Dogma/YMMV

"Nun: Let me get this straight: you don't believe in God because of "Alice in Wonderland"?
 * Acceptable Targets:
 * "Worse, Wisconsin." Note that this line was penned by a New Jersey native.
 * In a deleted scene, Bartleby asks why they didn't just leave Wisconsin, and Loki replies that they thought God would have sent them somewhere worse, like New Jersey.
 * Alternative Character Interpretation:
 * Of God, no less.
 * And angels, and the nature of man, and the Prophets, and other celestial beings... Hell, even The Bible is interpreted in a decidedly un-Catholic way. (Specifically, no, indulgences do not work the way the movie says they do, but the Protestant interpretation of Matthew 6:19-21 explains how Dogma's indulgences work. This is lampshaded in the airport scene.)
 * Awesome Music: "Still" by God Herself, played over the end credits.
 * Esoteric Happy Ending: For Loki and Bartleby. If you listen to the dialogue carefully, Loki and Bartleby are still alive, albeit in Hell, as their sins they committed where never expunged by passing through the Arch, which if they died whilst in Human form was where they would go. Still... least its better than Wisconsin.
 * Faux Symbolism: The angels' interpretations of popular culture, especially Loki's "interpretation" of "The Walrus and the Carpenter" from Through the Looking-Glass:

Loki: No, "Through the Looking-Glass". That poem, "The Walrus and the Carpenter," that's an indictment of organized religion. The walrus, with his girth and his good nature, he obviously represents either Buddha, or, or with his tusks, the Hindu elephant god, Lord Ganesha. That takes care of your Eastern religions. Now the carpenter, which is an obvious reference to Jesus Christ, who was raised a carpenter's son, he represents the Western religions. Now in the poem, what do they do? What do they do? They, they dupe all these oysters into following them and then proceed to shuck and devour the helpless creatures en masse. I don't know what that says to you, but to me it says that following these faiths based on mythological figures ensures the destruction of one's inner being. Organized religion destroys who we are by inhibiting our actions, by inhibiting our decisions out of, out of fear of some, some intangible parent figure who, who shakes a finger at us from thousands of years ago and says, and says, "Do it... do it and I'll fuckin' spank you.""


 * It Was His Sled: God being a woman, played by Alanis Morissette.
 * Memetic Mutation: The infamous "Buddy Christ" statue has been used to death on forums, and has had a countless amount of captions attached, even by people who've never seen the movie.
 * Memetic Sex Goddess: God Herself. Jay mentions when She kissed him, he popped a semi.
 * Moral Event Horizon: Bartleby orbits it for at least a third of the movie, but unequivocally crosses it when he taunts Bethany and sticks a shiv in.
 * Squick: The Golgothan, the demon made of... just watch the scene, but preferably not before or after eating. In fact, if you ever plan to eat again, just skip it.
 * A second appearance of the demon was deleted.
 * Viewer Gender Confusion: For this troper and at least one friend of mine, Barret Hackney. Yes, the redheaded Triplet. Stop looking at me like that.
 * What an Idiot: A trigger-happy Jay almost causes the apocalypse.
 * The Woobie:
 * Bartleby:
 * He was the one most sympathetic to and fond of Humanity, a viewpoint he held from Biblical times up until that night on the Jersey-bound train.
 * Bartleby breaks down in tears when he sees God again for the first time in several millenia. That's when you realize that he is essentially a child who has been abandoned by his mother.
 * Metatron:
 * He feels this way about Jesus, after he told him how his life would turn out: "He begged me to 'make it all not true'... If I had the power, I would have."
 * Metatron is something of a Stoic Woobie: He's had to deliver some truly awful messages to humanity over the course of history, and now people are drenching him with the contents of hand-held fire hydrants. He never complains, but still, it's hard not to feel sorry for him.