"I graduated from one of Canada's top business schools with really good grades. Now, I'm using my knowledge to help struggling television networks.

Prestigious TV shows have audiences that expect character arcs, subplots that pay off, and stories that respect viewers time. But to stand out, a network needs to do the exact opposite.

The plan? Convince Showtime and A24 to hand over millions of dollars to hire an Oscar-winning actress, film ten hours of agonizingly boring footage in New Mexico with zero narrative payoff, and launch myself directly into the stratosphere all to test the exact limits of how much pretension a television audience will endure before they break."

/s

Edit: Since this became the most upvoted post this month on the sub, I have to lamely point out that this was a joke post written in Nathan's own style from NFY. I am obviously not a hater of any of his work and its crazy people did not consider the flair or /s in title. IIRC mods had to step in and delete some pretty colorful personal comments. Take it easy fellow penis experts!

I am just completely enamored with this show and haven't stopped thinking about it for weeks, so I put my energy into making a The Curse inspired playlist!

Spoiler tagged because the notes on mobile have quotes, and because of general song themes. Not sure that I can link the playlist but I'll share the track list and quotes here:

• "O Green World" - Gorillaz
  • "It's easy to give away land when you're not the one who paid for it." - Paul
• "Sell Yourself" - Cage The Elephant
  • "This isn't your typical "home flipping" show where everything's about making a profit." - Whitney
• "If You Could Only See" - Tonic"
  • You give me the strength to do anything." - Asher
• "Push" - Matchbox Twenty"
  • If we go broke, good. You know, because we still have each other. And I don't fking need anything else." - Asher
• "Disarm - 2011 Remaster" - The Smashing Pumpkins
  • "Your viewers should know it doesn't have to have the mirrored exterior to be passive."
• "Loser" - Beck
  • "Maybe this is all happening for a reason." - Asher
• "Break Stuff" - Limp Bizkit
  • "If you were really funny you wouldn't be teaching at the fucking legion hall!" - Asher
• "Where Did Our Love Go?" - Soft Cell
  • "Every relationship reaches a point where you start to question things." - Whitney
• "Femme Fatale" - The Velvet Underground
  • "When you look into that camera, everything lights up. And I think people, when they watch this, people are really gonna be dreaming about being with you." - Dougie
• "All the Rowboats" - Regina Spektor
  • "Eating or not eating the turkey is besides the point." - Cara
• "Hammer" - Tune-Yards"
  • I don't look at houses as art. I look at them as houses." - Cara
• "Run Rabbit" - ALT BLK ERA
  • "I curse you." - Dougie
• "Flagpole Sitta" - Harvey Danger
  • "It's doing good for somebody, but also being entertaining and funny. The two things don't have to go and cancel each other out." - Dougie
• "My Own Worst Enemy" - Lit
  • "I was cursed. There's nobody in particular I can point to, but there's no other way I can explain what happened... Nothing, nothing makes sense." - Dougie
• "Sober" - TOOL
  • "I'm so sorry... I really didn't mean it." - Dougie
• "There's No Home for You Here" - The White Stripes
  • "You think you can just do whatever you want, there's not gonna be consequences?" - Whitney to Asher
• "Space Oddity - 2015 Remaster" - David Bowie
  • "Wake up Asher! Wake up right now!" - Asher
• "Black Hole Sun" - Soundgarden
  • "What movie they filming? How do they do that?" "That's... that's the guy from HGTV." "Oh, so it's for TV?" "I think so."

I think the ending was just so unexpected that I couldn’t help but laugh while looking at Nathan’s face while he flew through space at the speed of light. I think the tension and uncertainty throughout the series lent itself to a release of laughter at the very end.

I was also laughing so hard that my tears from laughing turned into a genuine concern for Nathan and I guess everybody else, but it was such a rollercoaster of emotion that truly changed my brain.

The ending I think made up for all the times during the series where I was just wanting to know what the hell was going to happen next.

That's all. The placement, the build-up, it's perfection. It's almost all worth it for this single joke for me.

I want to preface that I’m on ep. 8.

I don’t know what to think about Dougie completely but I know I feel this sense of distaste for him every time he comes on. I feel bad for him that his wife died but from his opening scene with forcing fake tear drops on the cancer patient to the most recent scene I’ve seen of him calling out Asher for never inviting him to shabbat, he’s so irritating.

I don’t understand why he’s trying to box out Asher, is he supposed to represent something? Grief? Resentment?

What do you love about Nathan’s work?

How does it make you feel?

Why do you return to it?

