can only be understood from a gene–environment interaction (GxE) perspective,” wrote Uppsala University's Department of Government researcher Rafael Ahlskog in the journal Political Psychology. “Drawing on traditional theories of political preference formation, I argue that genetics associated with cognitive performance should cause more left-wing economic preferences if you grow up in relative poverty, but more right-wing economic preferences if you grow up affluent. Utilizing variation in a polygenic index (PGI) of cognitive performance within dizygotic twin pairs, coupled with unique register data on economic conditions for the twins, their parents, and their childhood neighborhood, I show that the causal effect of the PGI on economic conservatism is zero on average, but indeed sizable and sign-discordant by class background.”

Ahlskog added, “The GxE perspective thus has wide-ranging implications for future research attempting to integrate genetic methods into political psychology.”

In short, while intelligence does impact a person’s political preferences, smart people will lean toward conclusions that are perceived as providing the most benefit to their specific class, regardless of its specific ideological content.

To learn this, Ahlskog decided to study a large sample of fraternal twins born between 1943 and 1958 and studied by the Swedish Twin Registry (Zagai et al., 2019).

“The twins have also been connected to rich registry sources for things like education and income, as well as to the intergenerational registry, allowing the addition of the same register variables for the parents of the twins,” Ahlskog added. “A separate full population register dataset has been used to obtain information about context/neighborhood [socioeconomic index].”

Despite its robust source base, the study is not without its limitations.

“he genetic predictor is a noisy measurement that only captures a fraction of the actual heritable traits for cognitive performance,” reported PsyPost's Karina Petrova on Wednesday. “Comparing genetic differences within local twin pairs amplifies this measurement noise even further. As a result, the reported effects are likely much smaller than the actual biological impact.”

Petrova added, “The geographical and historical realities of the respondent group also matter. The individuals in this sample grew up in Sweden during the middle of the twentieth century, a period defined by the rapid expansion of the modern welfare state. Class-based politics and labor movements were highly salient in their daily lives.”

This is not the first study to demonstrate a link between intelligence and political ideology. A February study in the journal Intelligence studied 7,000 third-grade students by determining their IQs, following up with the high IQ and non-high IQ students six years later to confirm their IQs and then do so again 35 years later to assess their political views. It found that non-gifted men were more likely to be conservative than gifted men, while for women there was no difference between IQ groups and their political views.

On a related note, an April study published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin revealed that among 1,600 people dating online, liberals overwhelmingly and disproportionately were likely to rank men who supported right-wing conspiracy theories about vaccines and election denial to be less intelligent than those who did not. Liberals were also found to reject conservatives at much higher rates than conservatives rejected liberals.

“Disclosing conspiracy beliefs in online dating profiles undermines impressions of warmth, intelligence, and trustworthiness, which are important for online dating success,” the authors wrote in their conclusion. “Right-wing conspiracy beliefs were particularly stigmatized, with liberals being harsher in their judgments and conservatives showing greater leniency.”

Comedian and satirist Munya Chawawa’s documentary “Wrestling With Trump” punches President Donald Trump in ways he should have been punched at the very beginning of his political career, says Guardian writer Lucy Mangan.

“Trump is the ultimate showman. He’s a master of it, a billionaire Barnum, but with a greed so insatiable it moves him ever further from entertainment into malevolence,” Mangun said. “If the Democrats had realized this earlier and recognized the strength the man was playing to and the particular voting public weaknesses he was preying upon, instead of sneering with distaste, then maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Chawawa, however, takes the “underused idea” that Trump and his team’s campaigns and style of government “use the same playbook as that created by the U.S. pro-wrestling industry’s most famous promoters, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE),” said Mangan.

The connection is more than obvious, added Mangan. World Wrestling Entertainment was founded by Vince McMahon and his since-estranged wife, Linda. Vince quit the business 2024 in the wake of allegations of sex trafficking and sexual assault, but his wife Linda is now the U.S. secretary of education.

One of the most-recognized tropes of fake wrestling is its habit of dividing “heroes” (white Americans) and villains (non-American, non-white Americans) with “Babyfaces” (good guys who play by the rules) “Heels” (who aren’t and don’t).

It works in the ring and at political rallies, said Chawawa, who notices Trump’s use of trash talk and his alienation of brown people to “rouse the bloodlust” and “make [voters] commit” to a world leader “who promises to rid the world of all the people perceived to be the cause” of white voters’ frustrations.

And then there’s the wrestling industry’s use of “kayfabe,” and its blurring of the lines between truth and lies. Chawawa, in his documentary, “speaks to MAGA folk who can call Trump a “blue collar billionaire” without batting an eyelid. It’s a sign of the “astonishing power” Trump has “to warp the senses, collapse contradictions and reconstruct a reality that suits him better,” reports Mangun.

