S4E17 - The Keening (Midsommar)

1
00:00:00,560 --> 00:00:38,218
Chris: She's not brainwashed by the cult. She is making a choice, and her choice is based on the fact that the cult is given or that the community is giving her something that she needs. Okay, so I want. I want to clear up one thing from.

2
00:00:38,394 --> 00:00:39,722
Kayla: That's not banter.

3
00:00:39,866 --> 00:00:59,848
Chris: Last episode, I want to clear up because I said fair game in response. And, like, in reference. In reference to furries. I don't think this was unclear, but I don't know. It's been on my mind. I don't think they're a fair game. I think that my impression of how they were talked about amongst of how.

4
00:00:59,864 --> 00:01:01,168
Kayla: The Internet treats furries, how the Internet.

5
00:01:01,224 --> 00:01:09,504
Chris: Treats furries, and how I've even heard them referred to in real life, they seem to be fair game. I don't personally think that.

6
00:01:09,632 --> 00:01:10,376
Kayla: Gotcha.

7
00:01:10,488 --> 00:01:13,912
Chris: Okay, this probably was already clear, but I just wanna make sure.

8
00:01:13,976 --> 00:01:18,552
Kayla: So you told me this was. We were about to do banter, but instead you were issuing a mea culpa.

9
00:01:18,656 --> 00:01:19,744
Chris: No, this is totally banter.

10
00:01:19,792 --> 00:01:25,408
Kayla: Banter. So banter and mia culpa, those are two separate sections, so. Right. Currently we are in the mia culpa corner.

11
00:01:25,424 --> 00:01:27,848
Chris: No, mia culpa is a subsection of the banter.

12
00:01:27,944 --> 00:01:29,280
Kayla: Mia culpa corner.

13
00:01:29,440 --> 00:01:32,292
Chris: Yeah, mea culpa corner of the banter section.

14
00:01:32,476 --> 00:01:33,348
Kayla: Of the greater section.

15
00:01:33,364 --> 00:01:38,548
Chris: It did make me think too, though. Is there any group that is fair.

16
00:01:38,604 --> 00:01:41,564
Kayla: Game, like that should be. That we should all just make fun of and be really meant? Yeah.

17
00:01:41,572 --> 00:01:46,828
Chris: Is there anybody that's fair game? I mean, I have answer to that. Cause I've been thinking about it.

18
00:01:46,924 --> 00:01:53,420
Kayla: Well, you just asked me, so are you actually asking me to give you answer or are you just asking to give your own answer?

19
00:01:53,540 --> 00:01:54,228
Chris: Both.

20
00:01:54,404 --> 00:01:56,844
Kayla: So I have two answers.

21
00:01:56,932 --> 00:01:57,680
Chris: Okay.

22
00:01:58,770 --> 00:02:01,938
Kayla: My first answer is no.

23
00:02:02,114 --> 00:02:03,898
Chris: Mm. That's a boring answer.

24
00:02:03,954 --> 00:02:38,882
Kayla: It's a fairly boring answer. My first answer is no. At the end of the day, there probably isn't any single group that. That I would say we should have be fair game. Because what about, like, nazis, when you do the fair game thing? I don't know. I don't know if that's good for any individual to spend a lot of their time being mean to anybody else. That said, if I take my highfalutin hat off. Get that fucking hat off.

25
00:02:39,066 --> 00:02:40,466
Chris: It's a very fancy hat.

26
00:02:40,498 --> 00:02:45,378
Kayla: Fuck that hat. Yeah, the Nazis. Okay, fair game.

27
00:02:45,514 --> 00:02:51,518
Chris: That makes sense. My answer was people who named their kid Daenerys or Khaleesi.

28
00:02:51,614 --> 00:02:54,254
Kayla: See, I don't. I don't. I think that's mean.

29
00:02:54,262 --> 00:02:54,814
Chris: Oh, come on.

30
00:02:54,862 --> 00:02:59,790
Kayla: I think that's mean. I think that's mean to say, I think it's okay.

31
00:02:59,830 --> 00:03:22,884
Chris: First of all, I thought it's funny. I thought it was funny. I thought it was a good, funny joke. Second of all, we probably lost, like, four or five listeners just by me saying that. Actually, don't. Okay, if you're still with us, you can, I would rather you write me angry email culturejswearedmail.com, comma. Then stop listening to the show just because.

32
00:03:22,972 --> 00:03:23,880
Kayla: Well, then don't.

33
00:03:24,260 --> 00:03:27,604
Chris: Your kid named Daenerys, but you hella shouldn't have done that.

34
00:03:27,652 --> 00:03:53,650
Kayla: Look, here's the thing. I feel. Instead of feeling like, ha, I feel bad. I feel very bad. Oh, it's a pity party for anybody who pity's worse. It's not pity. It's, you named your child after a beloved character. That character who was presented as, like, the savior of the people, who then turned out to be Hitler.

35
00:03:54,230 --> 00:03:56,662
Chris: Okay, not quite Hitler.

36
00:03:56,846 --> 00:03:58,534
Kayla: Daenerys Targaryen.

37
00:03:58,582 --> 00:04:03,250
Chris: Yeah. She was not full on Hitler. She killed, like, one city worth of people.

38
00:04:04,430 --> 00:04:13,374
Kayla: Okay, I could be wrong, but the implication there was that she was gearing up to be Hitler. She had to be killed.

39
00:04:13,422 --> 00:04:15,430
Chris: She was a budding game of Thrones spoiler. She was a budding Hitler.

40
00:04:15,510 --> 00:04:28,865
Kayla: By the way, if she had not been taken out when she was gonna be, she did a genocide on an entire. It wasn't just like a town, it was like the capital city, right?

41
00:04:28,937 --> 00:04:30,361
Chris: Yeah, no doubt. That's right.

42
00:04:30,385 --> 00:04:31,473
Kayla: When they surrendered.

43
00:04:31,521 --> 00:04:37,945
Chris: I just think that Hitler has more evil points. But to your point, I mean, yeah, Hitler was around longer, so he had a longer time to kill more people.

44
00:04:37,977 --> 00:04:39,265
Kayla: Yeah, it's probably not good to see her.

45
00:04:39,337 --> 00:04:43,713
Chris: It's hard to judge her, right? Well, it's hard to judge right. On, like, a per year basis. Maybe she was.

46
00:04:43,761 --> 00:04:48,134
Kayla: She's also not real, so she's not Hitler. But I'm just saying, not fair game.

47
00:04:48,182 --> 00:04:51,010
Chris: To make fun of people who name their kid Daenerys.

48
00:04:51,790 --> 00:04:55,330
Kayla: No. Okay, that's not nice.

49
00:04:56,710 --> 00:05:00,518
Chris: What about people who say literally when they mean figuratively?

50
00:05:00,654 --> 00:05:05,566
Kayla: So you're asking me to sign my own death warrant? I think actually, no, actually, I take it all back.

51
00:05:05,598 --> 00:05:06,438
Chris: I'm just trying to trigger you.

52
00:05:06,494 --> 00:05:11,934
Kayla: Take it all back. The people who are fair game are the people like you or the people.

53
00:05:11,982 --> 00:05:14,294
Chris: Like me who will bitch about the.

54
00:05:14,302 --> 00:05:22,418
Kayla: Literally, who refuses to believe, who refuse to understand that literally has meant figuratively for hundreds.

55
00:05:22,474 --> 00:05:25,202
Chris: I know that I'm on the wrong side. Of history on this one.

56
00:05:25,226 --> 00:05:26,490
Kayla: So that is fair game.

57
00:05:26,570 --> 00:05:26,954
Chris: I know.

58
00:05:27,002 --> 00:05:30,930
Kayla: We can make fun of you. We can bash your head in. We can do whatever we want.

59
00:05:30,970 --> 00:05:32,290
Chris: At least you have answer to that question.

60
00:05:32,330 --> 00:05:33,346
Kayla: There's my answer.

61
00:05:33,498 --> 00:05:39,986
Chris: Nazis and people like me. So you're saying that I'm on the same playing field on the same level.

62
00:05:40,098 --> 00:05:46,304
Kayla: I mean, as there is a little turn of phrase that people use that they probably shouldn't, but they do. Like, grammar Nazi is a thing.

63
00:05:46,402 --> 00:05:47,508
Chris: Oh, grammar Nazi.

64
00:05:47,564 --> 00:05:49,748
Kayla: And you're being a little bit of a language Nazi.

65
00:05:49,884 --> 00:05:52,548
Chris: Like a grammar fasci. Like a light fasci.

66
00:05:52,604 --> 00:05:56,932
Kayla: Not a fan. Let people say literally. Literally. Let people say literally. Okay.

67
00:05:56,956 --> 00:05:57,460
Chris: Yeah, literally.

68
00:05:57,500 --> 00:06:03,180
Kayla: They get to say it. If they can understand what it means, then they get to say it. Anyway. I'm Kayla.

69
00:06:03,260 --> 00:06:03,876
Chris: I'm Chris.

70
00:06:03,948 --> 00:06:09,004
Kayla: Even though my co host refuses to allow me to play with the english language, I am a writer.

71
00:06:09,052 --> 00:06:17,334
Chris: That is literally wrong. I am not a writer, so I probably shouldn't even be talking about words, but instead, I am a game designer.

72
00:06:17,382 --> 00:06:21,838
Kayla: And data scientist, and we are the podcast culture.

73
00:06:21,854 --> 00:06:22,686
Chris: Just weird.

74
00:06:22,838 --> 00:06:32,410
Kayla: And today, we are here to deliver you spoilers on classic television shows and actually modern day films.

75
00:06:33,510 --> 00:07:18,936
Chris: I have one more thing that I've been thinking about. More banter based on. I don't know what you can qualify it however you like. Just, I was also thinking about the nature of why fandoms, we feel like they're cult, like, just based on, again, like, last episode and even the episode before that was kind of based on a fandom, like, PSL fandom. And you also hear about, like, cult favorite movies, like movies that have, like, a cult following. So, like, I was thinking about why that is. Like, why do we attach the c word to that? Like, fandoms are very much not like a lot of other things that we talk about. They're not like MlMsen. They're not like heaven's gate. So what is it? And I think my answer, if you're curious, actually, do you have answer before I bias you?

76
00:07:19,128 --> 00:07:22,424
Kayla: My answer is that it sounded like you said Kevin's gate.

77
00:07:22,552 --> 00:07:25,048
Chris: I did. Okay. Because I said the word like, I.

78
00:07:25,064 --> 00:07:27,104
Kayla: Said, like, Kevin's gate.

79
00:07:27,152 --> 00:07:30,592
Chris: Kevin's gate, and the k mixed in with the. Just answer the question.

80
00:07:30,696 --> 00:07:31,740
Kayla: What was the question?

81
00:07:32,520 --> 00:07:34,104
Chris: Oh, we're doing stellar.

82
00:07:34,152 --> 00:07:34,864
Kayla: What's the question?

