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.
Kayla: That's not banter.
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.
Kayla: The Internet treats furries, how the Internet.
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.
Kayla: Gotcha.
Chris: Okay, this probably was already clear, but I just wanna make sure.
Kayla: So you told me this was. We were about to do banter, but instead you were issuing a mea culpa.
Chris: No, this is totally banter.
Kayla: Banter. So banter and mia culpa, those are two separate sections, so. Right. Currently we are in the mia culpa corner.
Chris: No, mia culpa is a subsection of the banter.
Kayla: Mia culpa corner.
Chris: Yeah, mea culpa corner of the banter section.
Kayla: Of the greater section.
Chris: It did make me think too, though. Is there any group that is fair.
Kayla: Game, like that should be. That we should all just make fun of and be really meant? Yeah.
Chris: Is there anybody that's fair game? I mean, I have answer to that. Cause I've been thinking about it.
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?
Chris: Both.
Kayla: So I have two answers.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: My first answer is no.
Chris: Mm. That's a boring answer.
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.
Chris: It's a very fancy hat.
Kayla: Fuck that hat. Yeah, the Nazis. Okay, fair game.
Chris: That makes sense. My answer was people who named their kid Daenerys or Khaleesi.
Kayla: See, I don't. I don't. I think that's mean.
Chris: Oh, come on.
Kayla: I think that's mean. I think that's mean to say, I think it's okay.
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.
Kayla: Well, then don't.
Chris: Your kid named Daenerys, but you hella shouldn't have done that.
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.
Chris: Okay, not quite Hitler.
Kayla: Daenerys Targaryen.
Chris: Yeah. She was not full on Hitler. She killed, like, one city worth of people.
Kayla: Okay, I could be wrong, but the implication there was that she was gearing up to be Hitler. She had to be killed.
Chris: She was a budding game of Thrones spoiler. She was a budding Hitler.
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?
Chris: Yeah, no doubt. That's right.
Kayla: When they surrendered.
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.
Kayla: Yeah, it's probably not good to see her.
Chris: It's hard to judge her, right? Well, it's hard to judge right. On, like, a per year basis. Maybe she was.
Kayla: She's also not real, so she's not Hitler. But I'm just saying, not fair game.
Chris: To make fun of people who name their kid Daenerys.
Kayla: No. Okay, that's not nice.
Chris: What about people who say literally when they mean figuratively?
Kayla: So you're asking me to sign my own death warrant? I think actually, no, actually, I take it all back.
Chris: I'm just trying to trigger you.
Kayla: Take it all back. The people who are fair game are the people like you or the people.
Chris: Like me who will bitch about the.
Kayla: Literally, who refuses to believe, who refuse to understand that literally has meant figuratively for hundreds.
Chris: I know that I'm on the wrong side. Of history on this one.
Kayla: So that is fair game.
Chris: I know.
Kayla: We can make fun of you. We can bash your head in. We can do whatever we want.
Chris: At least you have answer to that question.
Kayla: There's my answer.
Chris: Nazis and people like me. So you're saying that I'm on the same playing field on the same level.
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.
Chris: Oh, grammar Nazi.
Kayla: And you're being a little bit of a language Nazi.
Chris: Like a grammar fasci. Like a light fasci.
Kayla: Not a fan. Let people say literally. Literally. Let people say literally. Okay.
Chris: Yeah, literally.
Kayla: They get to say it. If they can understand what it means, then they get to say it. Anyway. I'm Kayla.
Chris: I'm Chris.
Kayla: Even though my co host refuses to allow me to play with the english language, I am a writer.
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.
Kayla: And data scientist, and we are the podcast culture.
Chris: Just weird.
Kayla: And today, we are here to deliver you spoilers on classic television shows and actually modern day films.
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?
Kayla: My answer is that it sounded like you said Kevin's gate.
Chris: I did. Okay. Because I said the word like, I.
Kayla: Said, like, Kevin's gate.
