"The [INSERT SCAPEGOATS] Are Behind Everything" Gets 3 Stars Out of 5.
Conspiracy theories, reviewed by a jaded critic.
You know what bugs me about many conspiracy theories? They’re poorly written, unimaginative, and full of clichés. It’s as if their creators haven’t learned about basic plotting, characterization or originality.
Let’s say a jaded critic would review conspiracy theories as works of genre fiction - for their artistic qualitites alone - the way one reviews thrillers or science fiction. How would they fare? Here goes…
REVIEW OF “THE MOON LANDINGS WERE A HOAX” by BILL KAYSING & VARIOUS
In the conspiracy-theory genre it can be difficult to pinpoint a single original creator, but in this case there really is one: Bill Kaysing, with his book We Never Went to the Moon: America's Thirty Billion Dollar Swindle (1976).
I have only read a summary of Kaysing’s book, but I did watch the movie inspired by his story: Capricorn One (1978, directed by Peter Hyams). It was a mildly amusing thriller, but like the written story it contains technical errors and plot holes that undermined my suspension of disbelief.
A critic should not just point out formal errors, though, but also admit what makes a story engaging. There has got to be something in The Moon Landings Were a Hoax to grab its audience and keep their interest - most likely something that appeals to them emotionally. My argument follows below.
Kaysing’s narrative, like the movie and the greater co-authored text, rests on a single assumption about human nature: If a task seems too hard, you either give up or lie about it. While JFK claimed that America should choose to go to the Moon “not because it is easy, but because it is hard,” Kaysing argues that because it seems too hard, the only reasonable options are to give up or pretend that you succeeded. (A harsher version of fake it ‘til you make it.)
All subsequent arguments made by later co-authors of this story are basically windowdressing and distractions. Don’t let their obsessive argumentation over minute technical details fool you; good stories are about people, not machines. And the villain-protagonists of the tale are compulsive liars who would rather die than admit incompetence.
There is some satirical elegance here - a grand scheme for conquering space is dashed, then reduced to grubby fakery. The authors have a distinct vision of the Moon landing program as run by an army of paranoid neurotics, disastrously bumbling and comically self-deluded at the same time, driven as much by anxiety as by ambition.
So if you read it as a satire of a particular personality type - think George Costanza from Seinfeld - then it can be rather funny. But to be honest, I don’t think that was the writers’ intent.
And then my interpretation becomes darker: This work is a vision of deep misanthropy. The subtext is: People are failures, and pathologically unable to face it. (Michel Houllebeqc really ought to have a go as co-author.)
I’m a bit torn about The Moon Landings Were a Hoax. It has a clear theme which is consistently followed through, and it could work if read as satire. But I think it is fundamentally mistaken and simplistic about human nature. We’re not all George Costanza.
Verdict: Read it only ironically - or read Michel Houllebeqc instead, if you want misanthropy but written with greater skill and depth.
REVIEW OF “QANON” by VARIOUS
QAnon starts with a fresh, intriguing plot premise: For a change, it’s the hero who is running a conspiracy to overthrow a government from within.
For this premise to work, the reader has to identify with the conspirator-as-hero and become convinced that the central protagonist - The President - is himself the victim of a pre-existing conspiracy.
This is all narrated not by the President himself, but through the mysterious, never-seen character “Q” - another clever twist.
Since we are told very little about this “Q,” how can we trust his version of events? Regardless, the “Q” character has a dedicated fan base, and the fans are intricately entangled with the identity of “Q”; allow me to explain.
It’s very much a sign of the times that such an anonymous narrator could be considered trustworthy and seen as a “man of the people.” That is obvious projection on the part of the fan base, who feels invisible and cut off from power.
So one strength of QAnon is how it turns what could have been an old-fashioned tale of helplessness before “The Man” into a tale of the readers’ hidden power. Now they have a man on the inside, secretly working for the “little guy!”
It struck me early on, that we don’t ever really get to know the workings of the heroic protagonist’s mind. The narrative repeatedly tells us, somewhat didactically, that the President is good, wise, and always several steps ahead of the villains - but his actual thought processes are never shown. It’s as if he’s all surface.
Making the protagonist such a mental blank slate must be an intentional narrative device. It allows the audience to vicariously identify with the hero by “filling in” the hero’s missing thoughts with their own… like staring at a Rorschach test.