83
00:07:34,952 --> 00:07:40,714
Chris: The question was, why do we say things like cult following for a movie or that fandom is like a cult?

84
00:07:40,882 --> 00:07:41,754
Kayla: Because they are.

85
00:07:41,842 --> 00:07:46,618
Chris: Oh, okay, good one. Thanks. This has been cult or just weird?

86
00:07:46,674 --> 00:07:50,626
Kayla: I don't know. That's a big question to drop on someone who hasn't had any time to prepare for it.

87
00:07:50,738 --> 00:07:53,802
Chris: That's true. What's your blink response? Other than.

88
00:07:53,866 --> 00:08:22,060
Kayla: Cause it makes me think about the fact that there is a difference between a movie that has a quote unquote cult following and a movie that people like. A movie that has a bunch of fans. Marvel movies don't have a cult following, even though they have a huge fandom that has rituals and blah, blah. But we say movies have cult followings when we're talking about movies like Rocky horror picture show or brick or, I don't know. Name a movie with a cult following.

89
00:08:22,220 --> 00:08:26,892
Chris: Rocky horror picture show. The room is one.

90
00:08:26,956 --> 00:08:39,260
Kayla: The room. But there's also a lot of movies that performed very poorly in the box office and then had a renewed life, you know, with VHS tapes. That's not the correct way to say it. VHS.

91
00:08:39,760 --> 00:08:41,616
Chris: Jesus Christ, Kayla.

92
00:08:41,648 --> 00:08:47,832
Kayla: What year is it with at home viewing? I'm gonna look up.

93
00:08:47,936 --> 00:08:50,060
Chris: Watch it on the cathode ray tube.

94
00:08:51,280 --> 00:08:56,848
Kayla: Okay, grandma, let's put you to bed. Okay. I googled cult movies, and it just gave me movies about cults.

95
00:08:56,904 --> 00:08:58,112
Chris: Yeah, that's not what we're talking about.

96
00:08:58,136 --> 00:08:59,216
Kayla: Hold on, hold on.

97
00:08:59,328 --> 00:09:22,176
Chris: While you're looking that up, I think I'll give my answer. I think it's just, like, the level of passion that an individual in that community shows for their thing. I think that appears to people who are not members of that, who do not self identify as members of that community. Seems weird. Like, wow, why do you like the room so much?

98
00:09:22,248 --> 00:09:22,720
Kayla: Right?

99
00:09:22,840 --> 00:09:26,056
Chris: Wow. Why are you so into anthropomorphic animals?

100
00:09:26,128 --> 00:09:26,630
Kayla: Right.

101
00:09:26,760 --> 00:09:29,218
Chris: Whoa. Why are you into blah, blah? So I think a lot of people.

102
00:09:29,234 --> 00:09:48,870
Kayla: Are you going to these weak level of passion, rocky horror picture show, midnight screenings and dressing up. And why is there rituals in which you sing along with the. With the show or throw things at the screen or say lines at the same time? Like, why do you have all of these, like, literal rituals built in to your enjoyment of said thing?

103
00:09:49,290 --> 00:09:57,772
Chris: But then your point about, like, well, people have rituals and stuff around, like, marvel movies, we don't say that's a cult following, so maybe we have to bring the niche part in, too.

104
00:09:57,836 --> 00:10:02,836
Kayla: Cult following and a fandom being a cult, those are two different things. Like, cult following means something very specific.

105
00:10:02,908 --> 00:10:13,276
Chris: I think cult following has that niche requirement, whereas that fandom as a cult doesn't necessarily need to be niche. It can just be passionate weirdos.

106
00:10:13,388 --> 00:10:28,830
Kayla: Right, right. Like, yeah. When talking about cult movies. I pulled up a list, and it's like Hedwig and the angry inch, Akira, the room, Empire Records. Like clue Labyrinth. Movies that.

107
00:10:28,990 --> 00:10:30,462
Chris: When I was in college, big trouble.

108
00:10:30,486 --> 00:10:31,370
Kayla: In little China.

109
00:10:33,430 --> 00:10:55,188
Chris: There was a girl that lived on my floor in the dorm I was in freshman year, and she's from New York. All she ever talked about was Hedvig. And she was obsessed with Hedvig and the angry inch. Every conversation, everything, she had to bring it up in every which way. She had paraphernalia. Like, the only thing I remember about.

110
00:10:55,204 --> 00:10:56,388
Kayla: This was her paraphernalia.

111
00:10:56,444 --> 00:11:11,334
Chris: Poor woman's. Well, I mean, like, t shirts and stuff. Okay, I know what it's about. The only thing I remember about this poor woman's personality is Hedvig and the angry inch, because it was just all she did all year.

112
00:11:11,422 --> 00:11:12,838
Kayla: That's a cult following.

113
00:11:12,974 --> 00:11:14,334
Chris: I guess that explains it.

114
00:11:14,382 --> 00:11:16,694
Kayla: Hedwig and the angry inch is a wonderful film.

115
00:11:16,782 --> 00:11:17,886
Chris: She's a very nice person.

116
00:11:17,998 --> 00:11:24,550
Kayla: But that is somebody who definitely exemplifies or demonstrates a lot of fanship.

117
00:11:24,710 --> 00:11:27,758
Chris: Fanship, that's right. Which we learned last episode.

118
00:11:27,814 --> 00:11:50,600
Kayla: And that can feel cult like when you're interacting with somebody who all they can do or talk about is the thing they're a fan of that feels culty because that's. How is that much different than talking to. With somebody who's, like, in freshly in an MLM and all they can talk about is the MLM. There are differences, but, you know, that piece of it carries a similar thing. Why are we talking about this, Chris?

119
00:11:51,180 --> 00:12:04,644
Chris: Oh, I was just. It was just something I was thinking about since last episode. You said you looked up cult movies, though, and you had a list that it wasn't really like movies with cult followings. It was movies about cults.

120
00:12:04,692 --> 00:12:05,036
Kayla: Yeah.

121
00:12:05,108 --> 00:12:06,394
Chris: What's that? Listen.

122
00:12:06,512 --> 00:12:08,534
Kayla: Well, the first one's midsummer.

123
00:12:08,622 --> 00:12:10,182
Chris: The first one's midsommar.

124
00:12:10,366 --> 00:12:12,182
Kayla: So what? Hold on.

125
00:12:12,286 --> 00:12:14,446
Chris: So crazy coincidence.

126
00:12:14,558 --> 00:12:19,710
Kayla: Popular cult movies. Wicker man is a cult movie.

127
00:12:19,790 --> 00:12:20,570
Chris: Mm.

128
00:12:20,870 --> 00:12:24,650
Kayla: Midsommar is a cult movie. Movie's about cults.

129
00:12:25,030 --> 00:12:31,246
Chris: Kayla, it's time to talk about the actual topic for today, which is the film midsummer.

130
00:12:31,358 --> 00:12:45,510
Kayla: Sorry. You don't think we should just start talking about Midsommar as if we just found it on the Internet? You want to just talk about Midsommar for a little bit? And then we, like, do the whole episode on it, and we go, oh, shit. Guess we did a whole episode on that. Sorry.

131
00:12:46,130 --> 00:12:50,634
Chris: So, yeah, it's movie review week here on cult, or just weird.

132
00:12:50,802 --> 00:12:52,498
Kayla: We are uniquely suited for this.

133
00:12:52,554 --> 00:12:58,110
Chris: That's right, because were on a podcast that had us on to do movie review.

134
00:12:58,570 --> 00:12:59,026
Kayla: Oh, yeah.

135
00:12:59,058 --> 00:13:23,994
Chris: We were on Flyover State of fear. We did an episode with them about Blair witch project. So I kind of feel like we're experts in this now. Bottom line is we just kind of wanted to mix up the format a little bit. Like, not the format of the show, because we're still going to do the criteria, don't worry. But we wanted to say, like, hey, what if we treated like a fictional depiction of a cult the same way we did an episode on, like, a real life one? That might be kind of neat.

136
00:13:24,122 --> 00:14:10,874
Kayla: I think it's an. I think that, you know, we kind of have to grapple with the fact that a lot of societal understanding of cults and what cults are first and foremost shaped by depiction of cults in media. Like, so many of our. So many of our known, quote unquote, interactions with cults, like, when you're just a layperson, are through what you see depicted on tv shows or in movies or in, like, you know, sensational documentaries, you think about those things first before you start to think about the things like the MLM that your friend joins or the church that they're in, or those kinds of things that, through doing the show that we've kind of learned are maybe more actually cult like than something depicted in the Wicker man.

137
00:14:10,922 --> 00:14:21,066
Kayla: Cults are less like something in the Wicker man and more like something that your friend from Bingo club is trying to. The Tupperware club that your friend from Bingo is in.

138
00:14:21,138 --> 00:14:23,510
Chris: What about my grandmother, who has a big wicker chair?

139
00:14:24,580 --> 00:14:29,916
Kayla: I don't want to spoil Wicker man here. So I'm assuming she's not doing anything untoward with said chair.

140
00:14:30,068 --> 00:14:38,640
Chris: Well, that's okay. So that's actually a good time for us to mention that we are going to be spoiling stuff about Midsummer here. So if you haven't seen it yet.

141
00:14:38,940 --> 00:15:16,890
Kayla: And we did not intend to do this one's unintentional, but it happened. We will also be discussing the film hereditary by the same filmmaker, by the same writer director, Ari Aster. And I think why that happened is, you know, we intended for this episode, same director, same writer, but we fully intended this to be an episode discussing Midsummer and Midsommar only. And then, as were watching Midsommar, it kind of got me thinking. Like, it just. It felt like these are very much companion films. There's a lot. There's a lot to talk about in conjunction. So I think we'll mostly be focusing on Midsommar, but, you know, heads up. Spoiler alert for both of these movies.

142
00:15:16,970 --> 00:15:51,130
Chris: Yeah. Two things is spoiler alert. If you haven't seen these movies. All right, hold on. Let's do this one at a time. If you haven't seen Midsummer, go see Midsummer. It's. It's quite good. And then come back and listen to this episode. If you haven't seen hereditary, I'm not going to necessarily recommend that you watch it because it is, by a fair margin, the most disturbing film I've ever seen. And I don't necessarily want to recommend that just anyone go watch it at just any time. It's an experience that you really have to prepare for.

143
00:15:52,990 --> 00:15:54,806
Kayla: I wouldn't let you watch it for years.

144
00:15:54,878 --> 00:16:35,754
Chris: Yeah. That being said, we will be spoiling bits of it in this discussion, so just be forewarned. Anyway, so this is just like a little, it's a little experiment. What if we tackle a fictional cult on the show to let us know? Like, you know, send us an email, tweet at us, whatever what you think. Because if you like the format, if you like us doing this, we could always do other fictional cults on the show, too. That might be kind of neat. So let us know what you think. So let's talk about Midsummer. Or actually, I guess, technically the cult is not. Midsummer is the name of the movie, but the cult in the movie is the town of Harga.

