Don Peyote (2014) and Conspiracy Theories

Over the past few years, I’ve noticed that conspiracy theories have become much more common and mainstream. There’s no doubt that they’ve always been around, as people frequently come to their own conclusions on anything and everything imaginable. But there has been a recent increase in the number of people believing conspiracy theories. It is probably connected to the internet. The rise of the internet and, especially, social media have made it much easier to spread conspiracy theories and find people who share the same conspiratorial leanings.

The modern era has been filled with conspiracy theories. There’s the theory that the John F. Kennedy assassination wasn’t performed by Lee Harvey Oswald. There’s a conspiracy that Paul McCartney died while The Beatles were still together and was replaced by an altogether different person. Of course, there are also the Nazis on the moon, lizard people, and Hollow Earth theories that were touched upon in the post for Iron Sky and Iron Sky: The Coming Race.

The internet, however, has allowed the spread of conspiracy theories and doomsday theories to rise exponentially. There was the Y2K fear, where people were worried that computers would stop working as soon as we hit the year 2000 because they wouldn’t be able to handle shifting the date from 99 to 00. Another fear was that the end of the world would come in 2012 thanks to the Mayan calendar ending. The Paul McCartney style of conspiracy theory came back with Avril Lavigne in the mid-2000s. People thought she died and was replaced by a lookalike. There are more modern ones as well, like Pizzagate, the Jeffrey Epstein suicide, and people believing the current Covid vaccine is more dangerous than Covid.

For the most part, these conspiracy theories become nothing more than theories. There’s little to no proof that they are true. Sure, every once in a while, a conspiracy turns out to be a real thing. Usually, however, they’re just a fabrication meant to spin things into an alternate reality to try and give some other meaning to something happening. The John F. Kennedy theories only exist because people don’t want to believe that one man could simply kill the president like that. The Avril Lavigne theory exists because people want an explanation for her changes in style and music between her second and third albums. Most theories are ways to justify the strange, random events of the world.

You might be wondering right now what all this has to do with this week’s movie. Don Peyote was a 2014 movie that dealt with conspiracy theories to a high degree. It began in early 2012. Warren (Dan Fogler) believed that the world was going to end in a catastrophic event on December 21, 2012. His obsession with that potential event led him into a downward spiral that would jeopardize his relationship with his fiancée, Karen (Kelly Hutchinson).

The main conspiracy in Don Peyote was the 2012 cataclysmic event theory. Warren believed that the world was not necessarily going to end on December 21, 2012, but he believed that there was going to be some sort of apocalypse that began on that date. He decided to make a documentary about it, interviewing various people who believed that same theory. The documentary thread lasted through the first two thirds of the movie as Warren went deeper and deeper down the conspiracy rabbit hole, which included September 11^th being an inside job and the Illuminati.

Warren’s descent into conspiracy madness was fueled by recreational drug use. It began with marijuana and ended with harder drugs that caused him mass hallucinations, blackouts, and a stint in a mental institution. There were dreams of tidal waves swallowing New York City and two out of nowhere musical numbers. It was the fever dream that conspiracy paranoia stereotypically ends in. Warren went down the rabbit hole to a dark, dark place. We, as viewers, were along for the ride.

The conspiracy theories and doomsday scenarios entered Warren’s life through a chance encounter. A homeless man harassed him with doomsday theories while he was high. It continued when he was assaulted by the Dream Agent (Anne Hathaway), who told him a bunch of world secrets that the audience wasn’t privy to. That may have been in his mind, pushing him further into his paranoia. A drug dealer played by Jay Baruchel would later back many of the thoughts Warren was tossing around in his own head. There was his time in an institution, and then his time hanging out with a couple drifters played by Josh Duhamel and Elisabeth Harnois. Each of those experiences toppled a domino in Warren’s mind, eventually leading to his full turn into the Don Peyote persona.

Don Peyote was a mess of a movie that tackled as many conspiracy theories as it possibly could while not really focusing on unravelling them. That was because it wasn’t about the conspiracy theories. It was about how diving into conspiracy theories and obsessing over them could affect a person. The movie examined a character whose life and personality changed as he became a full-time conspiracy theorist. And, on that level, it worked. As entertainment, it did not.

As a comment on society, Don Peyote foreshadowed what would become a huge issue only two years after it was released. Warren was a character who was influenced by the crazy, unfounded ideas he heard. They changed him. He fell down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and it ultimately changed him as a person. It was something seen on a major scale during the Trump era of the United States.

Starting in 2015, but coming to prominence in 2016, the effects of conspiracy theories, similar to the effects in Don Peyote, became a regular thing. During the run-up to voting day in the United States, things like Pizzagate became common to hear about. People started to believe that many Democrats in the federal government were connected to a human trafficking ring run out of the basement of a pizza joint. Theories like this, as well as disinformation being spread through video sharing sites and social media, would radicalize people. It would change people. Families would fall apart because of the way this sort of stuff affected loved ones. Friendships would end.

