Douglas Todd at The Search has a human interest story about Walt Ruloff the Canadian multi-millionaire who financed, co-wrote and promoted Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

It’s about Ruloff the person, the family man living on Bowen Island in BC. An angry man, who admits he lied to people to get them into their documentary. An angry man who will get to play with fundamentalists south of the border as long as he makes them money or throws it at them. Admittedly there isn’t much of the person to see, he’s guarded.

The 44 year old does not come across as a sympathetic person, entrepreneurial yes, focused on the bottom line, certainly. He knows his film was business.

The documentary links such scientists to Nazis. The reaction was what one would expect.

“We wanted to generate anger,” Ruloff said.

“We always knew we’d get extreme anger on the one side and extreme support on the other. We also think we got extreme interest in the middle.”

The middle? That marketing idea did not turn out as planned. The plan always was to be grass roots promoters, be divisive, polarize, demonize, desensitize. Reading Todd’s interview, I believe Ruloff actually thinks his foray into movies was about free speech.

The telling question for me is this:

Given the negative reaction to Expelled from many quarters, I asked Ruloff if he’d make any significant changes to it. He said no.

I don’t know if he liked the interview and ink he got, but I’ve no doubt he’d be thrilled at the creationist/evolution debate going on in the comments. Readers are giving him exactly what this businessman feeds off of.

Comments are closed – BD