Nasim Pedrad made a guest appearance as Ma Anand Sheela.
Saturday Night Live spoofed Wild Wild Country, the Netflix original documentary about cult leader Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, on NBC on Sunday night. The critically acclaimed docuseries follows the rise of the Rajneeshpuram, a commune led by mystic and guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh in Oregon in the 1980s.
Central to Rajneesh’s philosophy was openness towards sexuality, which the sketch parodies. Kenan Thompson played a guy who joined the cult just to pick up women, even asking “Who’s Bhagwan?” at one point. For him, it was all about the “10,000 horny white women” who came to town.
Former cast member Nasim Pedrad also made a cameo as Bhagwan’s profane, polarizing second-in-command Ma Anand Sheela.
As Hollywood Reporter critic Daniel Fienberg wrote in his review, Wild Wild Country is “a slice of partially forgotten history in which real life just keeps getting more and more outlandish and implausible.” That outlandishness made it easy fodder for the SNL parody treatment.
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