145
00:16:35,802 --> 00:16:36,698
Kayla: The town of Harga.

146
00:16:36,754 --> 00:16:37,950
Chris: But we'll get to that.

147
00:16:38,750 --> 00:17:05,846
Kayla: I think what we should do before. So, you know, for our listeners, we plan to go through our criteria and talk about how this cult fits in or doesn't fit into those criteria. But I think we should do either a refresher for people who have seen the movie or a summary for people who don't want to watch the movie but want to participate in this conversation. So I'm going to summarize for you the film Midsummer, as best I can.

148
00:17:05,917 --> 00:17:08,106
Chris: She's just going to read the script. It's going to take like an hour and a half.

149
00:17:08,127 --> 00:17:15,882
Kayla: It's going to take two and a half hours because it's two and a half hour film. But go watch the movie, too. It's really. I cannot. I cannot.

150
00:17:15,945 --> 00:17:17,834
Chris: The visual. Okay, here's the review.

151
00:17:17,882 --> 00:17:18,626
Kayla: I love this movie.

152
00:17:18,657 --> 00:17:35,390
Chris: So the movie is excellent. The visual storytelling is magnificent. Trigger warning for all of the acting is magnificent. And it's, even though it's a long movie, it's paced very well. Like, there's not. There's not much that it does wrong.

153
00:17:36,220 --> 00:17:44,520
Kayla: I will also say here, before we get into discussing this film, gird your loins. Gird yourself.

154
00:17:44,980 --> 00:17:45,948
Chris: We said trigger were.

155
00:17:45,964 --> 00:17:47,028
Kayla: We didn't.

156
00:17:47,124 --> 00:17:47,796
Chris: We did not.

157
00:17:47,868 --> 00:17:48,252
Kayla: No, we didn't.

158
00:17:48,276 --> 00:17:50,260
Chris: Oh, I said that for hereditary, but not for Midsommar.

159
00:17:50,300 --> 00:17:50,564
Kayla: Yeah.

160
00:17:50,612 --> 00:17:57,668
Chris: Midsummer is also a challenging movie to watch, primarily based on the first thing we're gonna talk about, which is the first thing that happens in the movie.

161
00:17:57,724 --> 00:18:37,518
Kayla: Yeah. So the film opens on Florence Pugh playing a character named Dani. And Dani is on the verge of anxiety panic attack because she cannot get a hold of her sister. Her sister has sent her a series of very ominous, very scary emails that make Dani think that she is planning on harming herself and potentially their parents. Dani cannot get ahold of anybody in her family. The only person she can get ahold of is her boyfriend, who is kind of dismissive about this. Kind of like, not the most supportive person you would want in this moment.

162
00:18:37,654 --> 00:18:41,650
Chris: See, I told you that people that name their kids Daenerys.

163
00:18:42,310 --> 00:19:01,558
Kayla: That is why she is named Dani. Yes. No. Unfortunately for all of us, Dani is not just being a crazy woman. She is not just being panicked for panic's sake. We find out very quickly she gets a phone call from an unknown number. And every millennial knows.

164
00:19:01,574 --> 00:19:02,454
Chris: I'm so fucking terrified.

165
00:19:02,502 --> 00:19:10,436
Kayla: That is the biggest thing you can ever get. Oh, my God. I. Unfortunately, yes. Her entire family has been found dead.

166
00:19:10,468 --> 00:19:12,604
Chris: In their home at the hands of the sister.

167
00:19:12,652 --> 00:19:13,492
Kayla: At the hands of the sister.

168
00:19:13,556 --> 00:19:52,692
Chris: So it's kind of like that opening scene. They drag it on a little bit long. Like, I mean, it's not 20 minutes, but it's like ten minutes where she's, like, kind of going back and forth, being scared about this thing. And, like, we, the audience, know it's very brutal if you've. A lot of us, probably most of us have been in a situation where, like, were really anxious about something based on, I should have heard from them by now, or I got an ominous text or something like that. And in this film, and this is why we said warning here, is because in this film, the worst actually does end up happening to her. And it is pretty brutal.

169
00:19:52,796 --> 00:20:38,740
Kayla: So this all happens while Danny's boyfriend is with his friends, kind of, you know, just being. These are. These are the graduate students, college buddies, doctoral students. They're, you know, I forget if they're. If they're actually out drinking or whatever they're doing, but they're having a much different experience than Dani is having and it is hinted that the relationship between Danny and her boyfriend is fraying. He's about to break up with her. This is not lasting long. Like, she's already anxious about losing him. And then he gets a phone call. It is Danny wailing in grief. And whatever trouble and turmoil there is in their relationship, whatever plans he has to break up with her are put aside because now he is called to console his girlfriend in the absolute worst moment of anybody's life.

170
00:20:38,820 --> 00:21:06,030
Chris: At the same time, there was also mention of this trip to Sweden that they were planning on having this boyfriend and his college buddies. One of his friends is doing his thesis on the midsummer traditions in Europe. And so he's following him to Sweden, as is. A couple of their other friends kind of do like a college Europe trip, like everyone does. But maybe nobody will do it after watching this movie because they'll be too scared.

171
00:21:06,690 --> 00:21:38,988
Kayla: So several months pass and Dani is dealing with her grief. And that's when she finds out about the Sweden trip. Her boyfriend has not told her. It is very shocking and terrible. Who wants to be left alone in moments of grief? But what are you gonna do? And through a series of events, Dani actually ends up tagging along with them to Sweden. So the folks that are going to Sweden are Dani in the throes of her grief, her boyfriend, who is just kind of a wet blanket for the friend group, as well as Danny and two friends.

172
00:21:39,044 --> 00:21:41,836
Chris: He's just very like passive, very passive.

173
00:21:42,028 --> 00:21:49,618
Kayla: Two friends. And then I, a third friend who is from Harga, the town in Sweden that they are visiting, right?

174
00:21:49,634 --> 00:21:54,882
Chris: Because they're not just visiting Sweden. They're not just like going to Stockholm or whatever, right? They're going to a very specific place in Sweden.

175
00:21:54,906 --> 00:21:57,130
Kayla: It's like 4 hours outside of Stockholm, kind of, right?

176
00:21:57,170 --> 00:21:59,150
Chris: And it's by invitation from this friend.

177
00:21:59,730 --> 00:22:20,330
Kayla: All of the boyfriend's friends want him to break up with Danny. Danny doesn't want to hang out with any of these people. It's like the most talking thing in the world. They show up to this town of Harga and it is everything that you would picture a cult commune being. It's out in the forest, in the middle of nature.

178
00:22:20,490 --> 00:22:21,762
Chris: A town is a bit much.

179
00:22:21,866 --> 00:22:44,660
Kayla: It's not a town, it is a commune. Everybody is in white linen clothing of various degrees. The first thing that happens when they get there is our main characters are greeted with a tea of psychedelic mushrooms. They take the tea and everything goes terribly scary for the rest of the movie.

180
00:22:45,680 --> 00:22:53,512
Chris: It's like your typical horror movie in the sense of it escalates into just more and more off the rails.

181
00:22:53,576 --> 00:23:08,662
Kayla: And we have. There's clearly an entire culture here. The harga are presented. I don't want to say they're presented as a cult, but they're talked about as a cult. Film criticism in mainstream culture, we all talk about this as a cult.

182
00:23:08,726 --> 00:23:14,758
Chris: Yeah, if you google, which you just did, you just googled movies about cults, and it's the number one hit on there.

183
00:23:14,854 --> 00:23:33,770
Kayla: They have various discrete and specific traditions. So they all eat at certain times altogether, they follow the teachings of elders. They have, like, this clear hierarchy. There are traditions such as this midsummer tradition that includes a maypole dance kind of thing. They have holy scriptures.

184
00:23:34,190 --> 00:23:36,836
Chris: There's other rituals. The Attis dupe.

185
00:23:36,988 --> 00:23:49,160
Kayla: They do involve the Attis dupe. So part of the harga is that they believe life is a circle. So baby gets born, somebody throws himself off of a cliff.

186
00:23:50,380 --> 00:24:06,068
Chris: The bottom line is the Addis thoop is actually. It's a real old tradition. Not real old. It is old and also a real thing that some viking cultures would participate in. And it's throwing old people off a cliff. But, like, I don't want to say.

187
00:24:06,084 --> 00:24:08,108
Kayla: It'S throwing all people off a cliff in the film. It is.

188
00:24:08,124 --> 00:24:11,308
Chris: I say that flippantly, but yeah, it's not.

189
00:24:11,404 --> 00:24:22,580
Kayla: In the film, it is depicted as a very sacred end of life ritual that when people of the Harga culture reach age 72, they perform the AtA stoup.

190
00:24:22,700 --> 00:24:37,440
Chris: Right. And I imagine it was like that in real life, too. I doubt it was just shoving over the peel off a cliff. It was probably more ritualized and more of like they. The way they say in the film is like, this is a joy for them to be choosing the time of their own ending and surrounded by people and friends and family.

191
00:24:37,740 --> 00:25:30,546
Kayla: In short, it is a series of very shocking cultural traditions that present specific triggers and diffuse triggers. For our main characters. This is a culture that is so different from the american culture that they are used to. And something that is hammered home over and over again throughout the film, is that the culture that our main characters are coming from, specifically Dani american culture, there is no communal space or communal sharing of grief and hard emotions and carrying that load, everything that she has experienced, it is like pulling teeth to get any sort of support. And that is shown through the boyfriend's friends that don't want anything to do with her. The boyfriend being unable to do anything but go there. There. There she is, alone in her grief. The hardcore.

192
00:25:30,738 --> 00:25:55,294
Chris: It's not even his fault. Right. That's the thing, is, like, it's not his fault that. I mean, it is in some ways, right. But in other ways, it's also like he's not given the tools from our culture to be a better grief support for his girlfriend. Right. The only thing that we are ever trained to do is that sort of like, they're there. It'll be okay. Buck up, kiddo.

193
00:25:55,482 --> 00:26:48,238
Kayla: The harga, on the other hand, have this extreme culture of everybody shares everything, including our emotions. So there's multiple times throughout the movie, it is shown somebody having some sort of reaction to something. Everybody else joins in. So when the attic stoop happens, I think that's the first example we have of it. When the attic stoop happens, one of the two folks who jump off the cliff in that ritual, one does not die upon impact and is groaning in pain. The entire Harga clan, the entire Harga community who's there watching, reflects his pain by doing the exact same thing, by groaning, by moaning, by acting as if they are in pain. And that is to demonstrate that the culture of the harga does not have those same deficits that the culture our main characters are coming from have.

194
00:26:48,384 --> 00:26:53,706
Chris: Right. It also feels creepy to people that are. Yeah. Very alien and creepy if you're not used to that kind of thing.

195
00:26:53,778 --> 00:27:14,782
Kayla: And so the film escalates. I don't want to, you know, I don't want to get into exactly the specific details of everything that happens, because you might still go watch the movie, but the film essentially escalates to the point where Dani becomes entrenched in the culture in a way that is, like, the twist of the film is that this very scary culture ends up being the thing to embrace her through her grief.