“Kayfabe, in wrestling, is the pretense that everything is real – that the invective is unscripted, that the Heels’ and heroes’ backstories are authentic, that the moves are unchoreographed, and that the body slams, hip checks and chokeholds are as dangerous and painful as they look. For as long as the fight lasts, you live the illusion. Nothing is true except what you are told you see.”

President Donald Trump’s economy appears to be touching every aspect of U.S. life — even canceling entertainment venues in states that voted for him in 2024.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that a Milwaukee festival will now have one less headline act at the American Family Insurance Amphitheater for 2026 as the reunited Pussycat Dolls become yet another band to cancel its North American tour amid U.S. economic concerns.

“After taking an honest look at the North American run, we’ve made the difficult and heartbreaking decision to cancel all but one of the North America dates,” the band announced on social media.

The Sentinel reports “this is the second major North American tour with a Milwaukee date this summer to be canceled” and one of five Summerfest 2026 acts that have pulled themselves from the lineup, including Dolls' planned openers Lil' Kim and Mya.

Across the nation, artists have been blaming “logistics, timing and wellbeing” for pulling shows, but the UK Times reports empty seats on venue maps show demand is not keeping pace with price as patrons pull entertainment budgets in favor of necessities.

“In recent weeks big-name artists including Meghan Trainor, Zayn Malik, Post Malone and the Pussycat Dolls have cancelled performances or entire tours,” reports the Times. “Only the Pussycat Dolls referenced disappointing ticket sales as a reason for the cancellations, but fans believe they all represent a case of “blue dot fever.”

The phrase “blue dot fever” takes its meaning from the symbols for empty seats on the Ticketmaster website, signifying unsold tickets. “Now, amid economic and geopolitical uncertainty,” the Times reports there are signs that consumer tolerance” for entertainment expenditures is breaking and a correction is taking place.

But few artists are stating the obvious: fans don’t have cash.

“The rapper Post Malone cancelled six tour dates last week, claiming he needed more time to work on new music. For the opening night of his tour at the Bank of America Stadium in North Carolina on June 9, blue dots populate all sections of the venue,” reports the Times.

Wisconsin, which supported Trump’s return to the White House in 2024, is just one more example of a state with less expendable income as Trump’s hugely unpopular war with Iran rages on, hiking fuel and grocery prices.

Editor's Note: The story has been updated to include additional information about the "Animal Farm" animators.

In the age of President Donald Trump, American children need to see "Animal Farm."

Based on satirist George Orwell's classic 1945 novella of the same name, “Animal Farm” loosely adapts the original’s plot into an age-appropriate animated film. Directed by Andy Serkis, written by Nicholas Stoller and starring Seth Rogen, Gaten Matarazzo, Woody Harrelson, Glenn Close and Laverne Cox, it tells the story of a livestock rebellion in which pigs, sheep, chickens, cows and other animals overthrow their farmer and take over his farm. When Orwell first wove this tale more than 80 years ago, it reflected his disillusionment with left-wing politics: A democratic socialist himself, Orwell was dismayed and horrified as the Soviet Union descended into tyranny after the corrupt Joseph Stalin ran Leon Trotsky out of the government.

Flash forward to the 21st century and it’s shocking: The exact same dynamics that Orwell despised in the leftist anti-establishment define the right-wing populism promulgated by Trump. Given that the main filmmakers and stars are explicitly anti-Trump themselves, it is reasonable to surmise that these parallels are deliberate.

As depicted in the Angel Studios version, a boar named Napoleon (Rogen) orchestrates a coup against a pig named Snowball (Cox), a liberal-coded pig (and a character that, in Cox's hands, seems more like Hillary Clinton than Trotsky) who is smart and sincerely means well but cannot conceal her patronizing attitude toward the masses. Discovering and resenting her condescension, the other animals turn on Snowball and follow Napoleon’s lead, who panders to them while secretly plotting to sell them out for his personal profit.

If all of this reminds you of Trump, again, I doubt that was an accident. Just as Orwell criticized Stalin and his supporters for being no better than the aristocrats they deposed, Serkis and Stoller recognize that Trump’s appeal similarly depends on their supporters failing to see how their supposed liberators are exactly like other oppressors. In true Trump-ian fashion, Rogen’s Napoleon wheedles, bribes, gaslights and bullies as necessary to convince a population which craves economic and social justice that he will provide it. Behind the scenes, however, Napoleon ruthlessly funnels all of the farm's wealth and power to himself and his cronies.

