^ I agree. Hollywood comedy movies can be seen as something of a bellwether for mass cultural change (by no means have they ever triggered change, but they do reflect it once it's underway). If some previously illicit/taboo subject becomes assimilated into mainstream comedies you could say that means the mainstream have deemed it safe enough to acknowledge, if only to the degree of joking about it. This is undeniably better than not acknowledging the subject at all.

My initial reaction was that it would reinforce said stereotypes.

But another possibility is that the stereotype is so overwrought that it won't have much of an overt effect, while people might be catalyzed to have conversations or look into ayahuasca on terms that aren't defined by the movie. Which might ultimately bring a few more wearied souls to the mother vine. Which might not be such a bad thing.

THEY told us this in a D.A.R.E. program at an early age. They said that someone jumped out of a window because they thought they could fly.
My curiousity was piqued from then on, and here I am now. lol

I would not overestimate this. As citta said, it's a comedy and plays with stereotypes. The stereotypical New Yorker, the stereotypical dick brother in law blablabla....
Ayahuasca is part of the mainstream now, so you can expect it to be referenced more often.

Unrelated: Claire has grown up to be quite beautiful

Resurrecting a dead old topic because: I saw it and liked it.

And yes, Claire (from six feet under) is Georgeous.




The pervasive modern money-money lifestyle was portayed as tense, greedy, self-decieving, all around decieving and rude.

Hippy intentional community was portrayed as colorful, chill,a bit silly, not idealised as utopia but shown in a somewhat positive contrast to uptight normal society.

Culture-shock was a main source of comedy, but really, I thought it was all fair, over-all with status quo mainstream society taking a much harder beating than the hippies got.

Marijauna usage was portrayed off-handedly and no big deal.


Ayahuasca usage...well, the simpsons did psychedelic much better than this. Seriously? The chick up in a tree saying "I can fly!" was brief, stupid, not really that offensive. The person who could be turned against aya from that scene would have walked out the theatre well beforehand, after having taken offense to nudity and marihuana smoking. The next day she was in a chipper mood. This was no "horrors of drug use" type thing at all.



Overall: I give it 3 and a half stars out of four. Nothing to write home about. Just entertainment folks, good entertainment, but nothing too special.

Watched the newer movie "Wanderlust" the other day. Anybody else ever seen this? It had some funny parts but I wasnt that impressed. They do some ayahuasca and its the typical tripping cartoon type of sceen that you see in movies all the time, not a very accurate representation of what it is and how it can be used. It was pretty disrespectful i would say. This kind of thing really irritates me.

yea, i was face-palming when she thought she could "fly"... birds need to climb trees in order to fly, right? can't just start from the ground... [obligatory bill hicks goes here]

but yea, having expectations for hollywood to accurate represent (really anything) a psychedelic experience, is having too high of expectations, imo.

So true
I remember asking about LSD in class when we were talking about drugs and the teacher told me something to that effect. "You lose touch with reality and do things that can hurt you or others, like jumping out a window thinking you can fly." That many people had committed suicide that way while on LSD.
Those types of answers only serve to pique the interest rather than dissuade. Either that or you end up with someone like the woman who is too afraid to touch any psychedelic because she's terrified that she'll jump out a window.
Ignorance breeds ignorance.

i think its funny that LSD was demonized by the jumping off a building/out a window to death, but a few years back a little girl jumped off a building thinking she could fly, as she thought she was a pokemon. you dont see pokemon being schedule 1....

i used to go to bible studys and try to explain how amazing entheogens were. one time a pastor invited me to coffee, alone, probably so my disruption would cease. as we sat he asked me where in the bible does it say anything about using cactus. not having a clue i opened up to genesis and began to read, then BAM. there it was some quote about how god gave the things that walk the earth all plants for use... he closed the bible and began recanting a tail from his days growing up in brooklyn. he told me that his friend took mescaline (he was 12, his friend was 15) and minutes later his friend jumped off a building and died. the pastor said he was being chased, no doubt, by demons. i got up and left knowing full well mescaline dosent work in " minutes "....

Yeah, myths are there to control culture or to shape it into one direction. This is why myths are so important. It seems that Timothy Leary vs Art Linkletter is a tale of mythological proportions and it doesn't surprise me that window jumping is still cited in pop culture. Once this clichee is getting mocked, we're on a good way.

It's sad the state of the world that we always must blame something, sometimes people do stupid, bad things. Sometimes influenced by nothing, sometimes led on by drugs, sometimes by other people. The truth has far more power in trying to make this stop happening then spreading blatant misinformation, even had his friend actually jumped off a building due to mescaline, the information obviously wasn't presented in a fair way. In the same respect you could turn to him and tell stories of all the people Christians burned alive, tortured and repressed. Which he'd likely defend with all the Christians that were persecuted for their beliefs, we keep wobbling between extreme's and wondering why it doesn't work.

I think we need to be a bit more understanding that as much as some of are rational level headed beings, some people are not. Sometimes people cannot be reasoned with, sometimes things just happen, sometimes really horrible things happen and there isn't really anyone at fault, or anything we can do to prevent it.

lol kinda off subject but that reminds me of a conversation with my grandpa on the phone a while back. Hes used to be a pastor or somethign owned his own church etc, and was talking about the stuff going on in the middle east, saying how they were forcing people to convert and beheading them if they didnt. I replied with "geeze its like the crusades all over again huh?" lol i dont think he liked it too much


Anyway though, about the movie, the aya part pissed me off. The way they portrayed the community was kindof annoying, i hope poeple know you dont have to be a crazy hippie with no balance in life to live in an intentional community. But it was funny and i liked that it showed the contrast between life in the community and life in the city with a big house and money, i could see that kind of thing planting seeds of awareness in peoples minds.