196
00:27:14,946 --> 00:28:02,622
Chris: Yeah. So there's almost, like, two movies going on, right? There's the, like, oh, my God, we are in this alien culture that is very scary, and it's triggering for us in a lot of ways. That's what the friends are going through, and the friends end up. Each one ends up paying for it with their lives by the end of the movie, including the boyfriend in the final scene. On the other hand, Dani, while she's also, like, she's not completely experiencing something differently because she's, like, wondering what's going on. Like, she's. In fact, she's the only one which. This is another point that we can get to, but she's the only one among them who is not just dismissing what's going on as, like, oh, it's. It's fine. It's fine. It'll be fine. Echoing that it'll be fine.

197
00:28:02,686 --> 00:28:49,734
Chris: From earlier in the movie, when he was. When she was talking to her boyfriend about, oh, my God, I'm so worried about my parents and my sister. He was like, it'll be fine. It'll be fine. Stop worrying. She's the only one among her friends who knows that the bad thing can happen, right? That knows that the worst outcome actually is possible. So she is trying to warn them, but then slowly she becomes embraced enough by the people of Harga that, and is given enough of what she needs that she can't get from american culture, from the western culture, that she essentially assimilates into them. By the end of the movie, she becomes their may queen, and she's actually the one that finally pulls the trigger, so to speak, on the final sacrifice of the boyfriend.

198
00:28:49,862 --> 00:29:33,588
Chris: So it's kind of like there's two different movies going on as to why Dany. It's actually sort of hinted at earlier in the film. The guy that's from Harga, that's like, his job is to, like, go get outside sacrifices for the people to do their midsummer ritual. He empathizes with Danny because he also lost his parents when he was young. And when he lost his parents, it was this Harga village that took him in. And basically what it sounds like is did the same things for him that they do for Danny. They give him that radical acceptance. They give him that, like, community. Community meeting him where he is with greed. Cause that's a big thing with. With her, is they. And you mentioned this with the atta stoop, right?

199
00:29:33,684 --> 00:30:15,490
Chris: When the guy's in pain, they meet him where he is with their own groaning. There's a scene later in the movie where that happens with Dany, right? There's a group of women that essentially, like, wail with her, that keen with her on the floor of the, you know, of the dormitory when she's just finally able to, like, release some, like, emotional tension and, like, just wail and cry on the floor. So, anyway, very good film. I sort of rambled there a little bit, but I was trying to get the idea in there of, like, there's sort of, like, these two films going on. There's like, this creepy thing where, like, the, you know, the friends are getting picked off one by one. And then there's, like, the experience Dani is having that culminates in the, like, I am the May queen.

200
00:30:16,390 --> 00:30:25,942
Kayla: Like most horror movies, I think we've made it very clear this movie's not just about something scary is happening. It's about grief like most fucking horror.

201
00:30:25,966 --> 00:30:40,878
Chris: Movies are, right aside, that's like a pet peeve of ours is like whenever we read an article that's like, you know, the reason that this horror movie is so good is because it's actually about, unlike most other horror movies, it's real. It's about something else. And I'm like, bro, that's every horror movie.

202
00:30:40,894 --> 00:30:41,654
Kayla: Every horror movie.

203
00:30:41,702 --> 00:30:43,918
Chris: Is everyone symbolic?

204
00:30:44,054 --> 00:31:03,038
Kayla: Anyway? Yeah. So that's kind of why we wanted to talk about it, is that this movie is presented as like, this is the movie about cults, but really it's a movie about grief and the different way, the ways in which encountering grief might feel scary and foreign and then ultimately comforting and the thing that you need. So.

205
00:31:03,134 --> 00:31:48,564
Chris: Well, actually, before we get into the criteria, I will say this is the second time for both of us watching. We watched it in theater in 2019 when it came out. And then we also watch it again for this episode. In between that time, we've had our own experiences of grief. I think longtime fans of the show know that we lost our son Arthur a few days after he was born prematurely. And so the film really hit a lot differently for me, watching it the second time, having that lens on it and having that, like, grief lens on it. Like, Ariaster does a really good job of depicting some things that are, like, very. That I can really resonate with. And I think you as well, I.

206
00:31:48,572 --> 00:31:53,212
Kayla: Need to know everything that Ariastro has gone through in his life so that I can go, what the fuck, man?

207
00:31:53,276 --> 00:31:53,756
Chris: Yeah.

208
00:31:53,868 --> 00:31:54,772
Kayla: What is going on?

209
00:31:54,796 --> 00:31:55,800
Chris: What happened to you?

210
00:31:56,220 --> 00:32:01,396
Kayla: So how do we want to start? I mean, do we want to just go through each criterion?

211
00:32:01,548 --> 00:32:06,196
Chris: Well, went through the plot. We talked about the characters. Right. Danny and his inner boyfriend and his friends.

212
00:32:06,268 --> 00:32:08,452
Kayla: Yeah, they don't get names. We're just talking about Danny.

213
00:32:08,596 --> 00:32:09,702
Chris: They're just no names.

214
00:32:09,796 --> 00:32:14,350
Kayla: Danny's Danny. And the rest of them are just the boyfriend, the friend, the guy.

215
00:32:14,730 --> 00:32:15,770
Chris: Guy number two.

216
00:32:15,850 --> 00:32:21,178
Kayla: So is there the presence of a charismatic leader in the harga, quote unquote cult?

217
00:32:21,274 --> 00:32:23,298
Chris: Yeah, so there's a guy called odd.

218
00:32:23,354 --> 00:32:25,298
Kayla: False. Already falsing you.

219
00:32:25,354 --> 00:32:26,058
Chris: Wait, what?

220
00:32:26,154 --> 00:32:27,410
Kayla: He is not the leader.

221
00:32:27,570 --> 00:32:28,362
Chris: Who's the leader?

222
00:32:28,466 --> 00:32:32,162
Kayla: The leader is that lady. I don't think she. So, okay, wait.

223
00:32:32,186 --> 00:32:35,074
Chris: How do you know that? Because they call him father odd.

224
00:32:35,242 --> 00:32:47,424
Kayla: Yeah. I believe what is being depicted is that there is a hierarchy in the community of, like, I think that there is a figurehead at the top and then there are kind of like how there's a pope. And then there's, like, what's under the pope?

225
00:32:47,472 --> 00:32:48,032
Chris: Cardinals.

226
00:32:48,096 --> 00:32:48,760
Kayla: Cardinals.

227
00:32:48,840 --> 00:32:49,128
Chris: Okay.

228
00:32:49,144 --> 00:32:49,904
Kayla: And then other guys.

229
00:32:49,992 --> 00:32:51,272
Chris: So the lady is the pope.

230
00:32:51,336 --> 00:33:07,240
Kayla: There is a woman in the harga culture, in the Harga clan who takes on the role of leader, and no one ever says, like, that's the leader. But she is the one who explains the add astoop ritual. She is the one who.

231
00:33:07,280 --> 00:33:08,952
Chris: Oh, I didn't know she was, like, leader lady.

232
00:33:08,976 --> 00:33:28,036
Kayla: I thought her name is, like, Sven or Svenge or something like that. She is the one who eventually sits down with Danny's boyfriend and explains to him, hey, you've actually been chosen to be a mate for one of our women here. We're basically going to use you. We're going to use.

233
00:33:28,108 --> 00:33:30,000
Chris: We're putting you out of that, Ferrari.

234
00:33:30,740 --> 00:33:59,836
Kayla: So she's the one who does that. She's the one who is calling all of these shots. So I believe, while it's not very explicit in the film, that's the leader. Those guys are the cardinals. I think she is the ultimate leader. And then there are very clearly other people who have titles and status that help carry out her will. So there's father. Odd. There's other older gentlemen that bring the characters to task when they do things that are wrong.

235
00:33:59,868 --> 00:34:31,989
Chris: In Batman, I did not pick up that she was a step above father Al. I believe she is the leader of. There is one then. Was she charismatic? I don't. So this is less about, like, whether you have, like, a good smile and can tell a joke. This is, like, how much do people want to follow you? How much of the cult, how much of the group is held together by, like, your will? Right? Like, is, am I here for you, or am I here for something else? And I think, actually, the answer in this case is I'm here for some.

236
00:34:32,170 --> 00:34:43,757
Kayla: I do not think that any one individual is what keeps the Harga community together. I think it is their system of culture that keeps people there.

237
00:34:43,853 --> 00:34:49,694
Chris: I'm not here for her, for the leader. I'm here for the culture in general that they have.

238
00:34:49,742 --> 00:35:22,544
Kayla: And it doesn't seem like any of the leaders, the leader or any of the other higher ups are using their positions for, like, to leverage power or to gain control or exert dominance. Like, everyone is simply doing the job that they have been assigned to keep the culture preserved, to keep the culture moving. Like, that's the thing in the movie, is that this culture is interesting to these doctoral students because it is so unique in its practices.

239
00:35:22,672 --> 00:35:23,086
Chris: Right.

240
00:35:23,168 --> 00:35:32,810
Kayla: And very insulated from other cultures. And so, you know, I'm sure we'll get into this in a minute, but, like, this is not depicted as a culture that is recruiting.

241
00:35:32,970 --> 00:35:33,338
Chris: Right.

242
00:35:33,394 --> 00:35:36,154
Kayla: Or anything like that. And I think that charismatic did recruit.

243
00:35:36,202 --> 00:35:51,030
Chris: Dany, but I think that's just one person. I think that's. I think still. But I think that's the empathy thing about the parental death that the one that the friend from Harga, the luring guy, experienced.

244
00:35:52,290 --> 00:36:21,608
Kayla: I also want to make sure that I didn't pick this up until we watched it the second time. So the midsummer ritual that our characters are going to the Harga community for is a special midsummer ritual. I think they have midsummer rituals every year, but this one is like, every new year, every 90th anniversary. So that is why it's a big deal. I don't even think that there are outsiders being invited into this community every year. I think it's outsiders are only invited into this community every 90 years when you need to sacrifice.

245
00:36:21,664 --> 00:36:33,184
Chris: Yes, leader, I would say present, but based on understanding the charismaticness is like, you know, that's the golden goose. That's why people are there.

246
00:36:33,312 --> 00:36:33,720
Kayla: Right.

247
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:36,672
Chris: I would say it's low. It's low.

248
00:36:36,816 --> 00:36:47,862
Kayla: This one is going to be interesting. Oh, expected harm for the harga, for the people in the community.

249
00:36:48,006 --> 00:36:48,770
Chris: Yeah.

250
00:36:49,310 --> 00:37:20,252
Kayla: You can make an argument that the expected harm is very low. You are taken care of emotionally, physically, financially, your entire life. You have family, you have friends, you have purpose, you have ritual. You live your long life in this community where you are always held. Yeah. Maybe once in your life, you're gonna see someone make a sacrifice. Maybe once in your lifetime, you know, someone's gonna have to step up from the community and get sacrificed. But if you live this long, full life, no harm has come to you.

