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We shouldn’t stop teaching children that life isn’t always fair. We must teach them that justice is not either.
As we grow older, we are reminded over and over again that life is not fair. This is not a false warning; after all, sometimes your brother will have ice cream and you won’t, or you have to miss a trick or a treatment because you have strep throat. It’s a little life lesson that works, as children are taught that life won’t always turn out as expected and that this balance cannot always be maintained.
But he is far from teaching children how unfair life will be. After all, while teaching children that life is not always fair, we also place them in front of an American flag and encourage them to recite an oath of allegiance to the country, tiny hype men for a nation promising freedom. and justice for everything.
We should not limit ourselves to teaching children that life is not always fair. We have to teach them that neither is justice.
It’s something I think about a lot when watching a new generation of TV documentaries, in which filmmakers forgo the idea of criminal justice in exchange for cultural justice. Even if that’s not what storytellers aim to do, it becomes a natural consequence when information long scattered to the winds is collected and presented in an understandable way.
Two of those projects have made headlines in recent weeks for doing just that. On FX, “The New York Times Presents: Framing Britney Spears,” a wider audience was exposed to the subtle tragedy in Spears’ life as the teenage pop star was exploited and humiliated by the media and had spent the past 13 years of her life under her father’s tutelage, although she was skilled enough to release several successful albums, as well as a multi-year concert residency in Las Vegas.
On HBO, “Allen v. Farrow ”was critically acclaimed ahead of his February 21 debut. Oscar nominees Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering’s four-part documentary series is an in-depth look at sexual assault charges brought by Dylan Farrow against his father Woody Allen when Farrow was just seven years old. What followed was a war of words and tabloid headlines as Allen chose to fight his headline battles as Dylan’s ex-girlfriend and mother Mia Farrow tried to find justice for his daughter through the courts.
But what is justice in areas where the law is insufficient? Cases of sexual assault and abuse are often some of the most difficult to successfully litigate, as many encounters boil down to one party speaking out against another, with no other witnesses to what happened.
You’ll hear a lot of people denounce those who try to try cases in public opinion courts, but what choice do victims have after the statute of limitations has passed? In a way, the recent wave of post- # MeToo documentary projects has become their own version of cultural justice, attempting to right the wrongs of the past through the simple dissemination of information.
Take Justin Timberlake, for example. Another former teenage pop star who has had a successful career in music and beyond, made headlines early in her life as she fell in love with Spears. Timberlake happily reported the details of his sexual encounters with Spears, while also playing the victim over their breakup, encouraging the media in their determined efforts to slander his ex-girlfriend for breaking his heart.
This is of course not an isolated incident for Timberlake, who has suffered a backlash for years following his Super Bowl performance with Janet Jackson, in which his actions resulted in chest exposure. from Jackson on live television to 140 million people. In the aftermath, Jackson’s career was turned upside down, while that of Timberlake remained largely unchanged. In the immediate calculation of the 2004 event, Jackson was excluded from the Grammy Awards where she had previously been invited to appear, while Timberlake was still allowed not only to attend, but to perform at the event.
“Coaching by Britney Spears”
FX Network
There are those who will tell you that judging Timberlake after the fact is proof of “canceling the culture” and an excuse to try to limit people’s right to express themselves. But what if it doesn’t cancel the culture? What if these were just consequences – albeit delayed – for actions that still deserved to be censored? (This week, Timberlake apologized to Spears and Jackson in a note posted to social media.)
We live in an age where spreading the facts is more important than ever. Kirby and Ziering went through thousands of pages of police and legal documents relating to the Allen and Farrow case, collecting information long buried or inaccessible to viewers and using it as a glimpse into a conflict that years ago would have been exclusively decided in the New York Post headlines.
Documentary TV projects, from “Surviving R. Kelly” to “Leaving Neverland,” “Allen v. Farrow ”and“ Framing Britney Spears ”continue to deliver information to audiences that otherwise would never have access to it. It is not a calculation. It’s an opportunity. Justice can be done. It might take a little while.
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