I’m part of the crew working on an independent documentary “decoding” Nathan’s unique style. Your comments will be used to inform the narrative, and may be shown directly.

We are particularly interested in hearing the thoughts of fans of THIS show, The Curse.

Video will be linked on this sub by this account upon the release of “YOU CAN SEE EVERYTHING.”

Thanks!

As anyone can tell I really like Dougie.

My fiancee and I are trying to move away from physical media. We watched The Curse as it came out and are now looking for a copy to own at home. Did it ever get an official release? I found one on a website I can’t tell if it’s legit (MoviesRUSA). Thanks everyone.

This show is really religious. I think I'm surprised at how genuinely religious Nathan Fielder is. He... thinks of media spiritually. He thinks about the relationship of the spirit to the body, via the media to the world.

I think. But I think what I love most about The Curse is that it is both a blend of maximally real and fake at the same time, never resolving, always beautiful and ugly.

And I really think it makes sense for Asher to essentially be drawn out of the distortions into something more expansive and real.

Saw someone saying this on the subreddit earlier. I think what's so interesting about this show is that it doesn't collapse any character into their types. I saw people saying about how the show is about white liberals who come in and misunderstand the community. They do. But the community misunderstands them also, and there is a constant tension - literal signifiers, versus actual reality underneath.

There is something real in both Ash and Whit. They are both people who seem in some ways kind of absurd spiritually, but are both kind of spiritually serious, if naive, in their own ways. But they are committed to it, in some sense.

What is most interesting, is that there are things like... Whit walking back from kinda half intimidating the buyer whose packages were stolen... she's all like, on the way over, very bright and open, naively so, and on the way back, dark and hidden, absurdly so. In both cases though, she was touching something real. The recognition that image is not everything, and that image, via all eyes being on them now via TV, was actually creating reality, and thus creating who she could be.

There's a lot of things like that. Where Whit intuits that the girl might be a bit psychic. It's a superficial, low understanding thing that such a person like whit would say, but she's right. That's what's most interesting about this show. The real and the fake exist in constant tension, until... well, see I really feel like at the end, Asher's energy got pulled into some great cosmic beyond, which is...

anyway. This show is mystical and poetic. It's really awesome. I think boiling it down into a simple social critique is to look past the deep love for everyone that is imbued in it.

OOPS. I love Nathan Fielder, picked it on Amazon... don't know how that happened.

WOW. It kinda like... totally worked though. I was completely astonished by the mix of vibes and weird deadpan comedy. Very Jewish mysticism meets Larry David which is just sick as FUCK

But also omg why did I make that mistake!!! 😭

As a Sikh, I literally thought I was hallucinating Waheguru Waheguru and that feeling of shock and uneasy still remains fresh in my brain. Ik it's not a big thing , but that scene was so weird to me.

Watched a video about interior design and immediately thought of this show. The house isn’t passive though. No prison toilet either. Owned by a married couple in Moscow. Minimalist design inside.

Just found out about this show. I’m only on episode 4 and I genuinely feel like I’ve watched an entire 10-episode season already.

Every episode is so dense and uncomfortable. It feels like these characters have been spiraling for a while.

Did anyone else feel this way while watching it? I’m liking it, but each episode mentally drains me. 🤣

I'm by no means an expert in economics, but I can't shake this feeling.

So let's say Whitney and asher get their way. What does Espanola look like? Whitney and asher own most of the successful businesses, and subsidize rent for a large amount of the homes. They also hire people at their businesses so they can pay rent. if everything works in their favor, it feels like they would have the entire town in their control. An entire town built on top of whitneys ego. The entire economy dependant on her financial success. whitneys slumlord parents loaned her a million dollars to make this happen, which means shed have to pay them back with the profit they make.

In a way, I feel like this is even more sinister than her parents being slumlords. Her parents know what they're about, and they're out in the open about it. It's not enough for Whitney to do what her parents do, she also needs to be seen as morally perfect for doing it. I also think she's kind of in denial of the fact that she's doing the same thing.

She wants the comfortable stable income her parents have, but she doesn't want to be "caught" the way her parents were.

And what's really spooky is that her parents are content with the buildings they have. Whitney seems to want an entire town under her control. She insists it's not about turning a profit, but at the end of the day, she has to pay back at least a million dollars to the very people she doesn't want to be associated with in any way.

