Here are reviews of two documentaries I've watched recently that couldn't be more different (except for the fact that they're both very good).
13th
Directed by Ava DuVernay
13th, which refers to the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, is absolutely heartbreaking and infuriating. It is also essential viewing and there is no excuse not to watch this incredibly important documentary.
Director DuVernay traces the rise of mass incarceration in the US starting with the abolition of slavery. The Thirteenth Amendment states, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction". DuVernay traces a direct line between the end of slavery and the extremely high population of people of color in prison today. She covers the portrayal of black men as animalistic criminals in DW Griffith's Birth of a Nation, the rise of the KKK and lynch mobs, Jim Crow laws, the war on drugs, and mandatory minimum sentences--all of which contribute to the (false) ingrained beliefs many people--including black people themselves--have regarding the inherent criminality of black men.
Starting with Lyndon B. Johnson, no United States President is safe from DuVernay's criticism, as both Republican and Democratic POTUSes have contributed to the rise of mass incarceration. Perhaps most interesting to me was Bill and Hillary Clinton's continuation of Reagan's war on drugs and the "three-strikes laws" which led to non-violent criminals ending up in prison for decades or even life.
DuVernay interviews public figures who vary widely: from Angela Davis to Bryan Stevenson to a surprisingly sympathetic Newt Gingrich. These figures explain how the criminal justice system is essentially rigged so that people of color who commit the same crimes as whites end up with much harsher sentences. DuVernay's thesis is that mass incarceration is the new slavery. And with all the facts and historical context she presents...it's hard to argue against that.
13th will leave many people angry and upset and not knowing what to do. But even just knowing and acknowledging that we have an incredibly unfair and punitive justice system that is 1) inherently racist and 2) aims to brutally punish rather than rehabilitate is half the battle. Years ago, prison reform was barely a blip on my own radar and now, after reading and watching much more about it, I see prison and criminals in an entirely different light. The more intelligent, empathetic folks who watch this doc with an open heart and mind, the better. And the sooner we can fix this broken, sick system of institutionalized slavery that exists right under our noses.
Grade: A
Tickled
Directed by David Farrier and Dylan Reeve
Tickled is a bizarre documentary. It all began when New Zealand journalist David Farrier came across a Facebook group--Jane O'Brien Media--looking for young, athletic males to compete in "competitive endurance tickling" videos for cash. Let's just get this out of the way: yes, this is a sex thing. Though Farrier and his co-director Dylan Reeve play dumb at the beginning of the doc ("I was starting to think that "competitive endurance tickling" wasn't a real sport after all!" Farrier says at one point. OH REALLY?), anyone who wasn't born yesterday and who has been within 10 feet of the internet can see that this is a fetish thing.
Intrigued by such a strange "sport", Farrier emails the group asking if he can interview whoever is in charge and possibly do a story on it. He receives an insulting email back by someone named "Debbie Kuhn" who writes that their group wants nothing to do with a "homosexual journalist" (Farrier is openly bisexual). Farrier is taken aback, especially since the videos put out by Jane O'Brien Media are, well, pretty gay (attractive men tickling each other...fully clothed, but still...). But the harrasment doesn't stop after one email. Farrier is soon flooded with messages from this Debbie person calling him a "faggot".
Well, the lesson here is that if you try to intimidate a journalist into not looking into something, it will backfire.
Farrier and Reeve travel to Los Angeles to confront some of the folks behind Jane O'Brien media and are met with threats of legal suits and even personal threats against their families. They finally get a participant in one of the videos, T.J., to talk, and his revelations are shocking: after starring in one of these videos, whoever was behind Jane O'Brien Media began harassing T.J. and sending the video to his family and employers as well as emails claiming T.J. was gay, a fetishist, and even a child molester. He lost jobs over it. T.J. points out that most of the guys in these videos are young and strapped for cash. The person behind Jane O'Brien Media would send these dudes loads of cash and even buy them cars if they starred in "her" videos. But once "she" got them hooked, she'd turn on them and humiliate them by posting the videos all over the web without their permission.
You'll notice I'm writing "she" with quotation marks. Farrier and Reeve eventually uncover the name and identity of the definitely-not-a-woman behind these videos and this person's history and the magnitude of his (surprise, creepy dude on the internet is a man!) criminal activity is actually pretty shocking.
Farrier and Reeve, in their quest to understand the motivations of Jane O'Brien Media, interview a guy named Richard Ivey, who runs a website called "My Friend's Feet" (please God, don't let my parents be reading this!)--a gay, tickling fetish site. The difference between Ivey and the person behind Jane O'Brien Media is that everything Ivey does is aboveboard. He's comfortable with himself and his sexuality. He doesn't blackmail the men in his videos. By comparing Ivey to the criminal behind Jane O'Brien Media, Farrier and Reeve make sure that Tickled is not about mocking people with unusual sexual interests, but about not tolerating harassment and bullying.
Plenty of people will be weirded out by Tickled. As someone interested in sexuality, I was fascinated by it. But what was perhaps most fascinating is that for a film about sexual fetishism, it barely touches on the sexual aspects of this so-called "sport" Farrier runs across on Facebook and instead delves into what can happen when a person with a lot of money and no ethics decides to ruin someone's life for no reason. As Farrier says at the end of the doc: "It was never about the tickling. It was about the power". And that might be the strangest sentence I've ever typed out.
Grade: A-
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