Director David Zucker told me in an interview last week that it would be “a cultural election”: his anti-Michael Moore comedy “An American Carol” versus Bill Maher’s anti-religion documentary “Religulous.” Both movies opened last Friday. And both earned about the same amount of money over the weekend: $3.8 million for “An American Carol,” $3.5 million for “Religulous.” So who really won?

Some will point out that “Religulous” screened on far fewer screens and made about three times as much money in the important per-screen-average calculation. They could also point out that “Religulous” got much better reviews than “An American Carol,” which was panned by the few left-wing eggheads who were able to slip past the deliberate press embargo.

I thought Maher’s movie was funny but imbalanced, manipulating the interviews to give Maher the sarcastic last word against fundamentalist simpletons. All I’ve seen of Zucker’s movie is the trailer, which is little more than a series of slapstick assaults on a Michael Moore lookalike (Kevin Farley, brother of Chris).

In other words, both movies prefer cheap shots to a real debate.

There’s a lot of that going around.