I enjoyed everything about "Animal Farm": It's clever, colorful and well-served by its talented cast, especially Rogen as a Napoleon who mixes Trumpist values with Rogen-esque shtick. My positive view on “Animal Farm," however, is not the consensus opinion. Most of my fellow Rotten Tomatoes critics panned “Animal Farm,” complaining (to quote The Wrap’s William Bibbiani) that “the changes [from the book] aren’t an improvement. Most of them only call attention to the power of Orwell’s novella, and the comparative powerlessness of this new version.” To an extent, Bibbiani is correct: Orwell wrote his book for adults while Serkis made his film for young people, and therefore the book is more incisive, layered and thought-provoking than the motion picture.

Yet just because a movie doesn’t live up to a great book, that doesn’t mean the movie itself isn’t also great. Indeed, in this case, trying to faithfully adapt the source material would likely have backfired. I think of Victor Hugo's novel "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," which in my opinion is superior to the nevertheless-excellent animated Disney film. While I won't spoil the book's plot by revealing the changes, suffice to say that they are both substantial and justifiable, as the Disney film had to remove much of the dark source material so the final product would be suitable for young people. Serkis and Stoller faced the same challenge and rose to it, thereby achieving something quite impressive with this motion picture. For “Animal Farm,” the filmmakers needed to tell an entertaining and kid-appropriate story that nevertheless, like Orwell's novella, effectively explains through its plot how tyrants manipulate their citizens. “Animal Farm” accomplishes this so deftly that I suspect some of critics are taking that feat for granted. Unlike the two previous cinematic iterations of "Animal Farm" — a 1954 animated film and a 1999 live-action adaptation — this one works overtime to be appropriate for kids of all ages.

So yes, Rogen’s Napoleon and his goons are broadly characterized, their machinations easy for all but the tiniest tots to comprehend. Yes, the movie is full of cutesy images, catchy songs, toilet humor and other accoutrements one usually sees in mainstream animated family fare. This is as it should be: “Animal Farm” can appeal to children as much as any “Despicable Me" movie (and, like that franchise, this one looks like it was drawn by Illumination, although Aniventure and Imaginarium Productions made it, with Angel Studios distributing). Importantly, though, "Animal Farm" is crystal clear in transmitting Orwell’s main message: That one should distrust charismatic leaders who promise to help the masses, then manipulate and bully so that they can become dictators themselves.

We live in an era in which Americans need to trust their brains, eyes and ears instead of listening when told to respect corrupt and self-aggrandizing leaders. At a time when Trump is using every conceivable tool to become an American Napoleon — trying to steal elections, exacerbate racial divisions, profit from power and silence critics (especially after the attempts on his life) — kids need to watch “Animal Farm" so they can learn its crucial lesson: Think for yourself, not as the powerful want you to.

Frankly, their parents should learn that lesson too. Democracy depends on it.

As the United States and Israel launched their war on Iran in late February, the social media posts by some US national security agencies took a particular turn.

On April 15, United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth led a prayer session at the Pentagon. But instead of quoting from any recognised canon of sacred scripture, Hegseth’s prayer sounded unmistakably like Samuel L. Jackson’s “Jules”, a hitman character from Quentin Tarantino’s iconic 1994 film Pulp Fiction.

President Donald Trump's "triumphal arch" is scheduled to be pitched officially at the Commission of Fine Arts on Thursday, but the project goes beyond that.

Trump's chairman, Rodney Mims Cook, Jr., who has been fighting for an arch for three decades, now wants to ensure three arches are built across Washington, D.C, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

In January 2026, Trump fired all of the members of the Commission and appointed his own loyalists, ensuring that all of his projects would be approved. The commission isn't the only decision-making body when it comes to building things around Washington, however.

The arch that Trump is proposing now is slated to stand between the Memorial Bridge and Arlington National Cemetery. It will not be on the cemetery's property; rather, it will stand in Virginia. Veterans groups are already opposing the arch, saying that it blocks the view of the cemetery.

But this is one of three that Cook has had his eye on crafting for at least 30 years.

“I think the president should do three,” Cook said, speaking to the press in Italy last week. The original architect of Washington, Pierre L'Enfant, wanted an arch in the District.

According to Cook, Trump “wants to complete the L’Enfant plan. No one has.”

The L'Enfant Plan had 15 plazas around the city, and each were to honor a state in the union, the original 13 with the two new, Kentucky and Vermont. Each would have a column or obelisk. Those didn't happen either. While there are squares, none of them honor the states. An old exhibit at the National Building Museum showcased "Unbuilt Washington," highlighting some of L'Enfant's ideas, including a canal along the National Mall and other never-built features.

Cook refused to answer when he was asked if he'd spoken to Trump about having three arches instead of just one.

"The president has publicly echoed Cook’s laments about Washington’s lack of an arch, vowing to build the world’s largest — an ambition that fits within his broader effort to reshape the capital’s civic landscape and align its monuments more closely with his vision of American power, patriotism and legacy," the report said.

