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Sorry, world, but now Bill Gothard is everyone’s problem. More accurately, his cult—and I do mean to say cult here—is now the topic of Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets, and the dangerous teachings of the IBLP (Institute in Basic Life Principles) are making national headlines in the wake of the high-profile documentary.
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Almost too many of them to put on this page.
There’s a stereotype that a lot of women love listening to true crime podcasts. It’s possible that consuming true crime media is a way for some people to deal with the trauma they’ve experienced in their own lives, and that makes a lot of sense. We often try to confront things that we don’t understand, things that disturb us. I think that’s why I’ve been so tuned in to a very specific side of the internet lately, one related to but not directly part of the surge of interest in true crime: fundamentalist Christianity YouTube.
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If you are a regular listener to our podcast you probably know that BSG stans Mike Flanagan. We are #FlanaganHive. Just check out our episodes on The Haunting of Bly Manor and Doctor Sleep if you don’t believe me. Anyway, knowing this, you might have been wondering if we were going to talk about Midnight Mass. Herein lies your answer: I, Kelli, am going to be talking about Midnight Mass all by myself, because it’s November already and I can no longer wait for the other members of this operation to catch up with me. I watched this show the weekend it came out, and I have been thinking about it ever since.
(Very minor spoilers to follow)
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via Matador Records
On June 25th, Lucy Dacus released Home Video, her third studio album. I’ve been a fan of Dacus since I heard her first single back in 2016, “I Don’t Wanna Be Funny Anymore,” a song which explores the niche yet relatable experience of being the “funny one” and how that impacts one’s sense of identity. I was so taken by that song in particular that I began following her career in earnest, and she has yet to disappoint. I was obsessed with her sophomore album, Historian—I think I’ve listened to the song “Night Shift” over 100 times at this point—and I’m also a big fan of Boygenius, the sad!queer supergroup Dacus formed with Julien Baker and Phoebe Bridgers.
Needless to say, I was fully primed to love her new album, and I’m pleased to report that it still managed to exceed my expectations. With Home Video, Dacus shifts the lens from the present to focus on her suburban Christian upbringing in Richmond, Virginia, and how those memories and romantic entanglements inform the person she’s become. It’s a crush of nostalgia, confusion, naivete and burgeoning queerness, and it’s proof that Dacus has hit her stride.
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Lil Nas X released a music video on March 25, 2021 that changed the world.
Okay, maybe it didn’t change the world, but it did get people talking, and it definitely incensed a huge chunk of America. For those not in the know, I live in Mississippi, which doesn’t have the best history when it comes to supporting LGBTQ+ rights.
Have you been excited about seeing Saint Maud? So have we! And it feels like we’ve been waiting forever. But the movie is finally out, friends, and Mary and Emily are here with their thoughts. Please be warned: spoilers to follow.
Emily: This movie is one Mary and I have been looking forward to seeing for some time, so we’re excited to finally get to chat about it. Saint Maud is the feature directorial debut of Rose Glass, who wrote and directed this movie. The story is a character study in a lot of ways. It follows Maud, a young woman who has recently converted to Roman Catholicism, although the religion she practices takes on a lot of qualities that are unique to her and have nothing to do with the Catholic church, which is something I’d love to dive into more.
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I wanted to write something Easter-themed for today’s blog post, but after typing “easter,” “bunny,” and “rabbit” into all of my streaming apps and finding nothing even remotely appealing to watch, I decided to search “Jesus.” That was when I came across 2006’s Jesus Camp, which despite its acclaim, I’d never seen.
Just a couple of weeks ago, President Donald Trump said he wanted to have our country “reopened” by Easter, saying, “So, I think Easter Sunday, and you'll have packed churches all over our country. I think it would be a beautiful time.” Watching Jesus Camp for the first time in 2020, I was surprised by how much the film resonates with the current moment, especially when it comes to the role Christianity plays in politics.
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Scivias-Codex Plate One
Hildegard receiving a vision and dictating it BECAUSE women be multi-tasking.
Here’s a strange question: do you have a favorite nun?
I think Maria von Trapp, played by Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music is a good answer, even though she gave up the sisterhood in order to marry Baron von Trapp (and take care of all those children).
And, yes, I adore Sister Helen Prejean, too. She is one of (if not the) leading advocate for abolishing the death penalty and has written two passionate books on the subject: Dead Man Walking (1993) and The Death of Innocents (2006).
Sister Helen is also practical. Back in August, I heard her tell Terry Gross on an episode of NPR’s Fresh Air that one of the reasons she doesn’t wear a traditional nun’s habit (and hasn’t for decades) is because she’s from Louisiana and it’s just too hot. Yes, sister. Yes.
But my favorite nun? Hildegard von Bingen.
And maybe she should be yours, too.
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I know you’re gonna say I’m wrong, animals are really smart, they’re intuitive about people’s intent, they will guard your house, et cetera. I think it stands to reason, though, that they guard your house because you’ve trained them to do it. That if, let’s say, a gangster drug dealer trained his pitbull to attack you, they’d guard his house and him, too.
I point this out to say that if the family in The Witch hadn’t trusted their many animals, all that shit might not have gone down the way that it did.
(Spoilers ahead.)
Read moremade with love by emily, kelli, mary, and susan. <3 thanks to Katelyn Elaine Photography for our group photos.