Documentary on The Church of the SubGenius Premieres at SXSW

A new documentary titled "Slacking Toward Bethlehem" by filmmaker Sandy K. Boone explores The Church of the SubGenius, a parody religion founded in 1978 in Dallas by Douglass St. Clair Smith III (aka Rev. Ivan Stang) and Steve Wilcox (aka Philo Drummond). The film premiered at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, funded through a successful Kickstarter campaign. Boone told Texas Monthly that the film aims to present the true story of the church to prevent it from becoming a real cult like Scientology after its founders die, and to comment on fake news and cult-like practices in politics during the Trump era. The Church of the SubGenius used religious structures and pop culture references to convey subversive messages, centered on the concept of "slack"—a state of independence and freedom. Its prophet, J.R. "Bob" Dobbs, parodies L. Ron Hubbard. The church targets outsiders who reject "Normals" and promotes anticapitalist ideals. The article draws parallels between the church's opposition of Normals vs. SubGenii and contemporary online subcultures dividing Normies from Autistics or Edgy, noting how the NPC meme originated on 4Chan and is now used by the alt-right to label leftists as conformist. The church's syncretism and boundary-blurring between play and seriousness, politics and religion, myth and reality, prefigure today's conspiracy theories, denialism, fake news, and extreme cults.