The "triumphal Arch" was used by the Romans to commemorate military victory. A kind of self-congratulatory trophy to "winning."

One arch would loom over the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge and the other over the John Philip Sousa Bridge. They would be viewed as drivers who entered Washington from the South.

Axios estimated the cost of Trump's arch at about $100 million last year. The White House said it would be a mix of private and public funds spent. However, Trump's new budget requests $15 billion from Congress to fund the arch, according to a NOTUS report last week.

There were many versions of The L'Enfant Plan, and even more subsequent ideas for Washington in the centuries that followed.

The Facebook page for the National Mall and Memorial Parks said in 2021 that not even the National Mall came to fruition in the L'Enfant Plan until 1852.

Other proposed structures throughout the years included a pair of domed buildings at the base of Capitol Hill. There was also a massive pyramid suggested to honor Abraham Lincoln at one point. Memorial Bridge was once considered a place to honor Ulysses S. Grant with a medieval-style construction featuring massive towers, similar to London Bridge.

From the Memorial Circle, a viewer currently sees a large hill rising above the trees. On it are row upon row of uniform white marble headstones, honoring those who gave the ultimate sacrifice for the United States. Those soldiers who died beginning in the American Civil War are still honored there, and any soldier who dies during active duty is guaranteed the option to be buried on the land.

It's the main reason that veterans groups are suing to stop the arch. The sight of Arlington as one crosses the Memorial Bridge from the Lincoln Memorial to the cemetery is significant. Trump's arch would block off that view and be larger than almost all other monuments in the city.

“We want to honor veterans; we’re glad that people are thinking about it, and we looked at the project,” Army veteran Jon Gunderson, said when speaking to MS NOW. “For one thing, it’s three times the size of the Lincoln Memorial. It’s bigger than the Statue of Liberty or the Arc de Triomphe, and it ruins the view. If you’ve ever been to Arlington Cemetery and you’ve seen the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, you see this beautiful sweep. You see the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the Capitol, all the iconic parts of America … all of them had been cleared by Congress. And this ‘monument’ – I use that word loosely – would not only block the view, but it’s on a traffic circle, so visitors can’t get there.”

Now Trump's chairman of the board is talking about three of those.

"Among the most basic things is: We didn’t build skyscrapers. We’ve kept a very low-slung skyline. And one of Trump’s changes, which is this giant 250-foot-tall memorial arch, would actually be one of the very tallest buildings in Washington and would fundamentally change that skyline," wrote Avishay Artsy and Sean Rameswaram for Vox in March.

Smack dab in the Rust Belt city of Allentown, Pennsylvania, the Movie Tavern Trexlertown is a welcome hybrid of multiplex and gastropub. Yet even though I was there to join a large audience to experience a sci-fi masterpiece called “Project Hail Mary,” I allowed my curiosity to briefly lead me on a tangent about a film with a drastically — um — different quality.

“Was there anything like these crowds for ‘Melania’?” I asked the employee who sold me my ticket. They bristled at the title; I clarified that I was a film critic seeking demographic information and not a supporter of President Donald Trump. They relaxed, then answered: “Not a lot of people saw that, but a few did.” “Melania” viewers tended to be groups of senior citizens turning out to support Trump.

I cannot imagine any form of political self-expression more masochistic than watching “Melania.” The literally plotless documentary about the 20 days before Trump’s second inauguration is, on its face, stupefyingly dull — a hagiographic non-portrait of a non-entity of a First Lady — and I cannot recommend it either as a genuinely good film or even as an ironically entertaining one. One scene cracks that facade, her attendance at President Jimmy Carter's memorial, and it exposes how narcissism-fueled deflection collapses when incompetently executed.

To understand that fascinating moment, which puts the “scene” in “obscene,” one must juxtapose it with Melania Trump’s recent speech about her husband's and her own controversial ties to the late Jeffrey Epstein, the infamous convicted child sex trafficker to the rich and powerful.

In terms of their legacies, Carter was as far removed from Epstein as two human beings can be from one another. He served a single distinguished presidential term from 1977 to 1981 and is best remembered for achieving a lasting peace between Israel and Egypt, returning the Panama Canal to Panama, supporting liberal social legislation (such as on women’s rights and disability rights), struggling with inflation and a hostage crisis with Iran.

You learn exactly none of this in “Melania.” In fact, from this movie, you know nothing about Carter’s life or achievements other than the fact that he once was a president and now he is dead. Instead all we hear about is Melania use the historic, solemn ceremony held in the January after his Dec. 29, 2024 passing as an opportunity to talk about her deceased mother. Given that the late Amalija Knavs did indeed pass away one year earlier, this is forgivable up to a point; it is understandable to mention her mother, but not to focus entirely on her — or, to be more precise, Melania’s performance of a grief response, which receives far more attention than any details about Kvans herself.