The peak came as the 2020 election date approached and there were claims that voting had been tampered with. Theories flew around about why the Democrats won the presidency. Some theories claimed that mail in voting was rigged in a way that it wasn’t. There were theories about vote counters falsifying results. People voting for dead people, fake ballot boxes, and trucks full of fake ballots arriving at counting stations were only a few other theories thrown around. People got obsessed with these theories. Trump supporters took them as facts that the government was colluding against them, leading to many of them storming the capitol building on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to threaten the electoral college votes and many of the politicians within the building. Conspiracy theories bred an insurrection.

That’s not the only way in which conspiracy theories are threatening lives right now. The Covid-19 pandemic has led to just as much disinformation being spread around and as many people being influenced by the conspiracy theories that abound. The commonly reported origin is that it was a mutated disease found in a bat that ended up spreading to humans through a wet market. There are theories being thrown around about it coming from a laboratory, instead. There’s disinformation about vaccinations, spread by people who disagree with the doctors who say the vaccines are safe. Some people are fighting against the government, claiming that the pandemic is a way to lock people down and create a single world government. The entire pandemic has become a series of conspiracy theories.

The big problem with conspiracy theories is that most of them turn out to be false. They are typically founded in some sort of truth. The vaccines being unsafe theory is a result of people thinking they came out too fast. The stolen election theory is a result of the mail-in ballots being majority Democratic while the in-person ballots were majority Republican. The Avril Lavigne replacement theory came from people justifying why her style seemed to change after her second album. Even the Nazis on the moon theory had some basis to it, which was the advanced technology that Nazi scientists had leading to the future American aeronautics. If there is some sort of basis that people can place their own theoretical story over, they will. Other people will find it and agree with it. Others yet will perpetuate it, which in turn will lead to more theories.

In the past few years, conspiracy theories have become a much more mainstream thing. The internet has made it easier for people to find information about any modicum of subjects, but it has also made it easier for people to find false information. It has led to some conspiracy theories getting out of hand. Another thing that didn’t help was the media giving attention to Donald Trump, who would toss out conspiracy theories left and right, like he was Oprah Winfrey giving people cars. We live in a world where we’re one conspiracy theory away from people attempting to overthrow the government. We’re one conspiracy theory away from people endangering others by destroying vaccines. We are a world of conspiracy theories and that’s not going to stop. We are living in a world of Don Peyotes.

With that, notes:

• Iron Sky (week 440) and Iron Sky: The Coming Race (week 440) were brought up in this post.
• Don Peyote saw Wallace Shawn return for his sixth Sunday “Bad” Movie. The other five were Furry Vengeance (week 162), Mom and Dad Save the World (week 186), Air Buddies (week 270), Cop and a Half: New Recruit (week 340), and Southland Tales (week 428).
• Dan Fogler was one of the writers and directors of Don Peyote. He was also the star. He was featured in Free Birds (week 209) and Balls of Fury (week 349) already.
• Josh Duhamel has been in three Sunday “Bad” Movies. He was in New Year’s Eve (week 57), Movie 43 (week 243), and Don Peyote.
• Martin Pfefferkorn was in Sharknado 2: The Second One (week 190), Movie 43 (week 243), and Don Peyote.
• Finishing off the three-timers is Topher Grace. He played Dan Fogler’s agent in Don Peyote. He was previously in Valentine’s Day (week 168) and American Ultra (week 261).
• Anne Hathaway also appeared in Valentine’s Day (week 168) and Don Peyote.
• Steve Randazzo made his return to Sunday “Bad” Movies in Don Peyote. He was previously in Money Train (week 109).
• Don Peyote was the second Sunday “Bad” Movie for Annabella Sciorra, who was in Chasing Liberty (week 155).
• Steve Nuke showed up in both 54 (week 266) and Don Peyote.
• Finally, there was Dean Winters. He played a gun dealer in Don Peyote. He was also in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows (week 310).
• Have you seen Don Peyote? What did you think of it? How do you feel about the way disinformation and conspiracies have run rampant over the past few years? Let me see what you have to say on Twitter or in the comments.
• Another reason to use the comments or contact me on Twitter would be to tell me about any movies you think would be a good fit for Sunday “Bad” Movies. I’m always looking for suggestions about what I should be watching.
• Over on Instagram, you can check out Sunday “Bad” Movies to keep the fun going all week long.
• It’s now that time in every post where I look forward to what I’ll be checking out for the next week. I’ll be tackling a movie that might be a little more famous than Don Peyote. It was one of the biggest box office bombs of all time, costing about 100 million dollars and making about 7 million dollars. The Adventures of Pluto Nash is the next movie I’ll be covering, and I hope to see you back here in a week to read all about it. Have a good one!