THE REAL PROBLEM WITH "LOVE HAS WON: THE CULT OF MOTHER GOD"
When striving for empathy ends up covering real issues.
A couple of weeks ago, my partner and I watched Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God, and let me tell you, it's one of the most disturbing documentaries on cults I have ever witnessed, and I’ve seen far too many.
If you haven’t watched it yet, don’t worry, as I will not spoil it for you. I am not even going to speak about the story it tells, at least not in detail. It is something you should witness for yourself.
My issue is entirely with the director’s choice of simply chronicling the events that surround the formation and lifespan of the cult and what led to its inevitable demise—focusing not only on Amy Carlson, aka “Mother God” herself, but interviewing many of the followers and depicting how they carried on with their own lives once she died.
I think the director should have added some exposition at the end, clearly highlighting how insane these people were.
I read an interview where she said she wanted to make her documentary empathetic, and she indeed did, but it also comes across as wanting to ignore the real fucking issues there.
I didn’t want to platform those beliefs, but I also feel like so much reporting has been done on QAnon and the alt-right. I felt like by laying it out at the end of Episode 1 when Amy said that Hitler was working for the light, and that the group was supporting Trump, and believed in the same kind of conspiracies, that it showed their beliefs without providing a platform for their reasoning behind those conspiratorial and bigoted beliefs. I treated those beliefs the same way I treated all of their other ideas, which was just to state them without commentary.
I am sorry… what?
How hard it would have been to just add a short segment at the very end with a cult expert highlighting that these people weren't just quirky and/or broken individuals, but folks actually advocating horrible racist shit and more—and you can read all the nasty details in the reports presented by journalist Be Scofield over the years.
And that’s crazy they’re all out and free to rinse and repeat in a few years… because you can bet it will happen.
I also understand the need to finally focus on the fact that these people’s insane behaviours and actions are borne of a sick society, one completely unable to look after the well-being of its members, especially their mental health. This is the true reckoning all of us are facing.
It’s still no excuse for glossing over a fundamental aspect of this tragedy because, by doing so, some viewers might be led to think that maybe it’s ok to go a little off the rails with conspirituality, as long as one hides beneath a veneer of respectability. Incidentally, it’s precisely what’s been happening in our so-called “occulture”, with authors and podcasters turning to antivaxx paranoia and “great reset” fear-mongering.