Bronies: The Most Random Fandom in the World

     This week Hannah and I were tired of the sad, heavy documentaries and decided to find something a little lighter. We ended up watching Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony. All I can say is it was easily the most unusual documentary that we have seen and also the most entertaining. Check out this trailer before I discuss this any further so you will have an idea of what I'm talking about.

     

    As you can see, this documentary is about the fans of a TV show called My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, whose intended audience is little girls, ages 2 to 11. Unexpectedly, a huge contingent of males aged 12 to 35 are also obsessed with the show.
      One of the most interesting things about this documentary is how it was made. It started as a Kickstarer campaign with a goal of $60,000. It reached it's goal in about 3 days and when the campaign was over it had raised over $322,000. The film is the brainchild of John da Lancie, a voice actor, that plays one of the characters in the show.  (He also plays Jane's father, the air traffic controller, in Breaking Bad.) da Lancie had the idea when he saw the amazing outpouring of support from these adult fans when he joined the show.
     I am not going to spoil anything in this film which is very heartfelt. You should all see it as it is a fascinating look at the emotions of many young people today, not to mention a very entertaining documentary. I would like to talk about how these people are perceived in the media and popular culture.

    When I first heard of these people I was somewhat creeped out as I'm sure some of you were. It seems unnatural that adult males with jobs and families and mortgages should be obsessed with this show. As expected, people have been extremely derogatory online and in the media. Despite this, there is nothing that is fundamentally wrong adults enjoying this show. No doubt the creators were thrilled to find out that they had inspired a cult following. There is really no difference between adults enjoying this and adults enjoying Harry Potter. In fact I believe the same ideas that make Harry Potter popular also make My Little Pony popular. Specifically, the ideas of loyalty, friendship, respect and a solid idea of what is right and what is wrong are, in my opinion what make both of these examples so popular. These are the things that just about everyone desires in their own lives. They want friends who won't abandon them when things get hard. They want to be respected for their own abilities. They want to know that the moral decision that they make is for the right. In today's day and age, so many people have learned that right and wrong are relative that they find relief in a place where right and wrong are so attainable.

     As I have previously alluded, I think that fandoms such as the ones created by My Little Pony, comic books and geekery in general are attractive to Generation Y and Mellennials in particular because they create a sense of belonging that they cannot find anywhere else. They are often alone and shunned by others in our culture because they have interests beyond what is trivial and trite. They may come from broken homes, or have a disability or just not be "cool" and they have found a place that they are not only accepted, but embraced. They are respected for the things they can do and the things they can create and they make very lasting friendships. While others are joining gangs and cults, these "nerds" are finding a sense of belonging in something harmless if not downright positive.

     All this to say, this documentary is excellent and is a fun film. I highly recommend it. Next week there will be no documentary post as Hannah and I will be travelling to New Mexico. I will post pictures as we visit different locations featured in AMC's Breaking Bad.

Blackfish - The Power of Film

    Hannah chose Blackfish for us this week and I was unenthusiastic. I was expecting a smear campaign against SeaWorld with a complete lack of fact and more heuristic stylings. Then I sat down and watched it. 

    It was an extremely compelling film with interviews from former SeaWorld trainers and Orca Whale Experts. There were expert witnesses from OSHA talking about how unsafe it was for both whales and trainers. Neurologists talking about how male whales in captivity have bent over fins while this never happens in the wild. At the end of the film I was convinced. I was ready to never go to SeaWorld again because they didn't care about the well being of their trainers or their whales and only about their bottom line. For me, this is a big deal as I am very skeptical and cynical about these documentaries in general.

    Blackfish is a documentary about Orca whales in captivity and their interactions with humans. Specifically, those in which a whale trainer was injured or killed. One whale in particular, Tillikum, is a repeat offender with at least three deaths to his name. The film shows, with overwhelming evidence and trainer testimony the danger that the trainers encounter while working with these mammals. They also go so far as to imply that the animals do these things because they have become psychotic from being separated from family members and enclosed in spaces much smaller than they are used to. The documentary ended with a call to free the whales and release them into the wild. 

     I was completely convinced, and I sat down to write a blog with a very different thesis... then I started to do some research. The first thing I did was look for SeaWorld's reaction to the film and needless to say it was not positive. I expected a terse press release about how changes and being implimented etc. etc. However, I was surprised to find  a point by point rebuttal of most of the tenets of the film, each point backed up with hard evidence. Now, lest you believe I just take SeaWorld's word for it, I did my own research and it turns out that quite a bit of the interviews were misleading. Here is just some evidence that casts some serious doubt as to the integrity of this film. 