The problem, from a dramatic standpoint, is that Melania’s act is so hollow it becomes its own kind of confession. She talks about her mother in platitudes delivered with so little conviction, such a lack of emotion, that the matriarchal shift feels less like a sincere tribute than a roundabout opportunity to make Carter’s story about herself. One who watches “Melania” for the Carter scene will learn absolutely nothing about Carter, true, but they will also learn only slightly more about Amalija Knavs.

The scene is the thesis — a woman surrounded by weight and gravity, contributing nothing.

I’d like to contribute something from my own interaction with Carter, in the summer of 2018 for a Salon Magazine interview about the anniversary of his 1979 speech on America’s existential “crisis of confidence.” We spoke briefly twice, with his bristly demeanor on both occasions being not dissimilar to that of the aforementioned movie theater cashier. I don’t know why Carter felt this way, but I do know his ornery attitude fueled this observation about Trump’s presidency.

“I think that under Trump the government is worse than it has been before,” Carter explained by email. “This is the first time I remember when the truth is ignored, allies are deliberately aggravated, China, Europe, Mexico and Canada are hurt economically and have to hurt us in response, Americans see the future worse than the present, and immigrants are treated cruelly.”

When asked if America still has a “crisis of confidence,” he said that “we still have the same crises of that time.

He then added “plus a serious loss of faith in democracy, the truth, treating all people as equals, each generation believing life would be better, America has a good system of justice, etc.” When I pointed out that in 1979 he observed “what you see too often in Washington and elsewhere around the country is a system of government that seems incapable of action. You see a Congress twisted and pulled in every direction by hundreds of well-financed and powerful special interests,” he concluded “this is much worse than when I gave the speech.”

I could not help but think of these “hundreds of well-financed and powerful special interests” in both the White House and Congress when it comes to the Epstein scandal. Combined with my ongoing anger at Trump for refusing to keep the flag lowered after Carter’s death during his inaugural ceremonies, I felt indignant at the Trumps’ ostentatious neutrality toward Carter’s life and legacy. If nothing else, Trump could learn from Carter’s longevity; the health-conscious Baptist was the only president to make it to 100, which looks increasingly unlikely for Trump given his penchant for Franken-burgers and angry outbursts about things he can’t control.

This brings us back to Melania Trump’s White House speech, which in its angry defensiveness betrayed more authentic emotion in less than 10 minutes than “Melania” the film did in more than 100. The first lady’s speech was seemingly prompted by various impending salacious reports about the relationship between the future president and first lady and the notorious pedophile (including that the Trumps first slept together on an Epstein plane named after “Lolita,” a book about a fictional pedophile which inspired a classic 1962 black comedy film with the same title... which is also far better than “Melania,” directed by Epstein associate Brett Ratner).

Yet despite finally bringing some emotional realness to her public presence, Melania could not do the same with factual realness. For instance, despite saying she only interacted with Epstein’s close aide Ghislaine Maxwell casually, in 2002 Melania sent an email to Maxwell saying “HI!”, describing Maxwell’s travel plans and signing it “Love, Melania.” Maxwell meanwhile referred to then-Melania Knauss as “sweet pea.” Perhaps more damningly, a 2016 email to Epstein from a redacted sender alleged Melania actually met Donald through Epstein.

“I remember flying back with Donald on his plane the first weekend I went to visit you in Florida was the weekend he met Melania and he kept on coming out of the bedroom saying’ wow what a hot piece of a--,’” the unknown sender wrote in the email.

"These images and stories are completely false,” Melania Trump said in her speech. “I am not a witness or a named witness in connection with any of Epstein's crimes."

When I juxtapose the emptiness of these two moments — Melania’s reaction to Carter’s memorial service and her reaction to being confronted over her ties to Epstein — the bottomless abyss reflects the absolute self-involvement that permeates every level of both Trumps’ entire being.

When they talk constantly about themselves, and make every story one in which they are the central characters, we inevitably go along with them simply because they possess so much power that they can compel conversations in that direction through sheer brute force. In the process, we start viewing the tragedies of others — a former president who died, countless children who were exploited — not in terms of the actual suffering, but the narcissistic self-interest of those who wish to ignore them either out of indifference or something more sinister. Even worse, we do not learn lessons that they have to teach us about the injustices that those in power perpetrate.

The emptiness was always the story. Now we know why.

Sand was thrown in the gears of President Donald Trump’s grand White House ballroom plans on March 31, 2026, when U.S. District Court Judge Richard Leon ordered a pause on construction.

