On Hulu - God Forbid: The Sex Scandal that Brought Down...

[Deleted]

Anyone else watching the show God Forbid: The Sex Scandal That Brought Down a Dynasty about Jerry Falwell and Liberty University? 

It seems at the start it will all be about the sex scandal between the pool guy and Jerry's wife but it also gets into the Liberty University stuff, the Christian right and evangelical politics. It's interesting but also infuriating. 

[mrsd2006]

I haven't watched it yet but want to.

[StrawberryBlondie]

Just heard about it yesterday and it's on my list.

[Deleted]

I watched it. I'm glad it wasn't just all about sex. It was mainly about the hypocrisy of individuals and king makers.

Spoilers

So they manipulated this young kid into a relationship, controlled him with finances, blackmail, and influence and then tried to blow his shit up and the only way he felt he could exit was to assure mutual destruction. While he was over 18, he was still very young and had to engage in lying to continue the relationship. I am glad there was no kink shaming about it.

[Deleted]

Nov 1, 2022 12:55:01 GMT -5 @lemonlover said:

I watched it. I'm glad it wasn't just all about sex. It was mainly about the hypocrisy of individuals and king makers.

Spoilers

So they manipulated this young kid into a relationship, controlled him with finances, blackmail, and influence and then tried to blow his shit up and the only way he felt he could exit was to assure mutual destruction. While he was over 18, he was still very young and had to engage in lying to continue the relationship. I am glad there was no kink shaming about it.

Yep - all of this. I felt bad for him. He tries to move on and they just block him at every path. 

[snorky]

I watched this today, I feel so bad for Giancarlo. There’s a good podcast about this with several parts from Even the Rich called In God We Lust that does a bit of a deeper dive. It is so infuriating how these people just run around ruining lives.

[Jalapeñomel]

I just started this and the music is so damn distracting.

[thedutchgirl]

Nov 1, 2022 17:12:59 GMT -5 snorky said:

I watched this today, I feel so bad for Giancarlo. There’s a good podcast about this with several parts from Even the Rich called In God We Lust that does a bit of a deeper dive. It is so infuriating how these people just run around ruining lives.

Gangster Capitalism's season 3 is about Liberty University too. It talks about the Giancarlo story and also really dives into how LU covered up a bunch of assaults that occurred on campus or to students. The whole school/administration were just horrible

[pixy0stix]

I watched this last night. The storytelling could have been so much better, but I think it hit the salient bits.

I have a lot of questions that probably will never be answered. Did his girlfriends know, and that's why they broke up? What did his parents really think? Yeah his business partners were shady, but also so was everyone else so I think they were unfairly depicted. It's hard to find the good guy when everyone is blackmailing each other.

[carmenere]

Nov 3, 2022 13:05:11 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

I watched this last night. The storytelling could have been so much better, but I think it hit the salient bits.

I have a lot of questions that probably will never be answered. Did his girlfriends know, and that's why they broke up? What did his parents really think? Yeah his business partners were shady, but also so was everyone else so I think they were unfairly depicted. It's hard to find the good guy when everyone is blackmailing each other.

Speaking of shady...did we ever get the full scoop on Michael Cohen's involvement? 

[pixy0stix]

Nov 7, 2022 11:57:55 GMT -5 carmenere said:

Nov 3, 2022 13:05:11 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

I watched this last night. The storytelling could have been so much better, but I think it hit the salient bits.

I have a lot of questions that probably will never be answered. Did his girlfriends know, and that's why they broke up? What did his parents really think? Yeah his business partners were shady, but also so was everyone else so I think they were unfairly depicted. It's hard to find the good guy when everyone is blackmailing each other.

Speaking of shady...did we ever get the full scoop on Michael Cohen's involvement? 

He fully came out and said that he "fixed" this problem for Falwell, and then turned around and leveraged the support for Trump with the photos in his book - www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-falwell-endorsement/trumps-ex-lawyer-cohen-links-falwells-endorsement-in-2016-to-suppression-of-racy-photos-idUSKBN25Z2S0

[mrshandy]

There are a few podcasts that delve into this story much better including Gangster Capitalism and Even the Rich. But it was nice to put faces to the names.

Jerry Falwell Jr. is scum on earth and Liberty University is a horrible place: the more this is shouted from the rooftops the better for the world.

[Michelle]

I watched most of it but with the time change, had trouble staying awake for the last 1/4-1/2 of it. Will rewatch the latter part.

It was interesting. And i hadn't heard of Liberty University before, so that was the most informative part for me.

[just]

I felt it was a cheap documentary. It didn't delve into things nearly enough, I wanted harder questions of Giancarlo - yes he was manipulated, but he was an adult. He talks about how disgusted he was when they came out for Trump so hard, but then continued facetiming her until 2019. It seemed to go for the cheap shock in many elements (the guy who talks about going "balls deep in Becki".

It was weird too that there wasn't a conclusion part - where is Giancarlo now, where is Libery U now, etc.

Having said all that - wild ride of a documentary, and kept my attention.

[jeaniebueller]

Nov 8, 2022 16:44:08 GMT -5 just said:

I felt it was a cheap documentary. It didn't delve into things nearly enough, I wanted harder questions of Giancarlo - yes he was manipulated, but he was an adult. He talks about how disgusted he was when they came out for Trump so hard, but then continued facetiming her until 2019. It seemed to go for the cheap shock in many elements (the guy who talks about going "balls deep in Becki".

It was weird too that there wasn't a conclusion part - where is Giancarlo now, where is Libery U now, etc.

Having said all that - wild ride of a documentary, and kept my attention.

Yeah I rolled my eyes a lot at him. And the doc was really scattered.

[ECB]

Nov 2, 2022 14:22:39 GMT -5 Jalapeñomel said:

I just started this and the music is so damn distracting.

Yes!!  Way too loud.  This isn't a club, it's a documentary.

And lordy, yes, the degree of hypocrisy that exists in so many places, but especially among the religious astounds me.  It shouldn't, but it does.  Anything, literally ANYTHING, to make a buck. That's all these people care about.  They know that what they preach is bullshit, it's not what people REALLY want and do - but gotta keep the  minions in their place as long as possible and keep the $$$ rolling in. 

[zelda25]

I watched this and was curious about what happened between Jerry and Becki after everything came out. They're still together and she's just so grateful that he "forgave" her for having an affair...as if he weren't complicit in orchestrating and being involved in the whole thing. Ugh.