Please watch Behind the Curve and become obsessed with this notion that the Earth is flat with me. For those unaware, there is a group of people who believe that the Earth is flat and that NASA and the government are lying to us and making up science just … because?
That’s one thing I never understood throughout the documentary. Why would the government go through all this effort to lie about the Earth being round? Why fake sending astronauts into space and fake all these discoveries? I’m sure somewhere in the conspiracy theory it states why the government is “lying” to us all, but I’m more fascinated with those who believe in it.
There’s a point in the movie where flat-Earther Mark Sargent talks about his love of movies and says that, essentially, we’re living in The Truman Show. Now, if you know the plot of that film … that doesn’t make any sense. I think he’s trying to relate the world to the dome that Truman Burbank has lived in his entire life? If not, is he relating it to us being lied to? Is someone watching me on television thinking the Earth is round? Why would that be fun?
Within Behind the Curve, we meet quite a few of the leading YouTubers and podcasters who are experimenting to prove that the Earth is, in fact, flat, but even within those who believe the Earth is flat, there’s a fight among who to trust. Mark Sargent, who the documentary focuses on, came about his “flat Earth” theory from Matt Boylan, who apparently worked for NASA. (There are theories on the internet that this is not true.)
Boylan, who wants to be known as the king of the flat Earth, hates Sargent, and when he was asked to be in the documentary, made an outrageous list of demands that Netflix and Daniel J. Clark (the director) would not comply with. So there are brief glimpses of Boylan, while the story focuses around Sargent, Patricia Steere, and Nathan Thompson.
The documentary shows those who believe in a flat Earth as people who are “in the closet” (an actual thing someone says in the documentary) and that they have to change the world with their views. At one point, Steere and Sargent go to NASA and mock it all, calling it outdated, rundown, and fake, even though the two just aren’t paying attention on how to use one of the exhibits.
It’s to the point where Nathan Thompson, one of the theorists, openly yells at NASA employees in public.
Netflix’s flat earther documentary contains the funniest 20 seconds in documentary history and I’m posting it here so I can revisit it whenever I want pic.twitter.com/trwctpXul7
— Alise Morales (@AliseNavidad) March 11, 2019
The documentary does a great job of not mocking those individuals for their beliefs, either, with science just being fascinated by the notion that there are people who will fight about the Earth being flat. Whenever the filmmakers point out why something isn’t working, it’s just with a simple focusing on the camera.
My favorite moment is when Mark Sargent and Patricia Steere are at NASA and they’re sitting in the space simulator. The two are aggressively hitting the screen and complaining about how NASA’s technology doesn’t work, and the camera just zooms in on the button you’re supposed to push that says “Start.”
One man even claims to have been there when JFK was assassinated, and then someone yells that dinosaurs aren’t real. Honestly, it’s maybe the best hour and a half of my life that I’ve ever spent.
Overall, it’s a fascinating look at how deep people will willingly go into conspiracy theories—so much so that they have a convention, create motorcycles to try to show there is no curvature to the Earth, and even get kicked out of Starbucks because they want to yell at NASA.
(image: screengrab from YouTube/Netflix)
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