And lo and behold: this actually happens. The narrative cleverly incorporates the protagonist’s followers - who are also the readers! - by allowing them to interpret “signs” and “clues” left by the hero President and the narrator “Q,” and build a continued story based on their interpretations.
Thus the readers become the authors, ensuring that the story never ends - a very special form of fan fiction. Their popular riddle/slogan “Who is Q?” is solved: They are.
There are some familiar tropes in this ongoing tale - such as the blood-drinking vampiric villains - but even those are given a fresh coat of paint with pseudoscientific terms like “adrenochrome.” Genre-wise, QAnon is really a crossover of thriller and horror; think “Dracula Goes to Washington.”
Verdict: QAnon is an imaginative, original work with staying power and genre crossover appeal, destined to become a modern genre classic.
(Trigger warning: Sensitive readers may find the scenes of children being subjected to vampiric abuse too disturbing.)
REVIEW OF “THE FLAT EARTH CONSPIRACY” by VARIOUS
The plot of this work has a big hole in it: There isn’t an origin story for its flat Planet Earth, or even a “quest” to find one.
If that flat celestial body is such a big deal as the writers seem to think, how did it come to be? They don’t care - the flat world is just there, as if that was the whole point, not a mystery to be solved. Perhaps Dan Brown could have spun a decent thriller from such meager source material - but these writers sure ain’t him.
The bulk of the narrative is simplistic - an obsessive-compulsive repeating of a few arguments and experiments in a feeble struggle against a villanous establishment. These villains are a lethargic bunch of adversaries. They don’t even try to kill or threaten the heroes; they mainly send out scientist henchmen to make speeches.
(Neil DeGrasse Tyson would have made a more entertaining henchman if he threw a deadly hat, or had steel teeth, or if his exasperated sighs at Flat-Earthers emitted poison gas… or some other gimmick. But all he does is talk.)
Is this is a religious Bible story? Is it science fiction? Is it allegory? It doesn’t seem to know what it wants, and just runs in circles.
I have a nagging suspicion that the whole thing is a work of postmodern irony, like Andy Kaufman’s legendary stunts, or Sacha Baron Cohen’s Borat - the joke’s on us for taking it seriously. Well… ha ha, I guess.
Verdict: Falls flat.
REVIEW OF “THE JEWISH WORLD CONSPIRACY” by VARIOUS
This is widely considered a true classic of its kind, which has inspired many later works. The plot and mood is set with a “found document” called The Protocol of the Elders of Zion.
From that origin, the story then conjures up an ever-growing secret cabal to encompass every aspect of world history - war and peace, the ups and downs of the economy, class struggle, all injustices great and small.
The narrative contains a series of false climaxes and “red herrings” where the global cabal suffers repeated, increasingly catastrophic defeats - persecutions, pogroms, genocides - and yet the story concludes that the hidden elite still remains firmly in charge and the fight continues.
When reviewing a classic genre work like The Jewish World Conspiracy, the critic is presented with a dilemma: Is it fair to apply modern standards of criticism to something that was made in a different time, with different standards and circumstances?
Because to a present-day reader, it comes off as very crude. The villain chararacters are cartoonish to say the least - they offer no explanation for their secret plan, and seem to even think of themselves as evil for evil’s sake.
The protagonists in the story who oppose and attack the plotting villains are rather bloodthirsty and one-dimensional - far too unsympathetic to make “heroes” the reader can identify with. (One German dictator/warlord character is particularly odious.) How these protagonists always seem to “know” about the world conspiracy without visible evidence isn’t really explained, merely implied.
Most annoying of all in this story is the self-contradictory depiction of the villain characters. They are described as somehow on top of society and outside it at the same time - both rich, slick, powerful masterminds and inferior, filthy, poor parasites.
The Jews in the story are depicted as having dark, virtually superhuman abilities to control events - but when they are persecuted, these supposed powers are nowhere to be seen. And even more confusingly, the writers alternately praise the persecution, then claim it never really happened. This narrative illogic is like the ravings of a paranoid lunatic.
