If the ingredients of something called a “cult” include a charismatic figure and unquestioning followers, the phenomenon of “Kai the Hitchhiker” helps us think about what happens when the power dynamic between those elements is inverted. Famous for the local news interview that launched a thousand memes, Kai was an unlikely hero whose lowkey charm saw people clamoring to make him a late-night and reality tv star. What do people offer and, alternatively, ignore when we want to see a particular story play out in a way that satisfies us? How do we respond when someone doesn’t follow our social scripts about wealth and power? What stories do we tell retroactively to make it make sense? What do we expect of someone deemed charismatic, and what does that tell us about ourselves? We explore these questions and others, like: will we ever get the video working for this podcast? Hang in as we keep trying, dear listeners! Merinda's Cult Favorite:Hanif Abdurraqib’s “To Chan Marshall: A Letter to Cat Power” (in season 2 of the Lost Notes podcast); then his own examination of musical moments and figures in 1980 for the 3rd season (the episode that reckons with the deaths of John Lennon and Darby Crash [lead singer of punk band Germs] is so good). Both are examples of attending to context with empathy, which is one of his trademarks and which siiiiiiiigh, thank you. Mike's Cult Favorite:“I Don’t Like Who I Was Then” by The Wonder YearsAs an undermatured 40 year old recovering emo kid, a song where a dude sings about genuinely tryingto be a better person with the lyric “Like I'm working babyface, Out of Mid-South in the eighties, I kept a blade hidden in my wrist tape” just hits me right in the heart.Follow us on the socials at @cultfavoritepod.Production assistance from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. Theme music produced with Udio.
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1:03:59
Cult of Fear: Asaram Bapu (Max, 2025)
We’ve made it to our 25th episode! In all the excitement, Merinda forgets her computer, and Mike swoons over his latest thrift store find. But we do manage to talk about new Max documentary Cult of Fear: Asaram Bapu. The story of a guru-turned-prisoner is also a story about evolutions in the Indian legal system and about the relationships between religious and political power. As ever, questions abound. How does the “cult” label morph when applied to a group of 40 million people? How does its functionality as an othering/familiarizing device hold up? What about cult discourse might get lost in translation across different contexts? And when was the last time you wrote/mailed a letter? Thanks for spending your valuable time with us and seeing us through to our 25th documentary discussion! Follow us on the socials at @cultfavoritepod.Production assistance from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. Theme music produced with Udio.
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1:11:17
Waco: American Apocalypse (Netflix, 2023)
This week, we’re staying in the 90s and are still talking about abuses of power that turned into tv spectacle. Performances of masculinity continue to abound, but gone are WWE’s costumes and Springer’s staged fights. The skirmishes in this case appear within federal agencies and their approaches to an insulated religious group. Join us as we discuss Waco: American Apocalypse (2023), which details the 51-day standoff between the Branch Davidians and the US government. Negotiators, snipers, the ATF, the FBI, armored tanks, desperate parents, a frenzied media, and Timothy McVeigh all make appearances in a story that sees conflicting visions/versions of American identity cancel each other out and go up in literal flames. On much lighter notes, we catch a glimpse into Mike’s childhood dinner rituals, and Merinda opines about tough-guy energy. #cultfavorite #waco #studyreligionLinks:Bio of abstract expressionist painter Cy Twombly, Chalk: The Art and Erasure of Cy Twombly,by Joshua Rivkinhttps://citylights.com/art/chalk-art-erasure-of-cy-twombly-2/“For the Plot” new single from As December Falls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YF-IqeMj9sEJohn Stewart used John Cena’s heel turn this past weekend to explain our current geopolitical climate: Follow us on the socials at @cultfavoritepod.Production assistance from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. Theme music produced with Udio.
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1:13:47
Mr. McMahon (Netflix, 2024)
This week is a treat for Mike, a feat for Merinda. We’re extending our stay in the ‘90s, taking a day trip to the entertainment world o’ wrestling. But, not unlike enlightenment, entertainment can cozy up to exploitation pretty quickly. This is what happens in Netflix’s Mr. McMahon, which tells the story of a lonely billionaire’s quest to gain approval from his father by building the WWE empire. We talk scripts and performances, heroes and villains, masculinity and national identity. Instead of trying to distinguish between illusion and what’s reality or figure out who the real Vince McMahon is, we think about how artifice and authenticity—like babyfaces and heels—rely on one another to be what they are. Kayfabe, babe: it makes up and means every word. Fun facts abound, like: Mike thinks there’s a wrestling match for everyone. And Merinda’s prior knowledge about wrestling is entirely to do with movies that are not about wrestling. Grab a costume, and join us in the ring!Links:Colette Arrand: https://colettearrand.gay/Bigg Egg wrestling newsletter: https://www.bigeggwrestling.com/Follow us on the socials at @cultfavoritepod.Production assistance from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. Theme music produced with Udio.
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1:25:47
Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action (Netflix, 2025)
Once upon a time, a young reporter named Jerry Springer made his way to Chicago with the dream of launching a talk show that allowed regular people to tell their stories. On his journey, he met a tabloid-trained producer, who turned the hopeful tv host into the Ratings King and staged increasingly dramatic antics at court through a daytime talk show that was called brilliant by some and an abomination by others. These included a fist-fight involving a klansman and a man who married his horse, but then one day, there was a murder. Some decades later, two intrepid scholars would go on a quest to learn more about this fraught empire after they found an archive entitled Fights, Camera, Action! on Netflix. They were armed only with questions like: When do people get annoyed when something is “fake,” and when are they happy to suspend disbelief? Whose stories get told and how? Where do exploitation and responsibility start and stop? And just what *was* the show Merinda’s middle school class visited?? What will become of our adventurers? Tune in and find out.Links:https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/08/arts/television/jerry-springer-netflix-documentary-5-takeaways.html“Good Sex as Food for the Revolution” by Dr. Candice Nicole Hargons via Emily Nagoski’s Substackhttps://substack.com/inbox/post/155927881“Tennessean by Birth” poem by Nikki Giovannihttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhPUvucdGvkRoss Benes’s book 1999: The Year Low Culture Conquered America and Kickstarted Our Bizarre Times (out April 2025)https://kansaspress.ku.edu/9780700638574/Follow us on the socials at @cultfavoritepod.Production assistance from the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. Theme music produced with Udio.
A podcast about all of those cult documentaries you love to binge watch. We are two religious studies professors that are curious about our current cult documentary streaming era. What stories do these shows tell and what do they tell us about ourselves?
Hosted by Merinda Simmons and Mike Altman
Colombia