1. Using Orcas in SeaWorld Shows Constitutes Slavery. 

      Most of the main interviewees were involved in a lawsuit filed against SeaWorld claiming that using the Orca whales in shows was a violation of the 13th Ammendment and that it constituted involuntary servitude. Naturally this lawsuit was thrown out by the judge. I do love however that it was filed in Southern California (As opposed to Florida, where the 'plaintiffs' reside) where such a suit might have a small chance of getting through. 

2. Interviewees were Mislead About the Purpose of the Film. 

      Some people who were interviewed for the film have, after it's release, come forward angry that their thoughts were intentionally edited to show them saying things they did not intend. You can see their thoughts here and here. 

3. "Scientists" give their "Scientific" testimony. 

     This is my personal favorite. I did some research on the scientists giving their thoughts in this film and turns out that they literally do not have the expertise that is claimed by the film. One gentleman in particular, Dave Duffus, is given considerable screen time and gives some of the most heart wrenching information/performance. In the film he is subtitled as "OSHA Expert Witness - Whale Researcher" In reality, he is the associate professor of geography (GEOGRAPHY!!!!) at the University of Victoria. I double checked this because I didn't believe it at first. You can see his faculty listing here and read some rather hilarious Rate My Professor reviews here.

    As I said before these are only some of the evidence that can show how fallacious this film is. Perhaps the strongest evidence is given by Dawn Brancheau's family (The woman who was killed most recently by Tillikum) and can be read here. 

    Now, I do think that SeaWorld has some serious questions to answer. The most blatant of which is why was Tillikum, or any orca that threatens the life of a trainer, not put down? This would put pressure on Sea World to protect both their trainers and their animals that are worth millions of dollars. This would occur with any other animal that kills a human, so why not with Orcas? 

   The story of Blackfish is not yet over. Of course the supporters of Blackfish have denied any sort of journalistic dishonesty.  Just this week a law was proposed in California to ban Orca shows and captive breeding. For me, all I learned was that I am kind of gullible. 

You can find out more about the science behind Blackfish at this link.

The Act of Killing

     This was both the most boring and most fascinating documentary that Hannah and I have yet watched. The Act of Killing is again nominated for today's Academy Awards, though in my opinion it should not win.
     This is the first documentary that we have watched where I had absolutely zero knowledge of its subject. It tells the story of Anwar Congo and Adi Zulkadry, among others who in 1965 and 1966 were responsible for leading death squads who killed over 500,000 people (The documentary claims up to 2 million though I was unable to confirm this).  The people they killed were supposedly former communists, although even the killers admit that many of them were not. This film is not the history of this genocide however, it is a documentation of an attempt by these murderers to re-enact their killings for posterity and especially international audiences. 

 

      These killers, Anwar and Adi are now leaders in a paramilitary organization in Indonesia called Pemuda Pancasila and hold tremendous power even over the government. Interestingly, Indonesians do not see them as genocidal killers or war criminals, rather they are esteemed by the general public as founding fathers. To this day, through the power of their organization they continue to extort "protection" and "insurance" from the businesses of Chinese immigrants to Indonesia. They are also known to rig elections and so forth.

        The leaders of this organization are proud to brag about the number of people that they have personally killed and describe in great detail how they would perform the killings. They even continue to do so when the American director of the documentary Joshua Oppenheimer openly calls them war criminals and compares them to Hitler in Nazi Germany. They go so far as to say they were greater than Hitler because they were more depraved in the ways that they would kill people.
      As I said before this 90% of this documentary was incredibly sad and difficult to watch. There were extremely long and drawn out sections of this film that showed discussions among these "gangsters"(They continually explain that this term is "an american word that means 'free men'" of how they wanted to dress and act out their killings for the film. This was both very boring, and also very frightening that someone could discuss these actions with such banality. 
      The 10% that redeems this film comes at the end, when Anwar, who has up to this point bragged about personally killing over 1000 people by strangling them with a fine copper wire, plays one of the victims as they act out these tragedies. As a blindfold is put over his face and the wire is wrapped around his neck, you see a visceral reaction as he finally understands the horrors of his actions and breaks down in tears. He again visits the places where he committed the murders, this time with a full realization of what he has done and is repentant (at least outwardly). 
    This is a brilliant documentary (although it could have been much shorter) and I recommend it mainly because so few people know about this genocide. It is also an interesting exploration of the psyche of the people who have done these horrible things. 

Pink Ribbon, Inc. - What you need to know about Cause Marketing

      This week Hannah chose to watch Pink Ribbon, Inc. A 2011 film put out with support from Breast Cancer Action, a group that has stood up in vocal protest of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure (SGKRftC) charity.
      This film was actually pretty interesting although Breast Cancer Action seem to have lost sight of their goal. A pure assumption of mine is that Breast Cancer Action, also known as BCAction would be most concerned with finding a cure for breast cancer or at least a reliable way of preventing it. However, as you can see from their wikipedia page their actions are more to put down SGKRftC and their Pink Ribbon campaign than anything else.