Chris: Kevin's gate, and the k mixed in with the. Just answer the question.
Kayla: What was the question?
Chris: Oh, we're doing stellar.
Kayla: What's the question?
Chris: The question was, why do we say things like cult following for a movie or that fandom is like a cult?
Kayla: Because they are.
Chris: Oh, okay, good one. Thanks. This has been cult or just weird?
Kayla: I don't know. That's a big question to drop on someone who hasn't had any time to prepare for it.
Chris: That's true. What's your blink response? Other than.
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.
Chris: Rocky horror picture show. The room is one.
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.
Chris: Jesus Christ, Kayla.
Kayla: What year is it with at home viewing? I'm gonna look up.
Chris: Watch it on the cathode ray tube.
Kayla: Okay, grandma, let's put you to bed. Okay. I googled cult movies, and it just gave me movies about cults.
Chris: Yeah, that's not what we're talking about.
Kayla: Hold on, hold on.
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?
Kayla: Right?
Chris: Wow. Why are you so into anthropomorphic animals?
Kayla: Right.
Chris: Whoa. Why are you into blah, blah? So I think a lot of people.
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?
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.
Kayla: Cult following and a fandom being a cult, those are two different things. Like, cult following means something very specific.
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.
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.
Chris: When I was in college, big trouble.
Kayla: In little China.
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.
Kayla: This was her paraphernalia.
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.
Kayla: That's a cult following.
Chris: I guess that explains it.
Kayla: Hedwig and the angry inch is a wonderful film.
Chris: She's a very nice person.
Kayla: But that is somebody who definitely exemplifies or demonstrates a lot of fanship.
Chris: Fanship, that's right. Which we learned last episode.
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?
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.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: What's that? Listen.
Kayla: Well, the first one's midsummer.
Chris: The first one's midsommar.
Kayla: So what? Hold on.
Chris: So crazy coincidence.
Kayla: Popular cult movies. Wicker man is a cult movie.
Chris: Mm.
Kayla: Midsommar is a cult movie. Movie's about cults.
Chris: Kayla, it's time to talk about the actual topic for today, which is the film midsummer.
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.
Chris: So, yeah, it's movie review week here on cult, or just weird.
Kayla: We are uniquely suited for this.
Chris: That's right, because were on a podcast that had us on to do movie review.
Kayla: Oh, yeah.
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.
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.
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.
Chris: What about my grandmother, who has a big wicker chair?
Kayla: I don't want to spoil Wicker man here. So I'm assuming she's not doing anything untoward with said chair.
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.
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.
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.
Kayla: I wouldn't let you watch it for years.
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.
Kayla: The town of Harga.
Chris: But we'll get to that.
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.
Chris: She's just going to read the script. It's going to take like an hour and a half.
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.
Chris: The visual. Okay, here's the review.
Kayla: I love this movie.
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.
Kayla: I will also say here, before we get into discussing this film, gird your loins. Gird yourself.
Chris: We said trigger were.
Kayla: We didn't.
Chris: We did not.
Kayla: No, we didn't.
Chris: Oh, I said that for hereditary, but not for Midsommar.
Kayla: Yeah.
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.
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.
Chris: See, I told you that people that name their kids Daenerys.
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.
Chris: I'm so fucking terrified.
Kayla: That is the biggest thing you can ever get. Oh, my God. I. Unfortunately, yes. Her entire family has been found dead.
Chris: In their home at the hands of the sister.
Kayla: At the hands of the sister.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Chris: He's just very like passive, very passive.
Kayla: Two friends. And then I, a third friend who is from Harga, the town in Sweden that they are visiting, right?
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.
Kayla: It's like 4 hours outside of Stockholm, kind of, right?
Chris: And it's by invitation from this friend.
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.
Chris: A town is a bit much.
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.
Chris: It's like your typical horror movie in the sense of it escalates into just more and more off the rails.
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.
Chris: Yeah, if you google, which you just did, you just googled movies about cults, and it's the number one hit on there.
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.
