EST and The Forum in popular culture

Background

The est Training was a two-weekend, 60-hour course offered from late 1971 to late 1984. The purpose of the seminar was "to transform one's ability to experience living so that the situations one had been trying to change or had been putting up with, clear up just in the process of life itself." It "brought to the forefront the ideas of transformation, personal responsibility, accountability, and possibility."

Music

John Denver wrote the song "Looking for Space" which was dedicated to Erhard, and became a theme song for est.

R.E.M. briefly referenced the est Training in their song "Country Feedback."

Fiction

est and successors in literature

Depictions of est and The Forum in literature have dealt with direct references to these trainings, through such books as Werner Erhard, The Transformation of a Man, The Founding of est, by W.W. Bartley, III; 60 Hours that Transform Your Life, by Adelaide Bry; Getting It: The Psychology of est, by Sheridan Fenwick, est: Making Life Work, by Robert Hargrove; The est Experience by James Kettle; and The Book of est by Luke Rhinehart.

est was parodied in the March 1980 issue of the Marvel Comics Howard the Duck series, titled: "The Dreadcliff Cuckoos". In "The Dreadcliff Cuckoos", the character "Werner Blowhard" heads the organization "Bozoes Eagerly Serving Tyrants", abbreviated B.E.S.T. In his first appearance in the comic, Blowhard states "I've got It, Have you got It?". The "Werner Blowhard" character was later referenced in D. Keith Mano's 1982 novel, Take Five.

In Pressure Points, a 2001 novel by Larry Brooks, one of the book's protagonists asserts that the programs developed by Werner Erhard, William Penn Patrick, and Alexander Everett all came from the same source. The Program, a 2004 novel by Hurwitz, quotes Erhard prior to the opening of the prologue.

Film

1970s

Werner Erhard and his est Training programs and later The Forum have been parodied in films, both directly and through more subtle references. Still in other films that did not directly intend to parody the subject matter, other reviewers have found elements of the est movement as applied to the genre of fictional self-help films. The 1977 movie Semi-Tough, starring Burt Reynolds, parodied the est training. Bert Convy played "Friedrich Bismark," a caricature of Werner Erhard. Bismark's organization and its training went by the name "B.E.A.T.", which stands for: "Bismark Earthwalk Action Training." In real life, Erhard had a Mercedes Benz with a license plate that said "SO WUT", in the film, Bismark rode in a limousine that said: "BEAT IT". A form of Rolfing was also parodied in the film, and Lotte Lenya's character "Clara Pelf", called PELFING", was described as: "a Rolf like masseuse." The press caught on to this satire of Erhard in the film, and gave these sections of the film positive reviews. The Wall Street Journal did not give an overall positive review, but did appreciate the portions where Werner Erhard was parodied: "The movie isn't much - an erratic ramble - But it has some pleasant moments, and a delicious send-up of The self-improvement guru Werner Erhard."{{cite news | last = Staff | title = Our Reynolds Rap -- Burt Is Inert; | work = The Wall Street Journal | publisher = Dow Jones & Company | date = 2005-05-27

The Grove Book of Hollywood wrote that the 1978 film, The Wiz was influenced by Werner Erhard's teachings and est because actress Diana Ross and writer Joel Schumacher were "very enamored of Werner Erhard."{{cite book

In the 1979 film Manhattan, Woody Allen's character Isaac Davis says of his first wife, "She was a kindergarten teacher, then she got into drugs and moved to San Francisco. She went to est, became a Moonie. She works for the William Morris Agency now.".

1980s

Circle of Power, also known as Mystique, Brainwash and The Naked Weekend, is a 1981 film, co-produced by Gary Mehlman, Anthony Quinn and Jeffrey White, and based on the non-fiction book The Pit: A Group Encounter Defiled. It stars Yvette Mimieux in her final film performance.

