Est and The Forum in Popular Culture

Est And The Forum In Popular Culture

Werner Erhard and his self-improvement courses have been referenced in popular culture in various forms of fictional media including literature, film, television and theatre. These courses, known as est, were delivered by the company Erhard Seminars Training. Under the name The Forum, they were delivered by Werner Erhard and Associates. Also, the Landmark Forum, a program created by Erhard's former employees after purchasing his intellectual property, has had an influence on popular culture. Some of these works have taken a comedic tack, parodying Erhard and satirizing the methodology used in these courses.

Other works have taken a more direct approach, and analyzed and questioned Erhard's early life and controversy through fictionalized accounts. Erhard read the science fiction book est: The Steersman Handbook, Charts of the Coming Decade of Conflict, by L. Clark Stevens before developing est: note the convention of printing est in all lower-case stems from the title of this work. Erhard and his techniques are also referenced in the 2001 novel Pressure Points by Larry Brooks, and in Gregg Hurwitz's 2004 novel The Program.

Both est and The Forum have been depicted more often in film and television than in literary works. The 1977 film Semi-Tough satirized Erhard and the est Training, through the fictional "Bismark Earthwalk Action Training." Bert Convy portrayed the Erhard parody character, and his performance was positively received. est students Diana Ross and Joel Schumacher incorporated Werner Erhard's teachings into the 1978 musical film, The Wiz. The 1990 film The Spirit of '76 also parodied est, where Rob Reiner portrayed an abusive trainer for the est-like "Be, Inc. Seminars." Movie critics have also drawn parallels to est and Werner Erhard, in reviews of the films Fight Club and Magnolia. Concepts from the Landmark Forum were utilized by the Wachowski brothers in their film The Matrix Revolutions. Werner Erhard's training programs have been parodied in television. The 1979 episode of Mork & Mindy, "Mork Goes Erk", and the 2002 episode of Six Feet Under, "The Plan", are the most notable. In the Mork & Mindy episode, the Erhard parody character was played by David Letterman.

Madison, Wisconsin's Broom Street Theatre produced a play about Werner Erhard and The Forum in 1995, called Devil In Paradise, The Fall and Rise of Werner Erhard. This piece dealt with a fictionalized version of controversial issues surrounding Erhard, including his early life before success with the est Training and allegations of familial abuse. The play received a positive review in the local paper, The Capital Times. Representatives of Erhard later contacted The Capital Times, and the paper issued a correction which highlighted points directly addressed by Erhard's people.