251
00:37:20,276 --> 00:37:28,892
Chris: Not everyone, because during the midsummer ritual, some of the members of the community actually had to volunteer to sacrifice themselves prior to age 72.

252
00:37:28,956 --> 00:38:23,614
Kayla: Yes, this is the other thing that I was gonna say. The other reading you can give while you can look at it and go, no harm comes to them on the other side. Okay. Except when we have these rituals that require human sacrifice or when you hit the age of 72, you are violently expected to kill yourself. And there is. In the out of stoop scene in particular, there is a lot of harm depicted. It is very violent and graphic. In the ritual sacrifice at the end of the film, it is very violent, and a lot of harm is depicted. And also what the harga believe is that this is not harm. They do not look at this as a harmful experience. Or an experience of violence, they look at it as part of preserving their culture, part of the circle of life.

253
00:38:23,782 --> 00:38:43,270
Kayla: Like you said, they explain it as a joyous event. We look at. We look at rites of passage as these beautiful things, you know, weddings and bar mitzvahs and quinceaneras. So something like the Aristoop is more akin to those joyous events than something harmful.

254
00:38:43,350 --> 00:38:59,392
Chris: Right. And it's just. And it's very shocking to an outsider, especially an outsider from a culture where we hide, run, ignore, just generally do our very level best every day to pretend that death isn't a thing.

255
00:38:59,456 --> 00:39:00,136
Kayla: Right.

256
00:39:00,328 --> 00:39:34,094
Chris: And going to a society where not only do they, like, acknowledge it, but they, like, embrace it in this very particular way that they find joyous, you would probably find that shocking and weird and scary. And that's definitely what's being depicted. And speaking of depictions, I agree that in the add a soup scene and also the final sacrifice scene, there's definitely something being depicted. I don't know if it's harm. It's pain. I don't know if it's suffering. Right. Like, pain is for sure being depicted. The guy is wailing in pain after he jumps off the cliff and doesn't die.

257
00:39:34,102 --> 00:39:34,918
Kayla: Right, right.

258
00:39:35,054 --> 00:40:22,182
Chris: They have to end his life to end his suffering. In the final sacrifice scene with base gets a bonfire where people are burned alive, and they are depicted as shrieking in pain because they're being burned. But if you are a member of this community, you may not see that pain as suffering. You may see that pain as something that is supposed to happen or something that is, like, cleansing or giving a gift to your fellow members of your community. Right. Like, you may not necessarily equate that pain with suffering. And I know that's, like, a really relativist position to take. And it feels weird to even say it because, like you said, some of those scenes are pretty violent. But is it harm? I don't know.

259
00:40:22,286 --> 00:41:17,826
Kayla: It's also possible that the. That there are people in this, you know, fake community, that there are people in this community, in this fictitious community that would. Would not make these choices for themselves absent the pressures of the society, potentially. So upon watching it a second time, you know, I don't think I noticed the first time that the woman, before she launches herself from the cliff, she is crying. She has tears. She has a look of, I am going to miss this. This sucks to die. It sucks. And so I think it's possible to sit here and go, well, there might be people in this culture that would prefer to not die at 72 or would prefer to not step up as a human sacrifice, but feel so much pressure. Yeah, societal pressure, because that's the culture.

260
00:41:17,898 --> 00:41:32,978
Chris: Right. And don't we have that, too? Right. Like, we have cultural norms, and the dominant part of the culture wants to enforce them universally, but much to their chagrin and much to everyone else's value, we have a lot of diversity in our culture.

261
00:41:33,034 --> 00:41:33,668
Kayla: Right. I.

262
00:41:33,754 --> 00:42:02,054
Chris: And it's possible that the harga have that, too. I think that's a risk that sometimes we take is when we, like, look at other cultures, we think of them as, like, mono. Right? It's like, oh, they're the people with the tacos, right? It's like, there's only one thing, but, like, actually, like, if you go to Mexico, it's like there's german influence there, and they have, like, wine, and they have all these different. But we only have, like, a few things that we ascribe to them. And I think it's the same thing here with the harga, where there probably are people who were like, you know, I don't really care for this thing.

263
00:42:02,192 --> 00:42:12,258
Kayla: But that is not shown. Very much shown. And I think that's something that's supposed to be part of the scariness is that they are very much shown to be a monolith.

264
00:42:12,314 --> 00:42:14,066
Chris: It is like they're all bought in.

265
00:42:14,138 --> 00:42:32,916
Kayla: They're all the harga. While there are individual bodies, given the, like, given, like, the. You know how there's animals that are really, like, a bunch of other animals? Don't know what I'm saying. You know how there's like, yeah.

266
00:42:32,948 --> 00:42:33,844
Chris: Like jellyfish.

267
00:42:33,972 --> 00:42:36,052
Kayla: They're like, okay, like, oh, isn't it a man o war?

268
00:42:36,156 --> 00:42:37,260
Chris: Man o war. Not jellyfish.

269
00:42:37,300 --> 00:42:57,436
Kayla: A man o war. Jellyfish is not actually a single animal. It is made up of a bunch of animals, but they. They all together make a new thing. So, like, all of the harga are a collective. It's like you're just kind of seeing these, like, individual bits of it. But they are a vomilist.

270
00:42:57,468 --> 00:42:58,228
Chris: They act in unison.

271
00:42:58,284 --> 00:42:58,468
Kayla: There's.

272
00:42:58,484 --> 00:43:21,730
Chris: Yeah, there's no depicted dissent. But if we're sitting here analyzing whether there's harm, I think it is worthy to maybe ask if. To try to do a little bit of mind reading and say, like, in the history of every harga person that's ever lived, has there been someone that, like, didn't like the fact that they had to die at 72? Yeah, probably. Yeah, most likely.

273
00:43:21,810 --> 00:43:25,882
Kayla: And if you're an outsider, the expected harm is about 90%.

274
00:43:25,986 --> 00:43:35,214
Chris: Yeah. Yeah. So from an insider perspective, maybe expected harm is low. They do a lot of good stuff for each other, and you will never.

275
00:43:35,262 --> 00:43:38,598
Kayla: Have to have a night of crying alone. There will always be somebody holding you.

276
00:43:38,654 --> 00:44:26,568
Chris: Right. And I would say they even have, like, in many ways, a healthier relationship with death than we do because of the way that they interact with it. But if you're an outsider, it's harm. It's pretty harmful, because you're probably gonna die. They're gonna sacrifice you. And that's the part where you kind of go, like, as much as we're like, as much as we're sitting here saying, man, these guys are awesome. At the same time, they did kill people without their consent. The people inside the community are like, I volunteer as tribute, and this is a part of my culture. This is a joyous time for me to die for all of my fellow brethren. Yada, yada. Cool. Great. Awesome. The outsiders didn't really have that level of consent. They didn't know that they were gonna be sacrificed in this midsummer thing.

277
00:44:26,624 --> 00:44:35,262
Chris: So that's where the harga do, like, as much as they have, like, all this beneficial stuff that we're talking about. Ultimately, they're still bad dudes.

278
00:44:35,366 --> 00:44:36,414
Kayla: They're baddies. Don't join the cult.

279
00:44:36,462 --> 00:44:41,210
Chris: They're baddies because they did kill people without their knowledge or consent.

280
00:44:42,670 --> 00:44:52,878
Kayla: Presence of ritual, ultra high, extraordinarily. And this. Yes. So as bad as they are, I want to be in the Harga cult.

281
00:44:52,934 --> 00:44:53,622
Chris: Oh, hell, yeah.

282
00:44:53,686 --> 00:45:37,370
Kayla: I want to be in the Harga cult. And I want to be in the Harga cult, because, again, if you haven't watched the movie, go watch the movie. You're still gonna really get a lot of enjoyment out of the film. Even if you hear this entire conversation, it is such a good movie. There's a moment that you described where Dani fully experiences the, like the most what seems to be one of the most important day to day rituals of the harga. So she has just done the May Day dance, and she wins and becomes the May queen. And while she's riding this high, she returns to the village and finds that her boyfriend is having sex with one of the Harga women. She doesn't have all of the context that he has been coerced into this.

283
00:45:37,410 --> 00:46:26,120
Kayla: He has been chosen to basically just be a sperm donor. He has been drugged. He has been abused into this position. To her, she is witnessing an act of betrayal. She has been fully abandoned by the only. The only man in her society. That is providing her with any sort of support, and it's rickety. And she begins sobbing and wailing and falling down and having all the emotions that come out when you're on your last thread. And instead of being left alone or instead of people being like, oh my gosh, I don't know what to do, can I give you a hug? All of the harga women that she's with surround her, carry her, hold her, bring her to the dorm, and they all collapse on the floor.

284
00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:42,576
Kayla: And as she is wailing, they all match her wailing, staring at her in the eyes, being there 100% with her. She is not alone in any way, shape, or form in validating her experience, validating these, not like, oh, it's not so bad.

285
00:46:42,608 --> 00:46:43,632
Chris: Don't worry about it.

286
00:46:43,776 --> 00:46:58,306
Kayla: It is as bad as it is. And we are here on this ride with you, and there is no chance of you falling through the cracks. And it. I remember seeing it the first time, and I was just like, good lord, can we have that? Yeah, can we have that?

287
00:46:58,378 --> 00:47:07,178
Chris: I know. And definitely it hit me harder the second time. I was like, there are times that I wish that I had that. Yeah, for sure.

288
00:47:07,314 --> 00:47:23,306
Kayla: And so there is so much presence of ritual in this movie, and Ari Aster does a very good job of, you know, giving little ritualistic things that aren't really, you know, fully explained. You know, we get their all kinds of stuff. We get their holy text explained to us. We get a little bit of their.

289
00:47:23,338 --> 00:47:33,402
Chris: Like, you know, there's like, pictograms, pictographs. There's. There's symbols, there's the eating, like the dinner. There's, like, very specific ways that they basically consume sex.

290
00:47:33,466 --> 00:48:24,004
Kayla: Everything these people do in their lives is ritualized. Is ritualized, including the act of sex. Because when the boyfriend is forced to have sex with a harga woman, it is done in a very similar manner to the experience that Danny has of this grief support. He is taken into a room where the woman he is supposed to have sex with is there for him to have sex with. And then a whole bunch of other. Yeah. Bed of flowers, a whole bunch of other harga women are standing around to share in the experience. They're not having sex with him, but they are there to mirror all of the emotions and sounds that she makes as they go through this ritualized sex. Every single thing that these people do in their lives is part of the harga's ritualized culture.

291
00:48:24,132 --> 00:48:31,292
Chris: And I think we talked about this while were watching it. But what's interesting to me about the contrast. Cause those two scenes basically happen at the same time.

292
00:48:31,356 --> 00:48:31,960
Kayla: Right.