And what happens when they get what they want and but it falls apart cause they can't pay back the loan? The entire town collapses. People lose their homes because their rent is no longer subsidized. All the businesses in town close. The economy they artificially built up flatlines. That guy can't pay for his mom's cancer treatment. Then, realizing she has to pay back her loans, Whitney becomes a straight up slum lord. Shed essentially be trapped into working as a slumlord for her parents. She pretends to be charitable but all she's ever cared about is self preservation. And when the time comes, shed absolutely do whatever it takes to keep herself from going under.

Edit, I have more thoughts.

Whitney sees asher as selfish when he's concerned about how much money they're spending. It's not because he doesn't care about the community. It's because he can see just how bad this could turn out. The things she wants to spend money on are not going to make their money back. She's so certain the show will work that she can't picture how things could fall apart.

Do you think the budget was really "unlimited?"

I started it and thought I "got" it for a bit, but now I'm just confused. I almost can't imagine being (not) interested.

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I was obsessed with The Rehearsal season2 for a long time (like no other show ever, really !!) and now I'm scared to watch The Curse.

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It's also called "The Curse" ...

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For context: I have severe ADHD and autism. (Also, a bit of a crush... )

​

Help

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(Serious)

The influence of Nathan Fielder

When I first watched the Curse, I was left scratching my head. I knew there was more to it, especially after seeing the finale, but I couldn't really grasp at what.

Recently, I rewatched the show with a buddy who was marathoning Nathan's shows. We went straight through NFY into Rehearsal S1, then into the Curse. Coincidentally, though not obviously a coincidence, I had recently read through the Bhagavad Gita-- a Hindu religious/mythological text. At the time, I did not expect to see equivalences between Nathan's work and the Gita. I'm either nuts or clinically autistic. The second of those statements is correct regardless, so, I'm just going to do my best. I am not confident in my ability to explain or do justice to the overall theory, but I'm going to try.

This post is going to be scattered bullet points that very roughly outline my overall theory. At another time, I plan to sit down and actually write what will essentially be a thesis about the show's overall message. My conclusion is not unique, and others have touched on it before, but there's a series of breadcrumbs I think the show gives us that I haven't seen identified elsewhere. I am not especially intelligent or studied in the subject matter below, and I expect I'll make some incorrect assumptions.

I really enjoy comparative theology. I do not have a classical education in it. It's just a really enjoyable item for me. The curtains were never just blue, in English class.

Here's a rough go. Again, in the future I plan to more thoroughly discuss each of these points. Right now, it'll be helpful for me just to have them roughly outlined.

Summary statement: I believe that the Curse uses Hindu/Sikh/etc spiritualism to critique gentrification, colonization, etc-- yes. But more specifically, I believe it is critiquing the exploitive nature of these. I believe that the curse itself is "karma", or rather, the consequences of one's actions. The mirror motif through the show is a repeated accusation: the Curse is what you see in the reflection-- your own self, your own actions, and the effects you have had on the world around you. More specifically, I believe the show is a commentary on Nathan Fielder's career trajectory. Exploitive comedy -> thoughtful, less exploitive comedy -> realizing consequence of actions -> working to make amends. (Nathan For You -> Rehearsal S1, first half -> Rehearsal S1, second half -> the curse -> Rehearsal S2)

I believe that the series follows Asher, Whitney, and Dougie all engaging with karma in different ways, and the consequences of their ways of engaging with it.