The president, the judge wrote, was the “steward” of the residence, not its “owner.” In response, the Justice Department filed an emergency motion, asking that construction be allowed to resume due to security risks caused by the project being in a state of limbo.

Presidents of the United States, unlike other world leaders, have not typically sought to impress their own architectural tastes on national monuments.

In this regard, Trump is the exception. His approach to remaking federal architecture has mirrored his approach to university funding and immigration enforcement: move fast, break things.

But Trump’s imposition of his aesthetic preferences doesn’t just threaten to erase chapters in the story of the nation’s federal architecture. It also risks undoing the legacies of presidential wives, influential designers and the egalitarian ideals that many of these buildings embody.

Gaudy grandeur

Since his second term began in January 2025, Trump has paved over the storied White House Rose Garden – established by first lady Ellen Wilson in 1913 and redesigned by renowned horticulturalist Bunny Mellon in 1962 – complaining that ladies’ high-heeled shoes sank into the ground. The art deco bathroom off the Lincoln Bedroom now reflects Trump’s penchant for polished marble. And gold-colored decorative elements have been affixed to the simple woodwork throughout the White House, with some of the ornamentation brought from Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s Florida estate.

Most notably, the East Wing, which housed the offices of the first lady and her staff, was flattened in fall 2025 to make way for a grand ballroom projected to cost some US$400 million. The building, if completed as planned, will dwarf the historic White House.

The ballroom also reflects Trump’s taste for grandiosity and opulence – the same aesthetic that’s reflected in the 250-foot “Independence Arch” that Trump has proposed for Washington.

Trump has repeatedly complained that public buildings in Washington lack grandeur. He was even quoted by Golf Magazine in 2017 as having described the White House as a “real dump,” although he later denied it.

Yet many of the structures he has demolished or has sought to revise embody, in their form and decoration, certain republican ideals, such as government by the people, civic virtue and opposition to concentrated power.

Buildings that embody egalitarianism

Trump has added accents to the White House to mimic the imposing homes of British and European monarchs. But the residence’s original “republican simplicity” – a concept attributed to Thomas Jefferson – actually had a purpose: It signaled the egalitarian outlook of the founders.

In 1792, when Jefferson was George Washington’s secretary of state, he anonymously entered the competition to design a new presidential home. His submission, which didn’t end up winning, was inspired by Renaissance architecture like Andrea Palladio’s Villa Rotonda. Completed around 1570 in northern Italy, the Villa Rotonda features symmetrical facades and harmonious proportions that have been equated with Renaissance humanism and rationalism.

Elsewhere, Jefferson advocated for modeling the young nation’s government architecture on the classical tradition, due to its associations with ancient Greek and Roman democracy. This often meant using classical design principles like restraint, order and geometric harmony, and adapting them by either simplifying the elements or using locally available materials instead of the expensive marble and other stones favored by the ancients.

A repudiation of ‘republican simplicity’

In August 2025, Trump signed an executive order, Making Federal Architecture Beautiful Again, directing that this same classical style inform the design of all future federal buildings.

Yet Trump’s own vision for the White House design doesn’t align with this directive. For one, the sheer enormity of the proposed ballroom transgresses the foundational belief in classical restraint.

The columns that will support the ballroom’s south colonnade have Corinthian capitals, the most ornate type of decorative top for a column. In contrast, Ionic capitals, which are more restrained, currently grace the columns at the entrance of the White House. One of Trump’s appointees, however, wants to swap these out in favor of Corinthian capitals.

And the temple-style portico on the east façade of the planned ballroom is awkwardly shifted to the far north end, rather than being centered as the classical tradition would dictate.

Glossing over history

This is not to say that classical principles have never run up against contemporary design trends.

In 1888, architect Alfred B. Mullett completed the State, War and Navy Building, now known as the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Mullet had been inspired by Boston’s Old City Hall, which had been completed in 1865 and was itself inspired by the government architecture of the French Second Empire.

Trump has said that he finds the Eisenhower building’s gray granite façade dreary, and that he’d like to paint it white. Yet the material itself is a crucial element, tying the structure to the “Boston Granite Style.”

If the office building is painted white – in a process that would degrade the granite – a visual key to understanding its architectural and political history would be lost.

Architectural historian Henry-Russell Hitchcock argued how forward-looking the building was for its time, and showed how how it mirrored the first skyscrapers erected in New York City: Richard Morris Hunt’s Tribune Building and the Western Union Building designed by Hunt’s pupil George B. Post.

For these reasons, preservationists have sued Trump to try to prevent these alterations.

President Donald Trump wants to paint the Eisenhower Executive Office Building white. Celal Güne/Anadolu via Getty Images

Design that’s bottom up, not top down

I think it’s also important to note that in the original design and construction of many of the buildings Trump disparages, women played outsized roles.