293
00:48:32,460 --> 00:48:45,558
Chris: Is, I think. I don't know if this is the intention of the director, but it seems to say that, like, yeah, having everything be communal, literally everything that can be good in some ways.

294
00:48:45,614 --> 00:48:46,262
Kayla: Right?

295
00:48:46,446 --> 00:49:35,342
Chris: Like, I think with Danny, they're saying, like, this is a beautiful way to, like, hold someone and validate them and be there with them, even in those dark depths of grief. But on the other hand, if we do absolutely everything as a team, I don't know, it doesn't seem that great to have eight people around you making moaning sounds while you're trying to have this private, intimate moment with someone. And the sex scene doesn't. That's part of what makes that sex scene feel the least sexy, the least intimate thing ever is because it's part of this creepy ritual. And it's like. I don't know. I think maybe there's a balance that we can have, too. That maybe that's part of what the film was saying.

296
00:49:35,496 --> 00:49:41,138
Chris: We don't necessarily need to go 100% collective because there are some things that maybe are better private to have.

297
00:49:41,194 --> 00:49:52,722
Kayla: No individualized intimacy is also a very scary thing. So, yeah, maybe having some things be private is still okay.

298
00:49:52,906 --> 00:50:37,108
Chris: Yeah. Generally, the ritual in the movie, I think, is presented as a healthy thing. Healthy and beneficial. I'll also mention the at astute ritual is presented in this way, not just in the, like, oh, it's a joyous culmination of life where you're surrounded by friends and family. But also contrasting that with how Danny's parents died. They died silently with zero violence because it was the way. The way that the sister killed them was gassing them. So they died silent and peacefully in their sleep. And there was zero ritual. Danny didn't get to say goodbye or anything. Nobody got to say goodbye. It was suddenly. And they depict, like, you know, zipping up the body bag. And that's the only ritual you get here. You just zip, right? And the body bag zipped up, and they're gone.

299
00:50:37,164 --> 00:51:09,378
Chris: And then the most you can get after that is like, oh, sorry, babe. Right? Like, that's the most she can get, right. Then you contrast that with this attitude where it's like, not only are you saying goodbye to these people ahead of time, like, you have this special dinner and special clothes, a special. This special that. It's a time of, essentially, of their. It's a deliberately chosen time. It's not some, you know, like, sudden, random thing that happens to them. You know, gives you this time to sort of, like, I don't know, do things that Dany never got to do with her parents.

300
00:51:09,434 --> 00:51:09,650
Kayla: Right.

301
00:51:09,690 --> 00:51:23,082
Chris: She never got to say goodbye. It happens so suddenly. There was very little fanfare. It's the opposite for the harga, and that kind of, like, highlights that opposing nature of it really highlights.

302
00:51:23,146 --> 00:51:23,646
Kayla: Right.

303
00:51:23,778 --> 00:51:28,142
Chris: That the healthiness of that ritual and how it helps.

304
00:51:28,166 --> 00:51:47,062
Kayla: Dani, I know we haven't talked yet much about hereditary, but we did say were gonna talk about it, and I think this is a good place to kind of drop in some of that discussion. Hereditary does a good job of kind of depicting the, like, antithetical response to grief than what the harga depicts, so.

305
00:51:47,126 --> 00:51:51,716
Chris: Right. It's like the unhealthy ritual, the unhealthy support versus the healthy.

306
00:51:51,878 --> 00:52:07,768
Kayla: Hereditary also deals with very traumatic family loss. So it's a family of two parents and two children, and the youngest daughter is killed very brutally in the film. And the rest of the movie is basically about the family, the unraveling of.

307
00:52:07,784 --> 00:52:09,448
Chris: The family based around that, dealing with.

308
00:52:09,464 --> 00:52:53,956
Kayla: This grief or unable to deal with the grief. Like, nobody really goes to therapy in the movie. One of the characters goes to a grief support group once, but because they don't have any sort of external support, they're all kind of just, like, going to work and going to school and, like, sending their 16 year old son back to school, you know, days after his sister's funeral. He also was the one who killed her on accident, by the way. This family is not held. This family is not given any sort of healthy outlet for their grief, and that makes them vulnerable. The mother is literally preyed upon in her grief. Somebody is like, hey, let me show you how to do a seance and, like, talk to your dead kid.

309
00:52:54,148 --> 00:53:12,566
Kayla: And that's a really big difference between the way we handle grief in our society. It opens us up to a lot of very unhealthy things. Whereas the harga, having ritualized everything in their lives, while that goes well, that makes kind of go like, ooh, maybe there's room for some.

310
00:53:12,638 --> 00:53:13,390
Chris: Maybe not everything.

311
00:53:13,470 --> 00:53:34,782
Kayla: Maybe not everything. But they don't have those, like, cracks of, like, honestly, I think that the people in the Harga community, if they, like, you know, rum spring ud and went away from the Harga community, they'd be less susceptible to things like other, like, more damaging cults or things like, let me teach you how to do a seance to meet your dead kid. And really, I'm just conning you in this really horrible way.

312
00:53:34,846 --> 00:53:36,140
Chris: Right? Right.

313
00:53:36,270 --> 00:53:57,760
Kayla: And I think that. That's why. I think that hereditary and Midsommar are companion films in some really interesting ways, because they're showing different. They're both about grief and the ways that grief can either, like, rot you out from the inside or can build a community for you.

314
00:53:57,880 --> 00:54:06,490
Chris: Yeah. But what's interesting is, like, in midsummer, they had to, like, go outside of civilization to get what they needed.

315
00:54:06,530 --> 00:54:07,110
Kayla: Right.

316
00:54:08,090 --> 00:54:14,226
Chris: Which is kind of like, oh, how do you fix the thing that happened in hereditary? Okay, well, first you have to discard society.

317
00:54:14,298 --> 00:54:16,710
Kayla: Right. Right. My poor family.

318
00:54:17,250 --> 00:54:19,058
Chris: Anyway, very high ritual.

319
00:54:19,154 --> 00:54:28,106
Kayla: Very breath of ritual is very high. I think that this is kind of an easy one. Niche within society. There's probably about 100 harga.

320
00:54:28,258 --> 00:54:28,594
Chris: Yeah.

321
00:54:28,642 --> 00:54:38,474
Kayla: They're 4 hours outside of the nearest town. They do not. They don't even want their rituals to be written about in these, like, you know.

322
00:54:38,562 --> 00:54:40,162
Chris: Yeah. They don't want pictures taken.

323
00:54:40,266 --> 00:55:00,962
Kayla: No pictures can be taken. Like, it is a very insular. There is no recruitment going on. We already said that, like, the people that are brought in, there was only in the film, you know, every 90 years, they bring outsiders in, and there was a total of. Danny, her boyfriend, two friends, and then two other randos. There's a total of six people brought in every 90 years.

324
00:55:01,066 --> 00:55:04,242
Chris: Yeah. And the community itself is, what, like, 50 people?

325
00:55:04,586 --> 00:55:08,506
Kayla: I'd say 100, maybe 100 small, maybe more. 50 to 150.

326
00:55:08,578 --> 00:55:09,554
Chris: It is indeed niche.

327
00:55:09,602 --> 00:55:10,630
Kayla: Very niche.

328
00:55:11,610 --> 00:55:15,874
Chris: I love how much time we spend on ritual. We talked about that for, like, 30 minutes. Then niche is like.

329
00:55:15,962 --> 00:55:43,958
Kayla: Yes, yes, correct. And, okay, well, we want to get a little more. I think that the beliefs and rituals of the harga are also very niche within society because they're so antithetical to what mainstream. Mainstream society as being depicted in the film are, like, the beliefs of being so up close and personal with death and being so collectivist. Those are niche ideas within that is western society.

330
00:55:44,014 --> 00:55:44,862
Chris: That's a good point.

331
00:55:45,006 --> 00:56:02,276
Kayla: I don't know how to answer the anti factuality thing, because I don't know if a lot of the harga's beliefs were depicted as anti factual as much as they were depicted as. These are just, like, very well preserved cultural traditions.

332
00:56:02,348 --> 00:56:05,760
Chris: Yeah. It's almost like it doesn't score on this scale.

333
00:56:06,700 --> 00:56:14,868
Kayla: They're not talking about worms quantum tunneling through your feet or. They're not talking about any of the other anti factual. They're not Scientology anti factual. Right.

334
00:56:14,884 --> 00:56:34,216
Chris: They're not trying to recruit you with lies. Although, actually, I kind of have. Maybe this is where we really ding them on the fact that they murder people because they were not told. The friends didn't. The friend from Harga that took them there didn't say, oh, yeah. And we're gonna kill you and sacrifice you.

335
00:56:34,368 --> 00:56:35,048
Kayla: Yes.

336
00:56:35,184 --> 00:56:36,920
Chris: That's anti factual, Kayla.

337
00:56:36,960 --> 00:56:37,440
Kayla: That is.

338
00:56:37,480 --> 00:56:39,300
Chris: That's a pretty heavy duty lie.

339
00:56:41,760 --> 00:56:45,180
Kayla: It's a heavy duty lie, but it's not a lie to those in the cult.

340
00:56:46,000 --> 00:56:54,922
Chris: But is that. Is antifactuality always just, like, internal or, like, I don't know, QAnon's antifactuality is sort of broadcast, right?

341
00:56:55,106 --> 00:57:06,202
Kayla: Yeah, but QAnon's antifactuality is necessary. Like, the antifactuality is baked into the beliefs of the cult. Like it's built on lies.

342
00:57:06,386 --> 00:57:32,516
Chris: Yeah, this one is a little weird. I get what you're saying. I think that, for the most part, factuality is orthogonal to what we're talking about here because it's all just fact neutral cultural traditions. That was hard to say. But I do think that I'm gonna give. It can't be a zero because of the obfuscation of the truth that was done in order to lure people in to kill them.

343
00:57:32,588 --> 00:57:36,676
Kayla: Mm. So this is also another easy one.

344
00:57:36,748 --> 00:57:37,092
Chris: Yeah.

345
00:57:37,156 --> 00:57:38,076
Kayla: Life consumption.

346
00:57:38,188 --> 00:57:39,972
Chris: Yeah, whole life. All of it.

347
00:57:39,996 --> 00:57:48,160
Kayla: If you are born into the Harga community, like we said, every moment of your life is ritualized your entire life. Until you add a stoop at 72.

348
00:57:48,280 --> 00:57:50,768
Chris: It doesn't seem like they leave or do other things.

349
00:57:50,944 --> 00:58:39,150
Kayla: Some of them will go off and infiltrate mainstream society in order to, like, find sacrifices. It also. There. There is also an implication of. So you know how we've talked about how the boyfriend was used for his seed? It is mentioned earlier in the film that happens more often because it's a small community, and they do try to. While in some cases they're pro incest, in most cases, they're not. And so they will farm out for sperm from elsewhere. So there is some outside people coming in and out. Don't. And if you are one of the outsiders, one of our main characters in this movie, also, your full life is consumed because they kill you.

