
The Quarantine Stream: ‘Heaven’s Gate: The Cult of Cults’ Tries to Explain How People Succumb to Cognitive Dissonance
Posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2020 by Chris Evangelista
(Welcome to The Quarantine Stream, a series where the /Film team shares what they’ve been watching while social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic.)
The Series: Heaven’s Gate: The Cult of Cults
Where You Can Stream It: HBO Max
The Pitch: A docuseries that examines Heaven’s Gate, a UFO cult with 39 members who died by mass suicide in 1997.
Why It’s Essential Quarantine Viewing: There’s a lot of cognitive dissonance going on right now. Based on various polls, nearly half the country can’t agree with the other half. The post-election situation we find ourselves in have people fully convinced of full-blown, completely debunked conspiracy theories. How does that happen? How do people succumb to this kind of thinking? Heaven’s Gate has some answers, and some sympathy.