As I note in my 2025 book, “Women Architects at Work: Making American Modernism,” which I co-authored with Mary Anne Hunting, the contributions of women in architecture and design have often been overlooked.

The Trump administration’s projects in and around Washington will only further obscure the women who shaped the federal buildings and landscapes of the capital.

While the Rose Garden reflected the efforts of Bunny Mellon and Jacqueline Kennedy, the East Wing came under the watchful eye of Edith Roosevelt, the wife of President Theodore Roosevelt. Edith worked hand-in-hand with famed classicist architect Charles Follen McKim on its redesign as the primary entrance, in 1902. And had it not been for the public fundraising efforts of Jacqueline Kennedy, the capital may never have had a performing arts venue of national significance, the Kennedy Center for the Arts. In early 2026, the Trump administration announced that the center would close for two years to undergo an estimated US$200 million renovation.

While all buildings are living organisms that are frequently adapted to changing functional requirements, they are also the repositories of national memory.

In 1961, a young Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who, as a U.S. senator from New York, would later go on to advocate for historic preservation, penned “Guiding Principles for Federal Architecture” on behalf of an ad hoc government committee on office space.

“The development of an official style must be avoided,” he wrote. “Design must flow from the architectural profession to the Government, and not vice versa.”

As Judge Leon made clear in his ballroom ruling, no government officials – not even presidents – “own” federal architecture. The American people do. And it’s up to their representatives in Congress to decide whether to destroy or renovate it, bearing in mind that it’s an inextricable part of the country’s history.

This article was written with the collaboration of Mary Anne Hunting, Ph.D., an independent scholar in New York City.

Kevin D. Murphy, Professor and Chair of History of Art, Vanderbilt University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

In early March, a week after the first US-Israeli strikes on Iran, the White House posted a video of real American attacks mixed with clips from popular movies, television series, video games and anime.

Editor's Note: This article has been updated to reflect that the Val Kilmer play "Citizen Twain" was renamed "Cinema Twain" upon being released as a film.

In theory, “A Great Awakening” could have been a fascinating film. It depicts the real-life friendship between American founding father Benjamin Franklin and George Whitefield, one of the founders of the evangelical movement. Franklin was a deist intellectually and a lapsed Puritan emotionally, while Whitefield was Calvinistic.

Yet “A Great Awakening” has no interest in exploring their relationship in any thoughtful or dramatically interesting way.

It’s easy to see why that happened. Despite focusing on religion, “A Great Awakening” is not a good faith movie, at least in the sense that it exists primarily to entertain, enlighten or in some other way enrich the lives of its audience. Director Joshua Enck and his co-writers Jeff Bender and Jonathan Blair, have created a bad faith film, a Trojan horse of Christian nationalist propaganda packed inside as a supposedly poignant tribute to two 18^th century luminaries. Blair also stars as Whitefield, and the film’s lone virtue is that his performance is so horrible, it becomes unintentionally hilarious (more on that later). Blair’s costar John Paul Sneed, a longtime veteran of Christian Right schlock, plays Benjamin Franklin with such blandness that I laughed when my autocorrect tried to change his surname to “Snooze.” Sneed could learn a lot from cinema’s greatest Franklin, Howard Da Silva in “1776.”

The propaganda behind “A Great Awakening.”

The movie’s central plot is the claim that George Whitefield inspired Benjamin Franklin to support human equality; for this reason, I cannot talk about it with any semblance of intellectual honesty and not dive into the story. While Franklin did ask the 1787 Constitutional Convention to open its daily sessions with prayer, he was not particularly religious and seems to have done so because — like millions of Americans today — he could simultaneously want to be on God’s good side without also being a theocrat. Yet the movie draws from a controversial account by a man named William Steele, written almost 40 years after the event occurred and relying entirely on Steele’s unverified second hand recollections supposedly relayed by New Jersey delegate Jonathan Dayton. Steele was later contradicted by Virginia delegate, future president and the Constitutional equivalent of influencer James Madison, who recalled that Franklin, who represented Pennsylvania (where much of the movie is set), had not asked for that prayer in quite the dramatic fashion that Steele relayed. Madison was confident that Franklin’s “proposition was received and treated with the respect due to it; but the lapse of time which had preceded, with consternations growing out of it, had the effect of limiting what was done, to a reference of the proposition to a highly respectable Committee.”

Madison added, “That the communication [Steele’s account of Dayton’s testimony] was erroneous is certain; whether from misapprehension or mis-recollection, uncertain.”

