Ex-Scientologists say that the lingo helps prevent people from thinking any other way, to the point that when they leave the Church they stop before they speak and think, “Is this a real word, or a Scientology word?”
Some of their techniques, like the extensive use of jargon, resonate with things you guys have always loved to do in your work, like make up nonsense words. It’s funny that in the book, it’s just on the surface. It was clearly a three-card monty scam, like “How do you get them past this? Keep them engaged while we’re working on them!” They weren’t trying to sugarcoat it. It was kind of ’80s, poorly made, but it had this very clear carnival-barker attitude to it. Heidecker: I saw one years ago that somebody had leaked that was like a training video for people inside the group-way inside, they were doing the audits and stuff. It’s only when you see the stuff made for the true believers that you’re like “What the fuck.” Most of the time they’re shrewd enough to make something like the Scientology Super Bowl commercial, which looks like any religious denomination could have created it.
You’re right-the public-facing end of those organizations is usually not funny. You have to throw out the direct copy from one to the other a little bit. They’re written in a very straight voice, but we wanted to make you laugh on every page when you’re reading. Conceptually, that might be a beautiful thing-like, “Yeah, that’s exactly how it is”-but if you really wanna do a straight parody of Dianetics or whatever, it would be pretty boring. Heidecker: It’s not just a straight parody of self-help books. Wareheim: Page three is about how we took money for advertising, and that’s how we made this book.
#TOM SEGURA TIM HEIDECKER MOVIE#
And at the end, there’s an afterword that says “We wrote this thing so that somebody will make a movie about it.” Oh, this whole thing is just for that? What? That’s funny to us.Ī lot of these gurus have these huckster personalities that they keep hidden, but in Zone Theory it’s out in the open. There’s a sense of, “Alright, it doesn’t matter, let’s just get through this.” No one asked why the logic just disappears.
Heidecker: And he’s trying to to quickly write the book. The voice of the author is seemingly insane and inconsistent. Heidecker: It has this tone to it that you wouldn’t find in a self-help book. Wareheim: The one editor note we had was that we used a lot of somewhat bad language-a lot of times we’re like “Fuck you!” to the reader, throughout the whole thing-and they were like “I don’t think this fits in this vibe.” But that’s what makes the perspective different, I think. They’re not as explicit as we are about that, but yeah. It’s so obvious what that’s for, you know? It’s to remove any contrary opinions about what you’re doing in favor of this one worldview. Scientology encourages you to disassociate from people that aren’t involved. Heidecker: I mean, that’s pretty on the nose, right? That’s really what some of say. On a lower-key note that still speaks to the awful things these groups require you to do, in the chapter on family, the message is you have to get rid of them. But instead of shoddy products, they’re taking aim at self-help scams and new-age religious movements.
#TOM SEGURA TIM HEIDECKER FULL#
Their trademark digitally distorted imagery and love of made-up words that mean nothing but sound disgusting (how are your probos today, gentlemen?) are on full display-and more importantly, so is their visceral disgust for crass commercial exploitation. Zone Theory, on sale today, sees the duo move from the screen to the page with all their strengths and obsessions intact.
#TOM SEGURA TIM HEIDECKER SERIES#
Their own frequently frightening series Tim & Eric’s Bedtime Stories, which is shifting to an expanded half-hour format during its upcoming second season, is the most ambitious articulation of their often-imitated, never-duplicated aesthetic yet. Located in the venn-diagram overlap between public access, Monty Python, and David Lynch, their creepy-funny work paved the way for the Adult Swim horror boom seen in Infomercials like Too Many Cooks and Unedited Footage of a Bear.
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