1990s

In the 1990 film The Spirit of '76, Rob Reiner plays "Dr. Hedley Cash" (referred to only as "Dr. Cash" in the film), an abusive trainer for the est-like "Be, Inc. Seminars" who traps time-traveler Heinz-57 (played by Geoff Hoyle) in one of his seminars and continually refers to him as "Heinz Asshole". In the DVD commentary for the 2003 release of the film, director Lucas Reiner stated that the "Absentee, oblivious, self-involved parents who don't notice their kids have a spaceship" was a reference to the self-involved nature of adults during the 1970s and their propensity for self-improvement. Reiner stated that these scenes were meant to symbolize the "'70s hunger for self-improvement" and the extreme ends that people would go to in order to improve themselves. Lucas Reiner had never personally attended one of Werner Erhard's seminars, but had heard that attendants were not allowed to leave, often peed in their pants, and were called "assholes" and insulted publicly. Reiner noted that once his brother Carl put on the "Dr. Cash" costume, he played his character perfectly.

Heavyweights, a 1995 comedy film, portrays a fat camp for kids that is taken over by fitness guru Tony Perkis, played by Ben Stiller. In a review of the film in The Washington Post, Hal Hinson compared Stiller's portrayal of the Perkis character to Erhard, and called him "the Werner Erhard of slide aerobics".{{cite news | last = Hinson | first = Hal | title = Heavyweights | newspaper = The Washington Post | date = February 17, 1995 | access-date = 2008-04-20

Fight Club author Chuck Palahniuk was a graduate of The Landmark Forum, or "The Forum" for short, and this later influenced his work. In his review of the 1999 film adaptation of the book, Roger Ebert likened the character Tyler Durden to Werner Erhard. Ebert wrote that Tyler Durden was: "...a bully--Werner Erhard plus S & M, a leather club operator without the decor." Fight Club film producer Ross Grayson Bell believes that his "creative synchronicity" with writer Palahniuk was due to their shared experience of attending The Forum.

In the 1999 film Magnolia, Tom Cruise played a motivational guru named Frank T.J. Mackey, who was the author of a self-help book called Seduce and Destroy. This work was meant to teach men how to get women to sleep with them. The Frank T.J. Mackey character in the film has been likened to: "a sort of pop-TV blend of Werner Erhard and Bob Guccione, strutting around a stage with cocksure arrogance, indoctrinating his acolytes in the arts of machismo and seduction". The Frank T.J. Mackey character has also been compared to another motivational trainer influenced by Erhard, in Details Magazine.

Television

''Mork & Mindy''

Parody and satire of est and The Forum in television has taken a more direct approach than in literature and film. Characters have been shown attending seminars, and having negative outcomes as a result. Mork & Mindy dealt with this in a lighter fashion, dealing with a small introduction of individuals to the training in a home environment, in season one, episode seventeen: "Mork Goes Erk." In the episode, David Letterman portrayed an Erhard-like character by the name of "Ellsworth" offering ERK or Ellsworth Revitalization Konditioning.{{cite journal |access-date=2007-10-29 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071102002323/http://www.lclark.edu/~goldman/mandm4.htm |archive-date=2007-11-02 |url-access=subscription

''Six Feet Under''

Six Feet Under Episode 16, of Season 2, "The Plan", featured a seminar-delivery organization called "The Plan", which the character Claire Fisher immediately compared to est. Actress Alice Krige portrays "Alma" the seminar leader of "The Plan" - who uses jargon related to the "blueprint" for building a house in order to convey concepts about self-improvement. She singles out the character Ruth and berates her for "tiptoeing around her own house like she's afraid of waking someone up." Ruth begins to use jargon from the course in her conversations with family, and complains to her daughter that she cannot yet go to sleep after coming home from her seminar because she must first do "homework" from the course. This homework includes writing a letter to her dead mother forgiving her for "all the terrible things she did to me", and writing a letter to herself, describing how she will "renovate" her life. During the following day of "The Plan", the seminar leader gives the group a new assignment: to go outside to ready banks of phones, and call their family members to inform them of specifically how they wish to "renovate their homes" together. In the seminar, the leader asks everyone to close their eyes and imagine that everyone else is laughing at them for being stupid, and then asks the participants if they get the joke. Everyone does, except Ruth, who rants at the course instructor. After her rant, the leader congratulates her for "knocking down her old house", and proceeds to tell her that now she can rebuild a new house.