"We know little of relevance about either William Steele or Jonathan Steele,” scholar Louis J. Sirico, Jr., wrote in 2018 (Benjamin Franklin, Prayer, and the Constitutional Convention: History as Narrative, 10 Legal Comm. & Rhetoric 89 (2013)). “We know that William Steele was a Revolutionary War veteran who was born in New York, lived in New Jersey, married Mary Dayton, possibly a relative of Jonathan Dayton, and moved to upstate New York. He was an active Presbyterian and often wrote poetry for his family. Jonathan D. Steele became a wealthy businessman and served as president of the Niagara Fire Insurance Company."

Sirico added, “Nothing in the available historical record offers any insight into the genesis of the false narrative.”

Sirico is not the lone voice casting doubt on the credibility of the Steele account. John Fea, Professor of American History and Chair of the History Department at a private Pennsylvania Christian college called Messiah, wrote for Commonwealth Magazine in 2024 that “the Awakening had nothing to do with the American Revolution (and, in fact, may never have happened in the first place),” and that indeed there is a “twenty-five-year gap between the First Great Awakening and the Revolutionary Era.” He concluded that a 1981 thesis by historian Jon Butler disproving any link between the two events (to the extent that the former occurred at all beyond a few local incidents) was “groundbreaking and convincing.”

Yet with powerful Christian nationalists like informal President Trump adviser Steve Bannon and longtime theocrat David Barton spreading the lie that the Great Awakening inspired the American Revolution, “A Great Awakening” is guaranteed a built-in audience, especially with it being distributed by a mainstream studio like Roadside Attractions.

Which brings us back to the movie on screen.

Christian Right movies are notoriously second-rate.

The only people who enjoy these movies are either those who deliberately dull their tastes to insensitive nubs in order to “own the libs” or those who enjoy laughing (often with gallows humor) at the fact that these movies exist at all. The most notable entries in the genre include “Kirk Cameron’s Saving Christmas,” “War Room” and the five “God’s Not Dead” movies. None of them amount to much as serious or even unironically funny films, but like “A Great Awakening,” each is rip-roaringly hysterical if you have a taste for the specific type of cheese produced by these particularly talentless people.

“A Great Awakening” has plenty such moments, at least when Blair is gnashing his teeth, contorting his face and otherwise mugging as the most unlikeable and histrionic Whitefield ever performed by an actor. There is a maudlin scene of foot washing in which Blair and an extra seem to compete to overact, a narcissistic so-called “self doubt” set piece that had me agreeing with a John Wesley put-down and several blatant uses of African Americans as props, even though Whitefield in real life had a very complicated relationship with race. My favorite moment was when Blair’s Whitefield insults the clerical establishment in a scene intended to come across as free-thinking but instead seems needlessly rude. He is given a command that he may no longer “preach inside.” With a look of triumph he declares, “Then I will preach outside!”

I try to be polite during movies, but at that moment I couldn’t stop myself from guffawing so loudly my voice literally reverberated against the auditorium walls. Where else is he going to go? Fortunately, the theater was empty except for me, so I wasn’t technically rude.

Yet I don’t think those theaters will remain empty (I was at an early morning screening and paid because it is the film critic’s tax, so to speak), as much as I hope my cynicism is misplaced. I’ve seen advertisements for “A Great Awakening” everywhere, and if you go to my earlier list of Christian Right films that normal people laugh at, you’ll see that several of them were box office successes. The audience for these films are not the early 21^st century equivalents of Franklin or Whitefield or either man’s many contemporary followers in the 18^th century, but rather of the people from that era too mediocre to be remembered. The individuals who earnestly support “A Great Awakening” or any similar slop films own themselves as the world laughs that such insipid material can economically support itself at all. Unfortunately, because they believe they're owning their ideological opponents, millions of such mediocrities are out there, happy to part with their money to prove a point.

The sad thing is, as I mentioned earlier, it didn't have to be this way. I think back to "Cinema Twain," an obscure play-turned-movie directed, written by and starring Val Kilmer as an American secularist as iconic as Benjamin Franklin, author Mark Twain. The 19th/early 20th century novelist had a respectful-yet-critical epistolary relationship with Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy. Kilmer (who busted my balls when he saw there was a journalist in the audience) did a poignant job of vividly bringing to life both the brilliant personalities and the sharply different ideas of his two central figures. Kilmer's passion project, which sadly was never adapted into a film, moved me because it came from a place of authentic curiosity and was executed with talent. By contrast, "A Great Awakening" strives only to manipulate, and it does so ineptly.

Like all movies made by the Christian Right that intend to proselytize, “A Great Awakening” is full of lazy exposition, flat dialogue and cringey pandering to reactionary self-glorification. This movie is so dumb that it has the gall to insert in one character’s mouth the line “How long will you hide behind your wit?”, as if any substantial amount of that precious commodity exists in this motion picture.