Rizzleness
Joined Jan 2015
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Rizzleness's rating
If you are the average watcher of Adult Swim shows, the effect that Ha Ha, You Clowns has on you may be the equivalent of putting puppies in front of a group of snotty, disaffected teen boys to watch them struggle with their emotions before folding into a chorus "come here, lil' buddies." You keep waiting for the show to make fun of the characters, but the snark, sarcasm, and meanness never comes. You have confused feelings - the guilt of being an emotionally distant, awful person who revels in meanness. Then, you stretch out your arms to Ha Ha, You Clowns and say "come here, lil' buddy."
I never watched The Biggest Loser when it first aired about twenty years ago, and looking back at the show, it seems like a truly awful thing, at least according to "Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser," a three-part documentary series.
I mean, the image of The Biggest Loser from this documentary resembles a parody of a dystopian culture from films like Robocop and Idiocracy, where people casually toss around human lives for the entertainment of others. Unfortunately, this sick culture proposes sick solutions to its problem with obesity. One contestant observes how the abuse that she took while on the show resembled the childhood abuse that first drove her to overeat. It's astounding how anyone saw the show as helpful or inspiring, instead of one big step toward a world that more closely resembles Death Race 2000.
Overall, this documentary series is very well done, and it is especially well paced. Unlike many Netflix docs that I've watched, and especially these multi-part series, this one feels about as long as it should be, instead of a one-hour documentary with an hour of wild speculation and useless red herrings edited into it to pad things out. This may be because my guess is that, for whatever reason, Netflix had them chop up a tight two-hour feature length film into three parts.
No one looks especially good by the end of this documentary. It's amazing how closely the contestants match the age-old stereotype of naïve country bumpkins who fall for the glitz of Hollywood's promises. While I would think of participating in a reality show like The Biggest Loser as a similar experience to going to prison or the hospital, many contestants think that the show will actually solve problems in their lives, instead of ripping through their physical and mental being like a tornado, as it does for most of them.
Yet, the real villains of the film are the producers of the show. The doctor comes off best here as the well-meaning but often vetoed and overall conflicted voice of reason, the producers justify everything as entertainment and money making, and whew - the trainers come off as unethical, abusive, drug-pushing egomaniacs. Of the two of them, one declined to be interviewed, and the second should have declined as well, as he comes off as nothing short of a nihilistic monster.
In the end, the documentary soft-pedals the obvious critiques of a corporate media that avoids any chance of contributing to the greater good in order to make another buck, the broken people who such shows attract, and of course, our insane focus on looking like we do not consume, only matched by our insane focus on endless consumption (including sitting on our butts to watch piles of episodes of The Biggest Loser). Yet, the links to our society are super obvious regardless, and nothing ends up looking healthy about The Biggest Loser, including the culture that fed it for more than a decade.
I mean, the image of The Biggest Loser from this documentary resembles a parody of a dystopian culture from films like Robocop and Idiocracy, where people casually toss around human lives for the entertainment of others. Unfortunately, this sick culture proposes sick solutions to its problem with obesity. One contestant observes how the abuse that she took while on the show resembled the childhood abuse that first drove her to overeat. It's astounding how anyone saw the show as helpful or inspiring, instead of one big step toward a world that more closely resembles Death Race 2000.
Overall, this documentary series is very well done, and it is especially well paced. Unlike many Netflix docs that I've watched, and especially these multi-part series, this one feels about as long as it should be, instead of a one-hour documentary with an hour of wild speculation and useless red herrings edited into it to pad things out. This may be because my guess is that, for whatever reason, Netflix had them chop up a tight two-hour feature length film into three parts.
No one looks especially good by the end of this documentary. It's amazing how closely the contestants match the age-old stereotype of naïve country bumpkins who fall for the glitz of Hollywood's promises. While I would think of participating in a reality show like The Biggest Loser as a similar experience to going to prison or the hospital, many contestants think that the show will actually solve problems in their lives, instead of ripping through their physical and mental being like a tornado, as it does for most of them.
Yet, the real villains of the film are the producers of the show. The doctor comes off best here as the well-meaning but often vetoed and overall conflicted voice of reason, the producers justify everything as entertainment and money making, and whew - the trainers come off as unethical, abusive, drug-pushing egomaniacs. Of the two of them, one declined to be interviewed, and the second should have declined as well, as he comes off as nothing short of a nihilistic monster.
In the end, the documentary soft-pedals the obvious critiques of a corporate media that avoids any chance of contributing to the greater good in order to make another buck, the broken people who such shows attract, and of course, our insane focus on looking like we do not consume, only matched by our insane focus on endless consumption (including sitting on our butts to watch piles of episodes of The Biggest Loser). Yet, the links to our society are super obvious regardless, and nothing ends up looking healthy about The Biggest Loser, including the culture that fed it for more than a decade.
Unfortunately, I think that audience attracted to this film, those looking for a "good" true crime story, want something that this film is decidedly and deliberately not. The film bucks the trend of assumptions behind similar content. It doesn't wrap things up into a morality tale about the good and bad guys in our society, with bad being punished and good prevailing. It also doesn't automatically assume that a person deserves death for a crime, even a very bad one, and it also doesn't assume that a society seeking satisfying vengeance against individuals is a healthy one. In fact, the film goes out of its way to not satisfy what many watchers want satisfied by a crime story - namely, a parallel form of blood lust to the killer's own violence, fulfilled by seeing the murderer brought to justice and punished.
Yet, to criticize the film for withholding judgement, not sufficiently chastising the killer or (as another review put it) being a "bleeding heart," fundamentally misrepresents what the film is about. This movie is not even really about a crime. It's about a crime's impact on a community. It provides a thoughtful look at the meaning and consequences of the death penalty in a local region, through the voices of the prosecutors, defenders, politicians, media, and families involved. It's not the film you wanted, but it may be the film that you need, providing the space to rethink your own bedrock assumptions, whatever they may be, about our world and how we deal with wrong.
Yet, to criticize the film for withholding judgement, not sufficiently chastising the killer or (as another review put it) being a "bleeding heart," fundamentally misrepresents what the film is about. This movie is not even really about a crime. It's about a crime's impact on a community. It provides a thoughtful look at the meaning and consequences of the death penalty in a local region, through the voices of the prosecutors, defenders, politicians, media, and families involved. It's not the film you wanted, but it may be the film that you need, providing the space to rethink your own bedrock assumptions, whatever they may be, about our world and how we deal with wrong.