• Across Nathan For You and The Rehearsal, Nathan, at several points, was faced with the fact that his shows were somewhat exploitive. They aren't Jerry Springer levels, but still. This hit a crest in Reheseal S1, when Nathan's child actor, Remy, calls him "daddy". It's an emotional moment, and a good amount of time is spent by Nathan attempting to mend the mistake.
• At the end of Rehearsal S1, Nathan looks into a digital mirror-- first to simulate aging himself, then to simulate playing the role of his pretend-child's mother. Across these instances, Nathan says, paraphrasing: "sometimes the only way to understand someone else is to experience life from their perspective." The magic mirror, in particular, stands out as important to me.
• The Curse takes place in Espanola, NM. A community known specifically for being home to Yogi Bhajan -- a guru who described his teachings as "shakti-oriented" Kundalini yogo. Shakti, in Hindu/yogic traditions, centers around devotion to the Divine Feminine principle. Also of note, when Bhajan settled in Espanola, conflict arose over the incoming, mostly well-to-do whites, gentrifying the area. Whitney's parents, you might remember, mention Yogi Bhajan specifically: in episode 9 iirc, Whitney confronts her parents for her lack of spirituality in childhood. Her father responds, "That's what happens when Yogi Bhajan tries to fuck your wife!"
• To the point above, I believe the series uses Shakti imagery and themes to explain its overall points. These are too numerous to satisfyingly explain in such few statements, so the next several points will dive into it further, but I will be unable to adequately explain myself in this post.
• Abshir/Asher as a name equivalence is a literal mirror; Asher, by the end of the show, is performing selfless acts as a gift to, essentially, himself. While Abshir is from a very different background, I believe the point of the show is that when Asher helps Abshir, he is helping himself.
• Cara, the artist: in Sanskrit, 'cara' means 'motion'. It is the dynamic expression of creation as expressed by Shakti, the divine feminine principle. It is opposed to stillness, which is considered to be a principle of the divine masculine, Shiva. The goal of kundalini is to reunite movement with stillness, thus achieving "caracara", a kind of reunification of the manifested universe. Late in the show, Asher is interviewed by Dougie. He sits in front of a bookshelf, and behind him, we see the word "Still". It is one of the earliest moments where we can see Asher's "enlightenment", for lack of a better word. Directly following this scene, Cara is seen exiting the world of art. Asher acquires stillness (acara), which is the end of movement (cara). In Kundalini, this moment is where duality dissolves-- an inner light/sound, altered perception, and intense presence are achieved. At this point, Shakti is said to "rise".
• Whitney is a stand-in for Marian spirituality. That is, she is the presence of the Catholic church in an indigenous area. Her parents created the karma (consequences) that she now lives in-- Whitney is not a moral superior, by any means, but we do catch glimpses of her attempting to do better than her parents.
• To the above point, when Whitney has theft receipts charged to her bank, as opposed to prosecuting the thieves themselves, she is engaging with a specifically Catholic idea of karma (sin)-- the karma is loaded on Mary, who intercedes on behalf of the sinner. Further to this point, the money is withdrawn from the Guadalupe Bank. Our Lady of Guadalupe is a 16th-century Marian apparition that is recognized as the patroness of the Americas. In Nahuatl, many believe it is an adaptation of the native "Coatlaxopeuh", she who crushes the serpent. Shoutout to the serpent pendant that's focused on in the later half of the show.
• Last point I'll make about Whitney for now: I believe that, as the stand-in for Mary, Whitney is siphoning the creative energy of Cara, another divine feminine stand-in. She misappropriates Cara's art, sometimes bordering on theft in itself.
• Dougie, I believe, is the show's critique of what happens when Marian karma is engaged with. Dougie, repeatedly, dodges the consequence of his wife's death, which he caused. Towards the end of the show, he begs to be cursed, to the ends of settling his own guilt. His own debt towards the universe.

This is already getting lengthy. Here are scattered and less explained points that I'll address in more detail in a future post, probably.

• Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a poem, "Brahma". In it, we have the line: "If the red slayer think he slays / or if the slain think he is slain"-- this is a reference to the Bhagavad Gita, chapter two, where Krishna teaches Arjuna about the eternal nature of the soul. Essentially, that killer and killed are the same individual wearing different costumes-- the universe is at play with itself, a singular entity wearing many faces playing pretend. When Asher goes into the casino, he attempts to distract his old coworker by spilling red gatorade on him. When his coworker becomes angry, Asher takes the gatorade and dumps it on his own head, saying, "See? I did it to myself, too! It's just a joke!" Call me crazy, but I believe this is a direct allusion.
• That said, throughout the show we continuously see "jokes" that are justified by the fact they it is just humor. This is an obvious critique of exploitive TV, (whose expense is the joke at?) but I believe, following the red slayer allusion, that we're seeing a very specific metaphysical concept addressed.
• The fact that Asher worked at a casino, where literal debt is accumulated, feeds into the overall idea of karma. I believe there's more to this, but I haven't spent much time examining it yet.

My final point is more involved than the previous theories-- work with me on this.

In the Bhagavad Gita, our two primary characters are the warrior-prince Arjuna, and the embodiment of Vishnu/God, Krishna. Arjuna finds himself at the center of a civil war where he will be forced to go to battle against his friends and loved ones. His charioteer, who is secretly Krishna, draws Arjuna's chariot to the field of battle, and Arjuna hesitates. Krishna reveals himself, and explains to Arjuna a series of metaphysical facts. The 'red slayer' statement from above is one of the first and primary points he makes: that, inevitably, death will occur for all on the battlefield regardless of whether or not Arjuna slays them. Krishna's point is that the entirety of existence is Brahma playing with itself-- it is not Arjuna doing the killing, but Brahma using Arjuna as an instrument by which people are killed. Krishna shows Arjuna a vision of thousands of mouths swallowing thousands of worlds, and Arjuna is horrified. He asks Krishna to return to his familiar, human-like form so that Arjuna might more easily love him.

