Re: Movies 52 - 1917: Sonic the Bad Boys of Prey
I watched two movies on Netflix last night.
The first was The Rachel Divide. This one has been around for awhile. It's the story of Rachel Dolezal (spoiler alert: she has since changed her name). Dolezal is the woman who was the head of the Spokane, WA, office of the NAACP, and was "outed" as the birth child of white parents. She defended herself by claiming she "identified" as a black woman.
I can't say the movie is great. There is certainly a voyeuristic aspect to it, because this woman and her family are a hot mess. Certainly the moral of the movie is that when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
I don't know that I'd recommend it, but I won't warn anyone away from it either. I thought it did an excellent job, through various African American talking heads interviewed, of explaining the significant objection from the African American community to her actions. But you could see, she just never seemed to get it, and kept plowing forward.
The second movie was Nobody Speak, the movie principally about the attack on the press by the ultra wealthy, but largely centered around the Hulk Hogan vs. Gawker lawsuit financed by Peter Thiel. This movie has also been around for a few years.
I was familiar with the Gawker lawsuit, although I did not remember or didn't know about the question asked of the AJ Daulerio, an editor at Gawker, in which he flippantly responded "4" when asked if there was an age cut off for a celebrity in a sex tape at which he'd refuse to publish it. A very Gawkeresque response that probably cost Gawker it's corporate life.
I actually enjoyed the portion of the movie about Sheldon Adelson's purchase of the Las Vegas Review-Journal a little more, mostly because all I really knew about the story was that Adelson had purchased the paper, and he basically ruined it (imho). I didn't know any of the behind the scenes stuff that this movie reveals.
Personally I don't think the Gawker situation and the Review-Journal situation are necessarily identical. In the Review-Journal case, Adelson basically bought the paper, an entity that covered primarily the very business in which Adelson operates, and forbade them from covering him. That is clearly a case of a wealthy individual silencing the free press.
I get that in Gawker Peter Thiel bankrolled Hogan's case because he hated Gawker and what it was saying about him. On the other hand, Gawker spent $13 million on its own defense, and only went bankrupt when they were nailed with a astronomical jury verdict. It's not like they were some schmuck relying upon a public defender to keep him out of jail. Gawker got the best defense money can buy, too. Furthermore, you can't defend the case the way that Gawker would write a blog post skewering someone. That can put people off, and it obviously did here.
But I'd certainly recommend the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it.
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