Chris: There's other rituals. The Attis dupe.
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.
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.
Kayla: It'S throwing all people off a cliff in the film. It is.
Chris: I say that flippantly, but yeah, it's not.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
Kayla: Every horror movie.
Chris: Is everyone symbolic?
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.
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.
Kayla: Need to know everything that Ariastro has gone through in his life so that I can go, what the fuck, man?
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: What is going on?
Chris: What happened to you?
Kayla: So how do we want to start? I mean, do we want to just go through each criterion?
Chris: Well, went through the plot. We talked about the characters. Right. Danny and his inner boyfriend and his friends.
Kayla: Yeah, they don't get names. We're just talking about Danny.
Chris: They're just no names.
Kayla: Danny's Danny. And the rest of them are just the boyfriend, the friend, the guy.
Chris: Guy number two.
Kayla: So is there the presence of a charismatic leader in the harga, quote unquote cult?
Chris: Yeah, so there's a guy called odd.
Kayla: False. Already falsing you.
Chris: Wait, what?
Kayla: He is not the leader.
Chris: Who's the leader?
Kayla: The leader is that lady. I don't think she. So, okay, wait.
Chris: How do you know that? Because they call him father odd.
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?
Chris: Cardinals.
Kayla: Cardinals.
Chris: Okay.
Kayla: And then other guys.
Chris: So the lady is the pope.
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.
Chris: Oh, I didn't know she was, like, leader lady.
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.
Chris: We're putting you out of that, Ferrari.
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.
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.
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.
Chris: I'm not here for her, for the leader. I'm here for the culture in general that they have.
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.
Chris: Right.
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.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: Or anything like that. And I think that charismatic did recruit.
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.
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.
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.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: I would say it's low. It's low.
Kayla: This one is going to be interesting. Oh, expected harm for the harga, for the people in the community.
Chris: Yeah.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Kayla: Right.
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.
Kayla: Right, right.
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.
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.
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.
Kayla: Right. I.
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.
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.
Chris: It is like they're all bought in.
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.
Chris: Like jellyfish.
Kayla: They're like, okay, like, oh, isn't it a man o war?
Chris: Man o war. Not jellyfish.
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.
Chris: They act in unison.
Kayla: There's.
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.
Kayla: And if you're an outsider, the expected harm is about 90%.
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.
Kayla: Have to have a night of crying alone. There will always be somebody holding you.
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.
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.
Kayla: They're baddies. Don't join the cult.
Chris: They're baddies because they did kill people without their knowledge or consent.
Kayla: Presence of ritual, ultra high, extraordinarily. And this. Yes. So as bad as they are, I want to be in the Harga cult.
Chris: Oh, hell, yeah.
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.
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.
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.
Chris: Don't worry about it.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Kayla: Right.
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.
Kayla: Right?
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.
Chris: We don't necessarily need to go 100% collective because there are some things that maybe are better private to have.
Kayla: No individualized intimacy is also a very scary thing. So, yeah, maybe having some things be private is still okay.
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.
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.
Kayla: Right.
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.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: That the healthiness of that ritual and how it helps.
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.
Chris: Right. It's like the unhealthy ritual, the unhealthy support versus the healthy.
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.
Chris: The family based around that, dealing with.
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.
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.
Chris: Maybe not everything.
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.
Chris: Right? Right.
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.
Chris: Yeah. But what's interesting is, like, in midsummer, they had to, like, go outside of civilization to get what they needed.
Kayla: Right.
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.
Kayla: Right. Right. My poor family.
Chris: Anyway, very high ritual.
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.
Chris: Yeah.
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.
Chris: Yeah. They don't want pictures taken.
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.
Chris: Yeah. And the community itself is, what, like, 50 people?
Kayla: I'd say 100, maybe 100 small, maybe more. 50 to 150.
Chris: It is indeed niche.
Kayla: Very niche.
Chris: I love how much time we spend on ritual. We talked about that for, like, 30 minutes. Then niche is like.