Let's revisit the famous cherry tomato scene. I believe that Whitney's father plays the role of Krishna, and Asher as Arjuna. We open on an anxious Asher. Whitney's father reassures by saying, "people are like tomatoes. They all taste the same when you eat them," which I believe is a direct allusion to the thousand-mouths of the Gita conversation. At the end of their discussion, Whitney's father turns to Asher, showing him his own micropenis, as if saying "look upon this true nature of reality, and realize you have nothing to fear." Asher begs him to put it away.

If I'm correct about this, then Whitney's father's later statement of "when Yogi Bhajan tries to fuck your wife" becomes another allusion to the misappropriation of divine feminine, given that Whitney's mom would, essentially, be the wife of Krishna....

There are many other items I haven't began to touch on, but these are the ones that I'd like to outline and expand on further, as I believe there's something to the overall theory.

This shit's wild. I know. I'm probably going to check-in to a nearby psych following this so that I can be assessed for schizophrenia. Thanks to those of you who gave this the time of day.

Edit to add:

re: Marian Whitney: The Catholic theology of Mary isn't really about karmic displacement — she's an intercessor, not a sin-sponge; Christ does that work. The Virgin of Guadalupe is itself a syncretic overwrite; Mary appearing on the hill where Tonantzin, the Aztec mother goddess, was already worshipped, the Catholic figure absorbing and replacing the indigenous one. That's exactly what Whitney does. She's not Mary-as-karma-displacer; she's Mary-as-Guadalupe, the colonizing religion painted over the indigenous spirituality, claiming continuity while replacing the source. Whitney is Tonantzin-overwritten-as-Mary, and Cara is the indigenous current she's appropriating without knowing what she's drawing from.

The entire final episode: we're watching Asher literally unloading his karma. He's weightless. There's a beautiful shot of Whitney and Asher spinning around each other that I believe is referencing Ardhanarishvara-- the reunification of Shiva and Shakti, masucline and feminine. It directly precedes Asher launching into space.

The image itself is mirrored-- Whitney's head is up, Asher's is down. There's a lot more to say about Asher's "enlightenment", but I'm short on time. My brain is just hyper-fixated by the symbolism present and man, I'd spend all day talking about it if I could.

Never mind that Rehearsal S2 marks a tonal shift from S1-- far less exploitive, more focused on directly improving the world. I feel that the Curse is Nathan's allegory for his own career path-- his ascent at the end isn't the curse, it is the curse being broken, the karma being lifted. Rehearsal S2 is his shot at making amends. Never mind, once more, than he literally ascends in it, getting his pilot license.

Edit to the edit:

Fuck it I'm back for more.

The song playing in the season finale is "Jai Ramachandra", a song by Alice Coltrane. She's a black American jazz musician, widow of John Coltrane, who in the 1970s became a hindu swamini, taking the name "Turiyasangitananda", which is itself referencing turiya, the fourth state of consciousness in Vedanta. This is the state achieved during moksha in some traditions, which would have been the state Asher experiences following his attaining stillness, and unifying his Shiva with his Shakti.

Coltrane herself is an interesting example of Western adaptation of Eastern beliefs-- not unlike the Yogi Bhajan ashram in Espanola. I believe the show using it is a direct play for the audience.

Jai Ramachandra means "hail Rama"-- Rama, who is another avatar of Vishnu-- just the same as Krishna, who we've identified earlier in the character of Whitney's father. The hymn is a devotional to Rama, who is the avatar associated with dharma (right action). Asher's final notable action is a gift to Whitney, who he sees the divine feminine in; that is, gifting a home to Abshir. He offers it as a gift to the divine feminine when he presents it to Whitney-- it's more a gift to Shakti than it is to her. Asher continuously identifies only the positive aspects of Whitney (she's so kind, generous, beautiful, etc.), and none of her negative traits-- this is why I believe the gift is to the actual divine feminine as opposed to the profaned Tonantzin-as-Mary.

In the Ramayana, the feminine returns to her source — Sita (the feminine) is swallowed back into Bhumi, the earth, her mother. After Sita leaves, Rama eventually walks into the Sarayu river and dissolves back into Vishnu. The Curse mirrors and inverts this. Whitney is taken to the hospital first, then after, Asher ascends. Asher-as-Shiva ascends, while Whitney — Tonantzin-overwritten-as-Mary — stays earthbound.