One of my favorite parts of errol morris’ the thin blue line is that it lead to the uncovering of an innocent victim. The documentary was used to make people reconsider a legal case, eventually releasing from prison an innocent man. This case reminds me of the power of documentaries, in telling stories and creating social change. This is the same attitude that Cambridge Documentary Films has when it creates movies like Rape Is… to change the social attitude towards rape as a systematic tactic of power. Hell, this is the attitude that many documentarians have – tell real stories to make people reconsider social assumptions.

And then sometimes, the law gets involved… Apparently, HBO decided to air a documentary on a man who shared the drug ecstasy with his children. Horrified, it seems as though the police got involved and the man has been arrested for endangering his children (and not surprisingly, his ex-wife backed him). There’s something quite problematic to me about HBO doing a special that puts someone at risk with the law. Sure, what this man did might be illegal or problematic, but it was the documentary that got the police involved (not the testimony of the ex-wife who knew beforehand). I’d love to think that the documentarians were serving justice, but with the war on drugs the way it is, their actions are just propagating a truly fubared institution. I can’t help but wonder what the results of reality TV shows are – is everyone arrested for admitting their drug use, their illegal sex acts, their speeding? If someone comes out on TV and oral sex is illegal in their state, can they be arrested? Are they persecuting themselves? This seems like a very slippery slope…

[Afternote: a good friend of mine ran into similar problems when he was working at a newspaper… apparently, their paper got someone into trouble with the INS…]