The Family: The Family

September 4, 2019 5:40 PM - Season 1 (Full Season)

Documentary series shown on Netflix which examines a conservative Christian group—known as the Family or the Fellowship—its history, and investigates its influence on American politics. It is based on books by Jeff Sharlet.
posted by larrybob (4 comments total)

Just finished watching the fifth and final episode. Feel l might need a re-watch to absorb it all.

First episode has the most dramatization, reenactments of when Jeff Sharlet lived at The Family's compound Ivanhoe in suburban Washington D.C.

Second episode focuses on affair-havers Nevada Senator John Ensign and South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford and the cover that The Family's interpretation of the biblical story of David and Bathsheba provided to them.

Third episode is about Russia and Putin, and the fourth is about The Family's other international connections, including a hetero supremacist referendum in Romania which was boosted by Family-funded trips by Rep. Robert Aderholt.

The fifth episode, the Wolf King, is about The Family and Trump. It also includes an uncomfortable turning of the tables in which the African-American leader of a Family-affiliated prayer group in Portland, Oregon confronts filmmaker Jesse Moss about his all-white crew.
posted by larrybob at 10:56 AM on September 6, 2019 [1 favorite]

This didn't blow my mind, but it was good company while I ironed an assload of shirts. I definitely learned a few things.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 12:47 PM on September 6, 2019 [3 favorites]

^^ this is the best review I’ve read in a long time.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 9:23 PM on September 7, 2019

So it turns out the patriarchy isn't an abstraction, it's this guy named Doug and his friends.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:58 PM on September 8, 2019 [2 favorites]