     This documentary makes some excellent points about cause marketing, which more people should be aware of in my opinion. Cause marketing is where companies or corporations will join forces with a charitable organization. The company will generally give a portion of profits to the charity and will be able to use trademarks and logos on products. This does two things for the companies; First it effectively markets their product in that people will be more likely to choose a product that supports a charity that they also support. Second, it also associates a positive idea with the company and what they might stand for. On the other hand, many people often forget that the charity is also benefiting handsomely in such an exchange. The charities often receive millions of dollars that they might not otherwise. They also piggyback on corporations' advertising, essentially receiving free publicity that would otherwise be extremely expensive.

     This brings us to the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. Arguably, this is one of the most successful charities in history. They have raised awareness of Breast Cancer in an extremely effective way and have encouraged millions of women to get screened for Breast Cancer. Since it's founding in 1982 they have given over 1.5 billion dollars to research, advocacy, education and other things. It is continually rated as one of the best breast cancer charities. This is especially interesting considering how many breast cancer organizations are on the list of worst charities as rated by the Center for Investigative Reporting. In my opinion, SGKRftC has done more for breast cancer than any charity I can name. I certainly had not heard of any of these other charities.
    BCAction and this documentary would have us stop supporting SGKRftC because some of the companies they ally themselves with also sell products that contain carcinogens. In addition, this film also suggests that we stop buying products from companies regardless of whether they contain carcinogens. Yoplait, for example, is dragged through the mud for their campaign "Save Lids to Save Lives" where they would donate 10 cents for every yogurt lid sent in. BCAction wants us to stop buying Yoplait products because their dairy products at times included milk from cows that had been given rBGH. This is despite numerous studies that have failed to show a link between rBGH and any kind of cancer. These studies are even done by groups such as the American Cancer Society, lest anyone believe, based upon what the documentary propagated, that corporations fund the research in such a way as to prevent their products from being besmirched.

    I think this is an important documentary for people to see so that they can understand what cause marketing is and how it has an effect on their behavior. Other than that, this documentary is one you can skip.


If you like you can view the full documentary on Netflix or on YouTube here:

Cutie and the Boxer

   I was not sure what to expect when I chose this documentary for this week, but I certainly did not expect what we saw. Cutie and the Boxer was our latest choice for documentary and again it is nominated for Best Documentary at the 2014 Academy Awards. It is also my current pick to win though we have yet to see The Art of Killing or 20 Feet from Stardom.

    This film was about two married Japanese artists, Ushio and Noriko Shinohara and specifically about their marriage of 41 years. It is a beautifully filmed story of a seemingly troubled marriage. Throughout the film it seems as if Noriko harbors strong dislike if not hatred for her husband and their life of poverty in SoHo. Through her artistic narration we see the story of how he took advantage of her needs as a young immigrant and then how she felt trapped when they had a child very quickly. Ushio fell into alcoholism soon after and was very abandoning of his family.

     Interspersed through Noriko's comic book like story telling is video both from the past and present of Ushio and his views of himself and his wife. On the one hand Ushio seems to need constant reassurance that his artwork is any good, and his wife constantly gives this to him. Noriko, on the other hand, knows her artwork is good and insists upon promoting and showing it despite constant criticism from Ushio who seems to be jealous of her confidence and ability.

    This was a very beautiful film that captured the story of a lifetime remarkably well. By far the best scene of the entire piece was played during the credits and I will not spoil it. Go log on to Netflix and watch it.

Sons of Perdition or How to Surivive a Cult

       I have always been fascinated with cults and am very curious as to what makes someone believe so strongly that they will hold their belief to the very literal death, even against overwhelming evidence that their religion is a fraud. As frightening and sad as a cult can be, someone who has no beliefs is even more frightening. This idea is dealt with in a very interesting way in our documentary for this week, Sons of Perdition.

    Sons of Perdition is a film about the children who are excommunicated from an offshoot of the Mormon church called the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints or FLDS. This group is led by a man named Warren Jeffs who is infamous for promoting polygamy and underage marriage/rape.