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.
Chris: That's a good point.
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.
Chris: Yeah. It's almost like it doesn't score on this scale.
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.
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.
Kayla: Yes.
Chris: That's anti factual, Kayla.
Kayla: That is.
Chris: That's a pretty heavy duty lie.
Kayla: It's a heavy duty lie, but it's not a lie to those in the cult.
Chris: But is that. Is antifactuality always just, like, internal or, like, I don't know, QAnon's antifactuality is sort of broadcast, right?
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.
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.
Kayla: Mm. So this is also another easy one.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: Life consumption.
Chris: Yeah, whole life. All of it.
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.
Chris: It doesn't seem like they leave or do other things.
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.
Chris: They end it, you die. Okay. Super high. All of it. Next.
Kayla: Dogmatic beliefs.
Chris: I don't think they give a shit what other people think.
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.
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.
Kayla: Yeah. They're animals, not humans.
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.
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.
Chris: Yeah, the waqyu cows probably feel pretty special for a little while.
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.
Chris: I think that, based on your argument, I want to say dogma is high here.
Kayla: Dogma's high. All right. Chain of victims.
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.
Kayla: They need to get new sperms.
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.
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?
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?
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.
Chris: Right. That's the thing. Like, part of what makes us hate Scientology is like, oh, they might have killed so and so.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: And with this guru, with the Harga, it's like, they definitely killed some sort.
Kayla: Of people in some pretty bad ways.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: Drugged em, raped em. Not good.
Chris: It's not great.
Kayla: But I don't know how to answer chain of victims.
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.
Kayla: We all get born into something.
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.
Kayla: I will say.
Chris: I don't know. I would say low.
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.
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.
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.
Kayla: I don't know.
Chris: Lo.
Kayla: Safe or unsafe exit.
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.
Kayla: The only people who try to exit are the people who are outsiders.
Chris: And that was unsafe.
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.
Chris: So I'm gonna say speculatively, but high.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: We don't have. We have circumstantial evidence that attempting to leave this place would probably not be safe.
Kayla: Correct.
Chris: Is that the last one?
Kayla: That is our last criteria.
Chris: So do we want to the 8th and final criteria.
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?
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.
Kayla: Charismatic leader.
Chris: Charismatic leader, yeah.
Kayla: Antifactuality.
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.
Kayla: So I don't know, like, it's just an insular culture. It's not a cult.
Chris: But it is cult like, though. I mean, isn't that kind of.
Kayla: It's cult like in the way that any culture is?
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.
Kayla: Yeah.
Chris: Is just a visual signifier that makes us kind of like, you're supposed to.
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?
Chris: But it's the right lens.
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.
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.
Kayla: Same root word.
Chris: Yeah. So not a cult.
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.
Chris: Yeah. Don't kill people without telling them first. You know, if you tell them, it's okay.
Kayla: But my main takeaway from midsommar is that this is a culture that handles grief well.
Chris: Yeah.
Kayla: And that is why I think it makes sense to watch Midsummer and hereditary together.
Chris: Yeah.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Chris: Right.
Kayla: And this is able, like, they're able to make this happen because the family is unable to process their grief together.
Chris: Right.
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.
Chris: It'S a very disturbing film.
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.
Chris: Destructive and preying on someone's. On a family's grief.
Kayla: Yeah.
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.
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.
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.
Kayla: So that's why you should join a cult, because you can kill your shitty ex.
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.
Chris: So anyway, and I don't mean to say fallen for, as if, like, oh, Danny fell for their shtick.
Kayla: Right.
Chris: I think they were being genuine.
Kayla: Right.
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.
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.
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.
Chris: Is thinking that you are not.
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.
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.
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.
Chris: Right.
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.
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?
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.
Chris: Well, thanks for watching Midsummer with me again, Kayla, and a hearty fuck you for showing me hereditary if it is.
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.
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.
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.
Chris: This is Chris, this is Kayla, and this has been cult or just movie reviews. Sadeena.