Reel Talk: We Need to Talk About Docu-Slop

The documentary genre has seen a surge in irresponsible filmmaking.

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Scott's Self-Indulgent Movie Podcast · Episode 1020: Reel Talk: We Need To Talk About DocuSlop

Streaming is one of the best and worst things to happen to the documentary. It's great because now documentaries don't require a solid box office pull to have an impact, justify their costs or even get made. Put another way, it's hard to imagine a pop culture landscape where the Seth Meyers, Bill Hader and Fred Armisen TV show Documentary Now! ever gets made without streaming. In many cases that's a good thing, because traditional journalism doesn't have the same level of financial backing it once had and there's a lot of stories that deserve their time in the sun or are vitally important (see a number of eye-opening documentaries from Gaza or the direct impact a film like The Thin Blue Line had on its subject (a man who was wrongfully convicted who was later released). But amidst the artists there are people who are clearly looking to profit on high profile stories, without the same level of integrity or care. 

And that's what I want to talk about today. Because while the word "slop" has come to describe almost every film put out by big Hollywood studios, the proliferation of awful, long-effort documentaries, is just as prevalent if not more so. So let's get into a few trends that I've noticed, and why that's a problem both for the medium and also for the stories they're covering.

Duplicative Efforts

Right around the COVID-19 outbreak, folks were fascinated by two documentaries about the same topic. The failed viral music event known as the Fyre Festival. Fyre Fraud on Hulu and Fyre Festival: The Greatest Party That Never Happened on Netflix were released right around the same time and within enough time that everyone who watched it had a good feel for what happened or maybe even watched it happen in real time online.

There's a lot I could say about these films, in particular how involved some of the primary planners were in the making of at least one of them which would absolutely include editorial control (more on this later), but the biggest takeaway from media companies was simple. It no longer mattered if someone else made a documentary about a single topic. You can make your own.

Cut to five years later and it's not a foreign experience to wonder out loud, did I watch this documentary about this news story or another one? As an example, both Hulu and Peacock have miniseries or documentaries about the college students murdered in Idaho that were released right around the same time this year.

This isn't necessarily bad, because time, effort and talent varies from filmmaker to filmmaker, and one of them might have more access to crucial information than another or have a different focal point.

In reality, that doesn't seem to be happening. It mostly seems like platforms are rushing these films and series out the door to capitalize on buzzy topics as quickly as possible. And if you know Netflix has one in the tank, you'll definitely push your version of the same story to release around the same time, if not earlier.

That's how sloppy or incomplete work gets shuffled out the door. And when your genre is meant to inform and entertain the audience and covers sensitive topics like violent crimes, it can lead to compromise, incomplete information, and conflicting reporting on the same exact facts that'll make it hard to distinguish what really happened or leave the public less informed than they could be.

Recapturing Viral Stories...As Quickly As Possible

Another trend that's been happening are these franchises that are trying to get out docs as quickly as humanly possible about any topic. The two biggest offenders right now are the Untold and Trainwreck franchises (already a giant problem) on Netflix. 

The appeal for most of these is pretty simple. Remind the audience of a big news story from recent memory and give them a digestible documentary that's over in about an hour. 

While a handful of these have been very good (i.e. see the Trainwreck breakdown of the Astroworld crowd crush disaster), they are few and far between.

There's no care, there's no context. Just a reminder of an eye-catching story that probably went viral within the last decade or so. Like hey, remember Rob Ford? Remember how crazy that guy was? Let's highlight all of his crazy antics. Is this a biography of Ford or a breakdown of how his compromised leadership hurt people? Fuck no. Let's talk about how he did drugs while in office again.

Just a nightly talk show recap stretched into 60 fluffy minutes with all of the edges sanded off. 

Like weird nostalgia for when news stories could be fascinating and funny and not depressing, while actively ignoring the larger, more troubling implications of what these stories say about us as a society.

Documentaries That Ignore Crucial Details

There's a number of documentaries that inspired this piece. The biggest one is a film on Netflix called Unknown Number: The High School Catfish.  I'm going to spoil it because I think the film is garbage and you shouldn't watch it.

