This documentary did a good job of exposing a wolf in sheep's clothing, One Taste founder, Nicole Daedone. However, like with many "cult" documentaries that are in vogue, it ends with lazy tabloid "this could happen to anyone" scaremongering instead of doing the investigative journalism to expose the common threads that left the victims they interviewed more susceptible to falling prey to this type of brainwashing. In this case, the documentary could have explored our dismal sex education for women in particular, our cultural shaming of female sexuality, our epidemic of child sexual abuse in all sexes, and our failure to teach both trauma recovery and critical thinking skills. Some friends and I attended an introductory One Taste lecture describing the "Om" meditation in the late 2000's and because I had expert knowledge of my sexual response from a young age from women's health books and had training in critical thinking skills, I immediately recognized the cult tactics of groupthink and gaslighting--and I saw the glazed look in the women's eyes who were devotees. It was truly creepy.
Documentaries on cults should examine how our culture at large grooms people to be vulnerable. But every time we try to have that conversation, it's seen as "victim blaming" rather than what it really is...empowering to avoid victimization. Documentaries like this have a responsibility to look at the bigger picture, instead of just creating more fear about how any of us could be next which, in my experience, is not true.
