887224348_6f797de95b_m.thumbnail.jpgIn his new foray into right wing victimology documentary filmmaking, Ben Stein turns his hand to the underexplored tale of how intelligent design proponents are discriminated against in academia. An intellectually honest endeavor, no doubt, but the filmmakers seem to have felt the need to cloak their intent from those who were asked to participate:

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins and others have complained in various public statements that they were duped into participating in interviews for the film. They have said the filmmakers misrepresented the kind of movie they were making.

And according to James Boyce in the Huffington Post, the band the Killers likewise had the nature of the film ... obfuscated ... in order to obtain their consent. This is how it was described:

The film is a satirical documentary with an estimated running time of 1 hour and 50 minutes, exploring academic freedom in public schools and government institutions with actor, comedian, economist, Ben Stein as the spokesperson.

"Academic freedom?" Why do the wingnuts always feel compelled to wrap their agendas in liberal frames? One has to suspect that deep down they know their whole game is just a big flim-flam.

Anyway, deceiving someone about the content of a work with which you want to associate theirs is bad enough, but I guess they decided they had no hope of clearing John Lennon's "Imagine" -- so they didn't even bother trying, and claimed First Amendment protection of "free speech."

Good luck with that.

Boyce speculates that the movie makers were hoping they'd get sued and it would elevate the profile of the movie. If that was the plan, I'd say they're probably staring down the barrel of a rather considerable monetary settlement at the moment. Not only was the song used by professional people with adequate legal counsel who should have known better, they intentionally obfuscated the subject of the picture and potentially diminished the cornerstone of the entire Lennon estate by associating it with subject matter that the song's author, a noted atheist, would have in all likelihood reviled.

Boyce describes the use:

Count slowly to 25 seconds and imagine looking at pictures of Nazi death camps and hearing John Lennon (evidently where they use the song in the movie.)

And as for all that free publicity they were hoping for? Well, before they go to all that trouble of nailing themselves to a public cross, they should know that the first commandment in the synch license bible is, "If thou are caught stealing, thy settlement shall include a multitude of zeros and lo shalt thou shuteth thy mouth about the entire thing."

Given their somewhat notable silence in the face of all this juicy publicity, I imagine it's something they're already discovering.