Perceptive readers will note that the authors of The Jewish World Conspiracy seem driven by a burning inferiority complex. They repeat over and over how skilled the Jews are at everything, how expertly they control “everything” - and isn’t that a tacit admission that the villains of the story really are… superior?
The trope of the superior villain has become a staple of the genre.
Verdict: This is neither a great nor a memorable work of art by any modern standard - but certainly part of genre “canon.” For academic study only.
REVIEW OF “CHEM TRAILS” by VARIOUS
It was much too brief, had no interesting characters, and neither the method nor the motive of the villains made any sense. Chem Trails might work as a short story, but there’s just not enough substance in it to entertain - not even enough for a Netflix movie.
Verdict: Goes up in smoke.
REVIEW OF “THE UFO COVER-UP” by VARIOUS
Many critics have made fun of this thriller, and have claimed it’s too silly even to be worthy of serious criticism.
I understand the reluctance of other critics, and there are aspects of the work that made me laugh, but - there is that germ of greatness somewhere inside it.
First, the obvious criticism: The narrative is a one-trick pony. It keeps teasing the reader with theatrical coyness. Always the “big secrets are about to be revealed,” always the promised “Disclosure” is postponed… until most of the audience grows tired of the trick. (I got fed up with the series Lost for exactly the same reason.)
The coherence of the plot is lacking. One moment, there’s a great conspiracy of silence spanning the whole world… and the next, there’s suddenly a heroic Pentagon whistleblower with renegade scientists and politicians supporting him.
And the heroes get their own show on the History Channel (sic!). Given the dead-serious secrecy that supposedly came before it, this plot twist comes off as unintentionally funny.
The “government cover-up” part of the story is entertaining, like a good thriller, but it depends a little too much on suspension of disbelief. It’s a mouthful - especially for readers living in the Internet era - to accept that the big UFO secret is kept for decades, without a single slip-up.
The elusive alien visitors are written as characters without any motivation or interior life. Why do they do what they do? So they are supposed to be so far advanced, we may never be able to comprehend them - fine! - but the authors don’t even seem to be trying to describe their psychology.
The reader never gets a sense that there might be an individual alien with an actual personality - and that is a missed artistic opportunity.
This laziness in the writing keeps undermining the credibility of the story. The reader’s imagination is expected to do too much of the heavy lifting of filling in the missing stuff that could’ve made a proper narrative.
And yet… there’s something here that intrigued me, despite all the shortcomings. The UFO Cover-Up might have been good - even great - if only it had more meat on it.
Verdict: Could have been a contender.
REVIEW OF “THE COVID-19 CONSPIRACY” by VARIOUS
This is truly stupid, sick stuff that stretches on for far too long. The disjointed “narrative” uses a throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach that becomes exhausting. There are so many loose threads here that the reader simply cannot keep track of them.
The quality of the authors’ prose ranges from bad to terrible - peppered with bewildering sci-fi gobbledygook that wouldn’t pass in a Doctor Who episode.
As for the plot elements… I have seen children roll their eyes at things like “microchips hidden in vaccines” and viruses being confused with cellphone tower radiation.
And that supervillain character Bill Gates was just… laughable. He’s so goofy, he makes Mr. Rogers look sinister.
If I absolutely had to defend a wreck like The Covid-19 Conspiracy - with someone pointing a gun to my head - I would say it is a product of its time, and reflects the writers’ frustration with governments ordering them around. I do have sympathy for such feelings, but that doesn’t make this story any less objectively bad.
Verdict: Avoid like the plague.
A REVIEW OF “THEY ARE BEHIND EVERYTHING” by A CAB DRIVER
Let’s be frank: They Are Behind Everything is an incoherent mess with no beginning or end.
Even the syntax and style are awful, with obsessively repeated phrases like “The media’s been lying to you” or “They’re comin’ over here, taking our jobs” that bored me to tears.
I’d like to be more charitable, as the author was driving the cab and narrated to me while I was in the back seat, and he was probably being distracted by traffic, but... They Are Behind Everything is a rant, not a proper story.
Verdict: Must be a first draft.
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If this made you laugh… try my satirical novel THE TIME IDIOT, in which a U.S. President steals a time machine and tries to “fix” history - with unexpected results. It’s available in print and digital format here:
https://www.amazon.com/TIME-IDIOT-R-Yngve/dp/1549843478/
