Buckle in and get ready to hear two of the worst Werner Herzog impressions of all time. Not unlike the famous filmmaker, we just couldn’t seem to help ourselves! In his case, however, the self-indulgence comes tethered to a story nominally about Timothy Treadwell, the so-called Grizzly Man who inspired a 2005 documentary by the same name.

What does that 20-year-old cinematic exploration have to do with cults, you ask? Lots! Most of all, we talk about what’s at work when stories (whether told by filmmakers, journalists, or scholars) become projections. “The subject of the dream is the dreamer,” the great Toni Morrison reminds us, so how might we account for distinctions in/of methodology and genre while remaining mindful of their mediators? Digging into that question helps us avoid the perhaps-tempting-but-definitely-inane (or at least none-of-our-business) questions about whether Treadwell had the right or wrong motivations and whether his ex-girlfriend should or shouldn’t listen to an audiotape (Herzog has advice for her). Adjudication and analysis are different, methodologically speaking. What is exceedingly clear in any context, however, is that Mike and Merinda should never attempt voice acting.

Links:

Anderson Cooper podcast All There Is

Cult Favorite Hatchet Wielding Hitchhiker episode

Follow us on the socials at @cultfavoritepod.

Special thanks to the REL Digital Lab in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama for production assistance.

The views expressed in this episode are our own as experts and researchers in religious studies and do not represent the University of Alabama.

Theme music produced with Udio.

It is the end of the semester and we here at Cult Favorite are ready for a long winters nap. So, we have a special episode from deep in the Cult Favorite archives that you may not have heard yet. This week we are replaying our episode about Season One of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives from 9/23/2024. And we have a lot more episodes in our back catalog for your long holiday drives and airport layovers. Grab some peppermint cocoa, curl up close to the fire, and give it a listen.

This week, Mike convinced Merinda to watch Secret Lives of Mormon Wives! Luckily, docusoaps offer a neato middle ground between documentaries and reality tv. We talk genre, gender, sexuality, power, audiences, tradwives, the capital of “cute,” and Mormon media. Merinda quotes people she admires. She also describes her Very Strong Feelings about the tendency to reduce/oversimplify complex worlds inhabited by women creating media content. Inasmuch as we should #believewomen, we should also pay serious attention to pop culture by and about women, even (especially?) when it cuts against our comfort zones. We should also, it turns out, make sure to label moving boxes with some degree of nuance. Come hang and follow/subscribe wherever you listen to things. Meanwhile, know this: if you invite us to an important life event, we promise to show up for you. We will also totally tell you if we ever see toilet paper stuck to your shoe. #thatswhatfriendsarefor #cultfavorite #studyreligion

Links:

Sadaf Ahsan’s essay, “Inside the Real Housewives’ Feminism”: https://this.org/2021/11/02/inside-the-real-housewives-feminism/

The LDS Church’s low-key rebuke of the show: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/commentary-when-entertainment-media-distorts-faith

You’re Wrong About episode “The Tradwife Rises”: https://podcasts.apple.com/si/podcast/the-tradwife-rises-with-sarah-archer/id1380008439?i=1000657221736

How are these shows produced?: https://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/2021/05/real-housewives-produced-excerpt-from-housewives-brian-moylan/

Real Housewives https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2023/10/real-housewives-bravo-reckoning

Follow us on the socials at @cultfavoritepod.

Special thanks to the REL Digital Lab in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama for production assistance.

The views expressed in this episode are our own as experts and researchers in religious studies and do not represent the University of Alabama.

Theme music produced with Udio.

What drives someone to risk everything for a calling? In this episode, we dive into The Mission (2023), a gripping documentary that follows the story of John Chau—a young missionary whose journey to reach one of the world’s most isolated communities sparked global debate. We unpack the film’s layered narrative: faith and zeal, cultural boundaries, colonial echoes, and the ethics of evangelism in the 21st century. Was Chau a hero, a cautionary tale, or something in between? Join us for a conversation that’s as thought-provoking as it is challenging.

Follow us on the socials at @cultfavoritepod.

Special thanks to the REL Digital Lab in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama for production assistance.