350
00:58:39,310 --> 00:58:44,638
Chris: They end it, you die. Okay. Super high. All of it. Next.

351
00:58:44,734 --> 00:58:46,330
Kayla: Dogmatic beliefs.

352
00:58:47,510 --> 00:58:49,850
Chris: I don't think they give a shit what other people think.

353
00:58:50,390 --> 00:59:12,228
Kayla: I think this seems loaded, that they. I do not get the sense, though, that they would take very kindly to anybody in their community not following their beliefs. Like, if I don't get the. I don't get the sense that you could be like, I'm gonna wear jeans and, like, not do the maid queen dance.

354
00:59:12,244 --> 00:59:30,588
Chris: It's interesting because, like, I think it's almost like they have the sense that, like, they're the world. Like, their community is it. And then anything outside of that is kind of, like, very outs. It's so outsider that we're, like, just totally cool with getting people from there to, like, you know, blood sacrifice.

355
00:59:30,644 --> 00:59:32,076
Kayla: Yeah. They're animals, not humans.

356
00:59:32,148 --> 00:59:52,924
Chris: Right? So I think that. Yeah, maybe you're right. Like, me saying that they don't care what's going on in the outside world isn't because they don't have dogmatic beliefs. It's just because they, like, don't think of it as even very much human. Whereas, yeah, you're right. Like, I think there probably wouldn't be a lot of tolerance for, like, diverse clothing or any other kind of diversity within the community.

357
00:59:53,052 --> 01:00:02,334
Kayla: They are very, you know, at first, very welcoming to the outsiders, and it's kind of shown as, like, oh, they're, you know, welcoming society, but really they're just, you know, welcoming their sacrifices.

358
01:00:02,382 --> 01:00:06,302
Chris: Yeah, the waqyu cows probably feel pretty special for a little while.

359
01:00:06,366 --> 01:00:15,170
Kayla: Yeah. Yeah. But I don't know. It's hard to say. It's also hard to say, like, maybe they've just figured it out so perfectly that nobody ever dissents.

360
01:00:16,110 --> 01:00:19,670
Chris: I think that, based on your argument, I want to say dogma is high here.

361
01:00:19,710 --> 01:00:23,482
Kayla: Dogma's high. All right. Chain of victims.

362
01:00:23,646 --> 01:00:31,026
Chris: Well, you said they don't really recruit, but they kind of do. They do every 90 years when they need fresh outsider blood or however often.

363
01:00:31,058 --> 01:00:33,266
Kayla: They need to get new sperms.

364
01:00:33,378 --> 01:00:41,178
Chris: Yeah. It's not really a chain, though. It's not like one person recruits the next. There's not a contagion of ideas.

365
01:00:41,274 --> 01:01:04,360
Kayla: I mean, what about people being born into it? Like, if everybody, it's presumed that everybody who has a child in this culture will then raise the child up in that culture, and then they will raise their children. And they will raise their children. It is passed down in that way. Is that recruiting? Like, if somebody is Scientologist and then has a kid who's a scientologist, then has a kid who is a scientologist, is that a chain of victims?

366
01:01:05,020 --> 01:01:27,110
Chris: I think the only way I can ever answer this one is by going back to the like. Is it difficult to differentiate between a victim and a victimizer? Is this person a bad guy because they recruited someone, or are they just a victim themselves? So does it feel difficult to distinguish between that for some of these folks, or does it not?

367
01:01:27,490 --> 01:01:58,122
Kayla: I really don't. I don't know how to answer this one. I honestly don't, because it would just be. It would be a lot easier if I had a less conflicted view of the harga. It would be a lot easier to go, like, well, clearly their culture is very harmful to everyone involved, and so if you are born into it, like, it's not Scientology, where I can go, nothing. There's nothing. No redeeming qualities here. It also makes it easier. Cause it's not a real thing. So when they kill somebody, no one's actually gonna kill.

368
01:01:58,226 --> 01:02:04,626
Chris: Right. That's the thing. Like, part of what makes us hate Scientology is like, oh, they might have killed so and so.

369
01:02:04,698 --> 01:02:05,426
Kayla: Yeah.

370
01:02:05,618 --> 01:02:09,554
Chris: And with this guru, with the Harga, it's like, they definitely killed some sort.

371
01:02:09,562 --> 01:02:12,186
Kayla: Of people in some pretty bad ways.

372
01:02:12,338 --> 01:02:12,762
Chris: Yeah.

373
01:02:12,826 --> 01:02:15,450
Kayla: Drugged em, raped em. Not good.

374
01:02:15,530 --> 01:02:16,510
Chris: It's not great.

375
01:02:16,910 --> 01:02:18,970
Kayla: But I don't know how to answer chain of victims.

376
01:02:19,310 --> 01:02:29,886
Chris: I'm gonna say low because I don't feel like. I'm not sure I agree with. If you get born into something, you're a victim to it. I think we all just feels like.

377
01:02:29,918 --> 01:02:31,570
Kayla: We all get born into something.

378
01:02:33,790 --> 01:02:40,370
Chris: In that sense, there are definitely parts of our own culture that we are victims of that were born into and didn't ask for.

379
01:02:41,110 --> 01:02:41,870
Kayla: I will say.

380
01:02:41,950 --> 01:02:43,270
Chris: I don't know. I would say low.

381
01:02:43,310 --> 01:03:21,642
Kayla: Then I relooked at controversial figure Steve Hasan's bite model again before talking about this, because I was like, maybe we can talk about, does the bite model apply here? And I have not studied the bite model. I am not an authority on the bite model. I don't know anything outside of perusing it once or twice. One of the times being before this, if you and I tried to talk about the bite model and apply it to something like this, we would be talking for 400 years. Because each kind of criteria has things that I'm like, that's just what a society does to somebody in the society. That's just what a society does to somebody that's within the society. That's just what a culture does to somebody.

382
01:03:21,786 --> 01:04:08,846
Kayla: The criteria in the bite model, I feel, can be really easy for somebody like you and me to abstract them out, to impose rigid rules and regulations. Yeah, I could make an argument for any culture that is not, quote unquote, a cult doing that extensive use of cult generated information and propaganda, like, yeah, I know what you're getting at, but we're all kind of propagandized, requiring members to internalize the group's doctrines is truth. Like, again, I know what controversial figure Steve Hassan is getting at here, but it would be really difficult to apply the bite model to something like this because I can't help but draw parallels between just, like, cultures at large and the harga feels like a culture at large that just happens to be very small.

383
01:04:08,918 --> 01:04:39,618
Chris: That's very small. Yeah, I agree. I think that's kind of like the running theme here is that it's like cult or just culture. Right. It's like this group of people, like, they definitely do some really shitty things, as we have mentioned. But, you know, again, like, vis a vis this criteria of chain of victims, I don't know. I don't know whether to say somebody born into this is a victim or not. I don't know the answer to that because we're all born into something and we're all ultimately victimized by the less savory aspects of our own culture. So I don't know.

384
01:04:39,674 --> 01:04:40,510
Kayla: I don't know.

385
01:04:40,970 --> 01:04:41,710
Chris: Lo.

386
01:04:42,290 --> 01:04:43,706
Kayla: Safe or unsafe exit.

387
01:04:43,778 --> 01:04:52,154
Chris: N a. We don't really have any evidence of anyone trying to exit. Nobody is shown as exiting. Nobody is shown as attempting to exit.

388
01:04:52,202 --> 01:04:56,890
Kayla: The only people who try to exit are the people who are outsiders.

389
01:04:57,050 --> 01:04:58,146
Chris: And that was unsafe.

390
01:04:58,218 --> 01:05:38,754
Kayla: That is unsafe. If you are an outsider that is trying to leave, you will be killed. Which I do wonder what that means for hargas born into the culture. Because part of why the outsiders are kept their, you know, come hell or high water is they're needed for this ritual. And I also got the sense that it was like, we cannot have anybody leaving here and telling our secrets. We cannot have anybody leaving here and bringing outside society here. We cannot risk our way of life being stopped. So if there was a harga that went, I'm gonna leave. I don't know if that would be handled safely.

391
01:05:38,922 --> 01:05:42,322
Chris: So I'm gonna say speculatively, but high.

392
01:05:42,466 --> 01:05:43,066
Kayla: Yeah.

393
01:05:43,178 --> 01:05:50,418
Chris: We don't have. We have circumstantial evidence that attempting to leave this place would probably not be safe.

394
01:05:50,594 --> 01:05:51,390
Kayla: Correct.

395
01:05:52,730 --> 01:05:53,650
Chris: Is that the last one?

396
01:05:53,690 --> 01:05:54,930
Kayla: That is our last criteria.

397
01:05:54,970 --> 01:05:56,858
Chris: So do we want to the 8th and final criteria.

398
01:05:56,914 --> 01:06:15,238
Kayla: I would like us to make a judgment call so that we can talk about it. And I just want to briefly to transition us into the end of our episode. I would just like to compare and contrast it a slight bit with the maybe a cult present in companion film, hereditary. So is this a cult or not?

399
01:06:15,374 --> 01:06:36,720
Chris: Is Harga a cult? Despite it scoring high on several things, I still think that it's not because it just seems much more like a weird community that definitely has some bad stuff going on there than it does about a cult. I think it's just missing enough key ingredients. Right. It's missing chain of victims. It's missing chain of victims is missing.

400
01:06:36,800 --> 01:06:37,544
Kayla: Charismatic leader.

401
01:06:37,592 --> 01:06:39,100
Chris: Charismatic leader, yeah.

402
01:06:39,400 --> 01:06:40,632
Kayla: Antifactuality.

403
01:06:40,736 --> 01:06:54,592
Chris: And it can be so healthy and beneficial despite the fact that it can also be, if you're the wrong person, very deadly. But it doesn't. I don't know, it doesn't have that recruiting aspect to it. It doesn't have that. That feel to it.

404
01:06:54,616 --> 01:06:58,940
Kayla: So I don't know, like, it's just an insular culture. It's not a cult.

405
01:06:59,840 --> 01:07:02,216
Chris: But it is cult like, though. I mean, isn't that kind of.

406
01:07:02,248 --> 01:07:04,504
Kayla: It's cult like in the way that any culture is?

407
01:07:04,672 --> 01:07:09,288
Chris: I was saying this to you too. It's also, I think, like, the fact that they just, like, wear, like, all white robes.

408
01:07:09,344 --> 01:07:09,872
Kayla: Yeah.

409
01:07:09,976 --> 01:07:13,216
Chris: Is just a visual signifier that makes us kind of like, you're supposed to.

410
01:07:13,248 --> 01:07:28,008
Kayla: Look at it and go, this looks like a cult. And the way they all eat together and the way they all do everything together, this looks like a cult. But again, when you really put, you know, our lens on it, which is not an academic lens. So, you know, who knows when you put our lens on?

411
01:07:28,024 --> 01:07:28,864
Chris: But it's the right lens.