Analysis in secondary sources and books on Six Feet Under have compared the training in "The Plan" to the current incarnation of Erhard's trainings, Landmark Education. Reading Six Feet Under: TV to Die For by Akass et al. have compared "The Plan" to est and The Forum. Akass cites the episode while analyzing the phenomenon of self-improvement, and notes that: "Repairing her shingles often leaves Ruth in shackles." She writes that: "the series performs the logic of self-help, both its silly and seductive sides." However, she also points out that Ruth's rant at the end of her seminar is cathartic for Ruth, and she ends her analysis of the episode by asking: "So, what do we make of our times when all this supposed nonsense actually works?"

''The Americans''

The third and fourth season of the FX series The Americans contains a story line in which several recurring characters attend the est Training in or near Washington, DC. In a recreation of the est Training, the lead character and Russian spy, Phillip, begins to confront his past and to question his purpose. The first episode to include the est Training was aired on January 28, 2015 and titled "Est Men" can came in episode 27 at the beginning of season 3 in which two of the main characters, Phillip, a Russian spy meets Stan, an FBI agent at an est seminar.

Theatre

In 2008, Climate Theater in San Francisco, California showed a play called The Group, written by Robert Quillen Camp and performed by Ryan Eggensperger, and inspired, according to Climate "by the largely American tradition of packaging and selling self-empowerment, from est and the Landmark Forum to Norman Vincent Peale and The Secret". The play is an immersive performance piece where audience members sit in a circle and wear audio headsets, through which they listen to the charismatic leader's voice and sound effects. The production ran from May 29, 2008 to June 14, 2008.

Robert Avila of the San Francisco Bay Guardian called The Group: "in-your-face comedy in a droll send-up of est-like self-actualization programs," and a spoof of "recent incarnations" including The Secret and Landmark Forum.{{cite web

References

References

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3. Mantlo, Bill. (March 1980). "The Dreadcliff Cuckoos: The best things in life are free, right? Especially if by "best" you mean skulduggery, kidnapping, mind-manipulation, torture and murder, all through the graces of B.E.S.T". [[Marvel Comics.
4. Mano, D. Keith. (1998). "Take Five". Dalkey Archive Press.
5. Brooks, Larry. (November 29, 2001). "Pressure Points". Onyx.
6. Hurwitz, Gregg Andrew. (2004). "[[The Program (novel)". HarperCollins.
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12. Staff. (2006-06-25). "Why you will find yourself at the Forum". News Limited Australia.
13. Ebert, Roger. (October 15, 1999). "Review, Fight Club". [[Chicago Sun-Times]].
14. Wilmington, Michael. (2000-01-06). "Magnolia". Tribune Media Services, Inc..
15. Staff. ""Mork & Mindy" Mork Goes Erk (1979)". [[Internet Movie Database]]. [[Amazon.com]]. (8 February 1979). link
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19. Staff. (March 24, 2002). "Six Feet Under, The Plan, Recap". [[Yahoo! TV]].
20. Venkatasubban. Sharmila. "Article of Faith". Pittsburgh City Paper. (January 1, 2003)
21. Akass, Kim. (2005). "Reading Six Feet Under: TV to Die For". I.B.Tauris.
22. "A history lesson from 'The Americans' By Natalie Abrams Published on January 28, 2015".
23. (6 April 2016). "The Bizarre True Story of the Group That Seduces Philip in This Season of The Americans". Slate.
24. "The Group". Climate Theater.
25. Buzzin' Lee Hartgrave. (May 30, 2008). "Have a Little est - Have a Little Norman Vincent Peale or Learn The Secret". BeyondChron.
26. Dodds, Richard. (May 29, 2008). "Summer stage attractions". [[Bay Area Reporter]].
27. D'Souza, Karen. (May 30, 2008). "'The Group,' a witty parody of self-help therapy Ryan Eggensperger is cheesily charismatic as leader in memorable world premiere from Robert Quillen Camp". [[San Jose Mercury News]].
28. Katz, Leslie. (May 30, 2008). "Review: When positive thinking goes awry". [[San Francisco Examiner]].