The views expressed in this episode are our own as experts and researchers in religious studies and do not represent the University of Alabama.

Theme music produced with Udio.

This week, we hop into a car Louis Theroux is driving, but we have questions about his vehicular management...or at least about his playlist choices. Luckily, we’ve saved a seat for the insider/outsider problem, and it’s a great navigator! Yep, we’ve cued up My Scientology Movie, a title that at least offers truth in advertising. It is very much Theroux’s movie that follows his curiosity based on his interviews staged with his curation. As such, it puts front and center a refrain here at Cult Favorite: how we talk about something says as much (if not more) about ourselves than about whatever we’re talking about.

Follow us on the socials at @cultfavoritepod.

Special thanks to the REL Digital Lab in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama for production assistance.

The views expressed in this episode are our own as experts and researchers in religious studies and do not represent the University of Alabama.

Theme music produced with Udio.

Follow us on the socials at @cultfavoritepod.

Special thanks to the REL Digital Lab in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama for production assistance.

The views expressed in this episode are our own as experts and researchers in religious studies and do not represent the University of Alabama.

Theme music produced with Udio.

It's our 2nd annual Halloween special episode!!! And that's doubly funny because Mike hates Halloween. For this year's special we take on TWO documentaries (and kind of a third one too) about Ed and Lorraine Warren, 20th century demon and ghost hunters extraordinaire. We discuss The Devil on Trial (Netflix 2023) and Devil’s Road: The True Story of Ed and Lorraine Warren (HBO Max, 2020). There's also a special cameo by the 2023 Canadian documentary about the Satanic Panic, Satan Wants You. But we also talk about Ghostbusters, why Mike doesn't do horror and why Merinda does, why we need horror stories and tales about demons, and Mike lore about genre-hopping Christian musician Carman. It's a spooky episode of Cult Favorite that goes great with candy corn!

This week’s documentary tracks a religious leader who separated followers from their families, made them take vows not to critique authority, engaged in shady financial misdeeds, strictly controlled access to information, launched attacks on defectors, and suggested that a critique of him was an attack on the church itself. But there is no “cult” talk! How come? We give our media kaleidoscope a turn and look into Marcial Maciel: The Wolf of God (HBO Max, 2025), noticing what a lack of “cult” rhetoric refracts and obscures when presented with the image of the Catholic church. Maciel formed the Legion of Christ congregation in the early 1940s. Over the next 50+ years, he would become an ally in Pope John Paull II’s fight against communism, he would bring in hundreds of millions of dollars to the church, and he would sexually abuse more than 60 children. When do we find the term “cult” to be a reasonable label, when do we not, and why? It’s the ol’ tree-falling-in-a-forest-with-no-one-around-to-hear-it question...sorta: If a group is exploited and no one’s around to call them a cult, what kind of documentary do we get? Come hang, and let’s find out! #cultdocumentary #cultfavorite #studyreligion

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Production assistance from the Department of ReligiousStudies at the University of Alabama.

Theme music produced with Udio.

This week we’re talking about The Synanon Fix: Did the Cure Become a Cult? (HBO, 2024), yet another documentary that reminds us why we must always take care with a subtitle. It’s the story of Synanon, a drug addiction treatment community founded in the late 1950s by Chuck Dederich. The group offered solidarity and stability to people on society’s margins, they were unapologetically integrated, and they threw great parties. The centerpiece of their program was “the game,” which involved a lot of yelling and, ideally, self-reflection and catharsis. Celebrities like Lucille Ball and Leonard Nemoy came to hang, and there was even a movie made about them starring Eartha Kitt! Dederich became increasingly invested in the wealthy, self-aggrandizing allies who made hefty donations and less present for the people who helped build the group from the ground up. In the process, the man who invented the literal game began breaking his own rules. We talk about the ever-appealing rhetoric of individualism that got deployed even as assistance turned into assimilation. We also talk about how the trope of “cult leader” helps the documentary bury a lead regarding mental illness and psychosis. When and why do we distinguish a group from its leader, and when/why do we choose not to? Learn about this, as well as Mike’s new dog Otis.

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Production assistance from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama.

Theme music produced with Udio.