412
01:07:28,912 --> 01:07:37,976
Kayla: It is the only correct lens. But when you put that lens on it doesn't portray itself as any more cult like than any other culture.

413
01:07:38,008 --> 01:07:46,500
Chris: Just any other culture. Yeah. I think it highlights the ways in which a culture can be cult like. I think there are things that are true about cultural cult that are true about that culture.

414
01:07:46,930 --> 01:07:48,106
Kayla: Same root word.

415
01:07:48,258 --> 01:07:52,322
Chris: Yeah. So not a cult.

416
01:07:52,466 --> 01:08:03,634
Kayla: Not a cult. And presents us with some, maybe things we could adapt into making our own lives a little healthier. Some things. No, don't.

417
01:08:03,682 --> 01:08:08,378
Chris: Yeah. Don't kill people without telling them first. You know, if you tell them, it's okay.

418
01:08:08,514 --> 01:08:19,594
Kayla: But my main takeaway from midsommar is that this is a culture that handles grief well.

419
01:08:19,761 --> 01:08:20,386
Chris: Yeah.

420
01:08:20,497 --> 01:08:27,870
Kayla: And that is why I think it makes sense to watch Midsummer and hereditary together.

421
01:08:28,609 --> 01:08:29,345
Chris: Yeah.

422
01:08:29,497 --> 01:08:40,667
Kayla: If you do watch hereditary, which, again, we do not recommend on the show, but I love the movie. It's just very painful. It is the exact opposite depiction of handling grief well.

423
01:08:40,763 --> 01:09:14,363
Chris: Yeah. And I want. Before we talk about that midsummer, I said this already hit me differently. After our own traumatic experience, I definitely have probably more sympathy for the harga than I should. Now, on the first watching, it was definitely like, oh, creepy. Cult weirdos. They're gonna kill people, those jerks. And, like, it's still, there's still that aspect to it, but now there's much more of it now that is like. But they have some good stuff that they do, though, right? So that will color your experience as well.

424
01:09:14,411 --> 01:09:29,923
Kayla: That will color your experience. So just going back to hereditary. So again, spoiler alert, but hereditary. The big twist of the film is that it is also a cult movie. It is also a movie about a cult. You just don't know it until basically the very end.

425
01:09:30,091 --> 01:09:36,620
Chris: So we said spoilers. Hopefully you're not listening if you haven't seen it or don't intend to, which is probably the correct.

426
01:09:36,700 --> 01:09:56,676
Kayla: It's probably the right thing to do. You find out at the very end that all of the terrible hardships that have befallen this family were all orchestrated by a satanic cult in order to bring about the physical realization of their. The son of Satan, the son of hell that they worship.

427
01:09:56,788 --> 01:09:57,440
Chris: Right.

428
01:09:57,980 --> 01:10:07,248
Kayla: And this is able, like, they're able to make this happen because the family is unable to process their grief together.

429
01:10:07,424 --> 01:10:07,784
Chris: Right.

430
01:10:07,832 --> 01:10:31,990
Kayla: The family becomes fractured. The family becomes vulnerable. The family cannot. The individuals in the family cannot process their grief in healthy ways. And so they become. They are. They are. They are vulnerable, susceptible victims of this cult. And as scary.

431
01:10:34,050 --> 01:10:37,050
Chris: It'S a very disturbing film.

432
01:10:37,210 --> 01:10:46,410
Kayla: It shows, it's like midsommar shows a cult that has something constructive about it. And hereditary shows a cult that is simply destructive.

433
01:10:46,450 --> 01:10:50,538
Chris: Destructive and preying on someone's. On a family's grief.

434
01:10:50,594 --> 01:10:51,230
Kayla: Yeah.

435
01:10:51,980 --> 01:11:47,024
Chris: I think this is also a good time to mention that when we talk about cults on the show, we sort of have an official position that you're not getting brainwashed. And I think that the character of Dany really actually does demonstrate that pretty well. She's not brainwashed by the cult. She is making a choice, and her choice is based on the fact that the cult is giving, or that the community is giving her something that she needs. And that's something we've talked on the show before. And that's why I say, like, official position. It's not that QAnon brainwashes you. It's that you have a need that community actually does end up fulfilling in some way. Same thing with mlms. Like, yes, I have this need. It may be a pernicious, manufactured need. I need money. I need to be the most successful.

436
01:11:47,112 --> 01:12:33,040
Chris: I need to be. I need to have all of the things that this MLM says that I should have, that the american dream says I should have. And so when I join an MLM, it's. I'm thinking that I'm going to fulfill that need. Right. So all of these things. So that's when somebody, like, does something or joins something that you don't really understand. To us, it feels like it's much more about that need filling, and that is very much demonstrated with Danny. She has this gaping need for someone to help her process her grief in a healthy way and to be there for her and hold her and match her energy. And when the harga give that to her, she's like, all right, cool, I'm on board. Yeah, this is great. To the point where she'll even.

437
01:12:33,540 --> 01:12:39,652
Chris: She's so much a part of their community at the end that she's making the decisions on who should live and who should die and their final sacrifice.

438
01:12:39,796 --> 01:12:43,684
Kayla: So that's why you should join a cult, because you can kill your shitty ex.

439
01:12:43,812 --> 01:13:28,662
Chris: That's right. Exactly. That's the conclusion. But no, but, like, that's. I feel like that's. That's kind of a through line that we've had for several seasons now, is fulfilling that need. If she'd gotten that need fulfilled some other way, she probably would not have stayed with the harga. I don't think she would have been. I don't think she would. It's because she doesn't have that. That need anymore. Right. And it's kind of like you were saying, too, with the harga, if they, like, exited their community and something horrible happened to them. XYZ, whatever, because they have these, like, techniques and coping mechanisms and whatnot. Maybe that need for, you know, that need for companionship during grief is something that they already have fulfilled, so maybe they wouldn't have fallen for something else.

440
01:13:28,766 --> 01:13:34,518
Chris: So anyway, and I don't mean to say fallen for, as if, like, oh, Danny fell for their shtick.

441
01:13:34,614 --> 01:13:34,918
Kayla: Right.

442
01:13:34,974 --> 01:13:36,386
Chris: I think they were being genuine.

443
01:13:36,518 --> 01:13:37,026
Kayla: Right.

444
01:13:37,138 --> 01:13:43,546
Chris: You know, it was authentically them. I don't think they were trying to grift her, but I think that's just. I don't know. That's what it comes down to.

445
01:13:43,578 --> 01:14:27,808
Kayla: Fulfilling a need that's actually something that I want to talk about for a skosh longer. So something that I. Part of why we wanted to talk about Midsommar or part of why I was like, yeah, we definitely got to do it, is. I feel like I have. I've seen some discussion around the film and around, you know, what your reaction to Danny at the end of the movie says about, you I've seen the idea that if you sympathize or you empathize with Dani at the end, when she makes the choice to sacrifice her boyfriend and go whole Haagen with the harga, if you feel any sort of like. Yeah, with that means you're susceptible to a cult. That means that you're susceptible to a cult. You got as taken in by the cult as Danny did.

446
01:14:27,864 --> 01:14:53,926
Kayla: This movie is trying to show you how easy it is to get taken in by a cult. And I just want to push back on that idea a little bit. I don't think maybe that's what Ariastar is trying to say. If that's what he's trying to say, I think that's a faulty position to take. I don't think that if you understand Dani's choices at the end of that film, that means you're susceptible to a cult. As we know. What makes one susceptible to a cult.

447
01:14:54,038 --> 01:14:55,718
Chris: Is thinking that you are not.

448
01:14:55,774 --> 01:15:31,724
Kayla: It's thinking that you are nothing and probably having some sort of vulnerability or unmet need like you were just talking about. I think that instead of trying to look at Midsommar as like an experiment on the audience of whether you would be, you know, whether you'd fall for a cult or not, I just. I don't think that's the. I don't think that's a useful way to approach this movie. Even if you're coming at it, like, trying to give some sort of cult analysis in it or from it just doesn't feel like that's what the movie is saying.

449
01:15:31,892 --> 01:16:15,930
Chris: And I think it's really reductive to say you can either sympathize or hate Dani at the end. I think the only real way to view that is both. I definitely sympathize with her and her journey. I definitely, and because of our experiences, empathize as well. I feel the catharsis that she experiences at the end when she does that, literally, the final scene where she just has this big, wide, genuine smile on her face, she has processed the grief kind of smile. I feel that I'm totally on board. And at the same time, she probably shouldn't kill her boyfriend. Not cool, especially the way he died, was really horrific.

450
01:16:16,360 --> 01:16:39,200
Kayla: Yeah. I think I just wanted to say that if you, like us, have sympathy or understand Dani's decisions at the end of the film, or if you go like, oh, man, the way the harga process grief like that sounds really great. That doesn't mean that you are more susceptible to falling into a cult than anyone else.

451
01:16:39,320 --> 01:16:39,720
Chris: Right.

452
01:16:39,800 --> 01:16:54,292
Kayla: If you have any takeaway from our show, it is that given the right circumstances, anybody can be susceptible to a cult. And these were just the right circumstances for Danny.

453
01:16:54,396 --> 01:17:16,940
Chris: Right. And it seems like, you know, if we talk about the expected harm for her, it's not there for her. She, again, not forgiving her for killing her boyfriend, but for her. I am the exp. Of course you are. For her, we say, oh, man, the cult got her. Did it get her, or did it help her and heal her through her grief?

454
01:17:17,680 --> 01:17:49,180
Kayla: How is there more harm from the harga than the harm she's already experienced from her culture of origin? There really isn't, because she's coming from horrific violence on her culture of origin to violence that has a purpose. And I'm not saying that to strip the harga of any. It's okay to say responsibility for what they're doing, but, you know, it's not like it coming from her culture of origin was a piece of cake anyway.

455
01:17:49,560 --> 01:18:00,368
Chris: Well, thanks for watching Midsummer with me again, Kayla, and a hearty fuck you for showing me hereditary if it is.

456
01:18:00,384 --> 01:18:05,612
Kayla: The most disturbing movie of all time. I tried to help. I tried to keep you from watching it, and then we gave in.

457
01:18:05,776 --> 01:18:25,560
Chris: Yeah, at a certain point, I. Yeah, don't. Don't let the curiosity get to you guys. It's awful, but it's also great. I don't know. I'm gonna stop talking about it. If you guys enjoyed us covering a fictional cult, please let us know. If you hated it, let us know, because there's other ones we could do. So.

458
01:18:26,700 --> 01:18:54,200
Kayla: So just to wrap us up, I want to leave us with a very small quote from Midsummer that I think does a good job of highlighting how maybe what's being depicted as a cult is simply just cultural differences. So after the out of stoop, one of the characters says to the other, that's cultural. You know, we stick our elders in nursing homes. I'm sure they find that disturbing.

459
01:18:55,220 --> 01:19:29,390
Chris: This is Chris, this is Kayla, and this has been cult or just movie reviews. Sadeena.