 Even though Jeffs was sent to prison in Texas in 2008, the FLDS is still alive and well in many states including Colorado, Utah, South Dakotah and Arizona. In addition, according to a documentary put out by CNN in 2012, Jeffs is still leading the FLDS from prison. Jeffs and other leaders of FLDS hold the community to a very strict standard. They hold their power through property and especially by using women as property. If they feel that a particular male in the community is doing what they believe he should they will reward him with a wife. If he continues to do well they will give him another wife, but if he fights any of the teachings of the leaders, they will remove that wife and any children she may have and give them to another man. Further, most of the property that these families live on is owned by Jeffs and the FLDS. It is leased/given to them, but can be taken back at any time if the men of the household do not toe the line. The children are given no privileges whatsoever. Many of them do not receive a good education and cannot read or do basic math. They are prevented from dating or even being in the same room as a member of the opposite sex that is not a family member. Similarly they are not allowed any form of entertainment. No music. No movies. No books. If you are caught repeatedly doing any of these things you will be excommunicated at a very young age (usually 13 - 17) and are banned from seeing your family. If your family (Often 20+ people in your immediate family) does not force you to leave they can lose their livelihoods and their homes. Over 100 children are excommunicated every year.

     This documentary follows the lives and tribulations of these children as they attempt to navigate the outside world. The sad thing is that they really want to try and live a responsible life, but they're so confused about what to believe. They have had every one of their beliefs destroyed and now they have no sense of moral guidance. They want to work or go to school but they have no place to live. Many of them believe they are going to hell and since there is no longer any redemption for them they become very hedonistic.   They often end up on drugs and on the street. Many of them die of overdose.
     I would definitely suggest this documentary to anyone who is interested in cults and to those who are looking to help these unfortunate kids.
 
    For those who are interested I am adding a few links on further information about FLDS.

Warren Jeffs says that FLDS couples are no longer to have sex. 15 "chosen" men will father all the children in the community.

Reddit AMA: FLDS 'Lost Boy'

YouTube: Some of Jeff's Teachings

War is Hell

     

     Continuing our apparent habit of watching depressing documentaries, Hannah and I chose to watch Dirty Wars this week. This is another film nominated for an Academy Award in the category of Best Documentary and yet again I could not tell you why.
     I strongly disliked this documentary from the beginning. It used heuristic statements intended to play on emotions and an extremely melodramatic style to create a reaction from the audience rather than to convey any sort of fact.

It follows the story of Jeremy Scahill (writer, producer, narrator and apparent star of the film) as he travels over the Middle East looking at the effects of a so called "secretive" branch of the military known as JSOC. He further documents his attempts at educating the public about JSOC's military endeavors. In the end, the film is more about Jeremy Scahill and how much he thinks he suffered learning the things he did.
     Throughout the entire piece Scahill  places an extreme emphasis on how hard things were for him. He talks about having to travel into the dangerous areas of Afghanistan, how he was pursued by federal agents (little to no evidence of this) how his computer was hacked (zero evidence of this). He seemed to want us to believe that he literally feared for his life on several occasions.
     Scahill makes several claims in this documentary and I will leave it up to the reader to decide how much of it to believe. There were only a few well established points of the documentary and these are the only ones which I will address.
1. The War on Terror has left us with unintended casualties
      This seems to be Scahill's main point. The military actions of the United States have caused the deaths of many civilians and even allies. I do not want to gloss over this point because it is important. None of us want to see any innocents killed, and especially children. The loss of civilian life is unacceptable and the United States Military goes to great lengths to avoid it. Scahill goes so far as to imply, if not say outright, that our actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and other parts of the Middle East are simply creating more martyrs for the Jihad against America. The problem is that he does not pose any solution to this problem. What does he think the US should do? Just allow the terrorists to continue their recruitment and training of jihadist?  Of course the United States wants no civilian casualties, but if it prevents the deaths of American civilians, their method seems to be working pretty well.
2. The President Ordered the Killing of an American Citizen without a Trial
    This was the only other well established point. That President Obama personally ordered the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki.many others  These are things that are not brought up by Scahill. Hundreds of Al-Awlaki videos, that called for Muslims to kill any possible Americans were still up on YouTube until members of Congress asked Google to take them down in 2010. This unfortunately is not the end of the story. About two weeks later, after al-Awlaki was killed, a second drone strike killed his son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki. This killing was highlighted and emphasized in the documentary. As a 16 year old American citizen I think we can all agree that this is a very sad killing. What Scahill fails to mention, and what the media largely ignores, is that the son was in the company of 7 known Yemeni Al Qaeda leaders. Sixteen years old or not, American citizen or not, he definitely would have known that he was in dangerous company. He would have known that by simply being in the company of these men he could not return to the United States without the risk of arrest and trial for treason.

This is naturally concerning to any American Citizen, after all he was only using his right to Free Speech. Except of course that he was inciting the killing of American Civilians, supporting Al Qaeda and actively recruiting Muslims for a Jihad against America. He had connections to the Fort Hood Shooter and inspired the Boston Marathon bombings as well as
     All this to say, Dirty Wars should not be considered a valid entry for Best Documentary of the year as it does not portray any fact. It is simply a melodramatic film about a journalist experience attempting to muckrake.