I have finally watched The Vow and, subsequently, Seduced: both docu-series are dedicated to the rise and fall of one of the most notorious (and, it would appear, monstrous) cults in American history, NXIVM*. The Vow is made for HBO and it was broadcast in the States much earlier than in Europe, in August or early September, and in the UK it’s streaming via Sky TV/Now TV (all episodes are already out there); Seduced was created by Startz for Amazon Prime, and if you have access already, you can stream it from there.
The media have already called both broadcasts “the battle of the documentaries” and, apparently, it does make sense: The Vow (executive producers Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer) mostly concentrates on the personal stories of former and high-ranking NXIVM members such as Sarah Edmondson, Mark Vicente and Bonnie Piesse, whereas Seduced (directed by Cecilia Peck) can be seen as a personal diary, “Me in NXIVM,” created and told by India Oxenberg, who was an active participant in the cult for more than 7 years.
The Vow strikes me as lengthy and a bit incoherent in places with lots of tense yet bright flashbacks whose purpose is to show how exactly NXIVM as a cult emerged and turned into the now-notorious monstrosity: we definitely see the striking resemblance between NXIVM and dozens, hundreds, and thousands MLM companies, whose odd popularity in the late 80s-early 90s had presented the dark side of the cheerful yuppie-culture with its toxic positivity and fake friendships. But not only: people of my age might remember another weird shtick from our youth—the profound interest in “self-help” workshops (life coaches came on the scene a bit later, though) and in another pseudo-scientific baby of popular psychology and New Age karma-cola, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). I vividly remember a friend of my first husband (just my boyfriend at the time), who was trying to persuade us of how absolutely inevitable and essential NLP is in building “basic relationships.” The guy was a bit of a womanizer, although neither of us, my boyfriend or I, trusted his claims even for a second, and rightfully so: I am not sure that the technique helped him that much either, but it’s a whole other story anyway.
We can see loads of footage recorded within the NXIVM headquarters (Mark Vicente at some point was regarded as the official chronicler of all activities going inside the different branches of the cult), and the silliness and the avalanche of absolute gobbledygook proclaimed by the cult leader, Keith Raniere, is what makes the story so mind-boggling. While watching this, you are constantly asking yourself: “How on earth did this insignificant squeaky little man with odd mannerisms and the smile of a creep manage to lure in so many people? Why did all those women and men, with excellent MBAs and PhDs listen to him as if he were the best guru, while he was mumbling banalities such as “sometimes desperate situations require desperate measures” and the like? How? Why?” And then, you immediately felt uncomfortable.
The main reason of why The Vow seems to lack a certain credibility, albeit being a good documentary overall, is that all the people involved in unfolding the story, Mark, Sarah and Bonnie, were at some point very close to Keith, and they groomed as many people as they could. They managed to escape and it’s believable that they were under constant pressure from NXIVM executives as whistleblowers yet the level of defamiliarisation (or as we, philologists, call it “ostranenie,” using the Formalist term) isn’t that persuasive.
The Vow describes the structure of the cult in detail, but it is Seduced that gives you the fuller picture of how exactly the inner, most secret circles of NXIVM, worked –Jness, a “society aimed for women,” and notorious DOS, “Dominus Obsequious Sororium,” a sorority for young females who were in “Master-Slave” relationships with Raniere, and it is as far from legal BDSM practices as one can imagine: all women trapped in DOS were branded with Keith Raniere’s initials, which were cauterized in their crotches.
Seduced looks like more straightforward story narrated by India Oxenberg, a daughter of a former Hollywood actress and socialite, Catherine Oxenberg. The irony of the story is that India’s devotion to Keith and her absolute gullibility did him a disservice: Catherine, her mother, did everything and more to take her daughter out, drawing attention to NXIVM, alerting the FBI and the media (CNN etc.). A cynical person might say that, had it not been her liaisons with powerful people within and without the US (she’s also a third cousin of Prince Charles), the story of NXIVM would’ve probably been different, as well as the finale.
But, apparently it’s not over yet: although Raniere was convicted and sentenced to 120 years in prison, he was given permission to tell “his side of the story,” whatever that might be, and the second season of both docu-series will show us how we are supposed to “listen to our hearts.” I guess we won’t.
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* The idiotic acronym is supposed to be pronounced as /nɛksiəm/, which doesn’t add anything particularly appealing to the whole picture
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