The film follows the investigation of targeted text based harassment of two Michigan teenagers who received daily flurries of up to 60 messages. Said messages included threats, sexual harassment and abusive language, and suggestions that they should end their lives. 

A little over halfway through 90 minute documentary the culprit is revealed. It's the girl's mother. It's a reveal that quickly unearthed a number of lies. It's also revealed that the girl's mother did not have gainful employment and had been messing around with the family money.

And in a move I still can't believe made it to the platform, the film gives her a chance to explain herself...with zero pushback. 

I want to be clear that convicted criminals should be allowed to give their side of the story. That's why you reach out to people or businesses you're writing stories about. Give them a chance for comment and if they don't take it, that's fine.

But you can't let what they say stand without context or pushback. Especially if we're talking about sexually inappropriate behavior towards two minors. One of whom is her own daughter. That's blatantly irresponsible. 

The documentarians seem to think that letting this woman's wild statement like "well everyone breaks the law and not everyone gets caught" and having it hang before a cut is enough. It's not.

The last 15-20 minutes of the documentary are all about this family, dad, daughter and mother, all talking about how they're trying to move on. No questions about guilt. About impact on the boy caught in this crossfire. 

Until right at the end when the boy's mother drops what this documentary probably should've been about. She believes the whole family has been concocting a narrative the whole time and said so from the beginning. And only the intervention of an F.B.I. investigator got it done. Considering that's exactly what happened, you'd think there'd be another 30 minutes where the film dives into the entire family's culpability or the impact this kind of harassment can have on a young mind.

The direct of this film Skye Borgman, is not an inexperienced documentarian. And at time she's demonstrated a level of care and empathy for her subjects including series like I Just Killed My Dad. 

Borgman has an awfully bad habit of giving her subjects the most screen time and grace, and if you're a perpetrator, the victims can fall behind. She's made multiple docs that feel grossly incomplete or highlight the sensational aspects of the cases she covers, while ignoring the larger implications.

And this is the grossest example.

But Borgman isn't alone. One of the series that kicked off this docuslop craze, Tiger King is one of the worst documentary series ever made. Because it's clearly in love with Joe Exotic's perspective and the "crazy" details of his life. Not the people he took advantage of or hurt. Or the sexual predator that they interviewed multiple times and never truly questioned once.

If you put blinders on because you think your subject is fascinating, you'll let a lot of the wrong people off the hook.

The Core of the Problem: Entertainment vs. Information

In my opinion, the core of the problem is pretty simple. Most of the documentaries getting green lit for streaming platforms, where the genre thrives, are made to entertain first and inform second. To some extent I understand. You want your story to get eyes on it and something as simple as a tacky title to a real life crime will do the trick. Or it's a compromise you have to make with the platform so they'll pick it up and you'll get compensated fairly for your work.

And those compromises are sadly, baked into the documentary genre's inception. The film credited with kicking off the documentary as a feature film, Nanook of the North, has received mountains of criticism for its portrayal of Inuit people as without technology and vastly different from the Western audience the film was intended for and for staging a number of the film's most revered and impactful scenes.

As you might expect, the film was a hit.

I know that filmmaking is a business and it requires some degree of buy-in or funding. But searching for eyes and money shouldn't be the endgame.

For me, it all comes down to the one question. 

Why are you making this documentary? Are you trying to right a wrong like The Thin Blue Line? Highlight the humanity of a star that faded far too soon in a film like Amy or It's Not Over, Jeff Buckley? Unpack how the public and government wronged innocent people in The Central Park Five? Or do you just want people to watch your movie and talk about it online?

If I was making Unknown Number, I'd want my movie to serve as a warning to parents and young people, or operate as an indictment of the local police depatment, or tell the vicims' stories, or demonstrate the psychological toll this takes on a victim. I wouldn't mislabel my movie as a "Catfish" story and allow a sex criminal to plead her case unchallenged.

Done properly, documentary film can entertain, inform and at its very best inspire action. And right now the only thing many documentary filmmakers seem to care about is entertainment.