Can we talk about "Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel"?
The buzzy four-part Netflix "documentary" is part of the streaming platform's damaging subgenre I call bingebait, or docs that withhold and manipulate truth to keep you watching multiple episodes.
A thread🧵
The buzzy four-part Netflix "documentary" is part of the streaming platform's damaging subgenre I call bingebait, or docs that withhold and manipulate truth to keep you watching multiple episodes.
A thread🧵
#CrimeSceneTheVanishingAtTheCecilHotel comes from production powerhouse duo Brian Grazer & Ron Howard.
They're two old hats of Hollywood with a lot of experience making blockbuster movies, but far less with documentaries that aren't about the lives of celebrities.
They're two old hats of Hollywood with a lot of experience making blockbuster movies, but far less with documentaries that aren't about the lives of celebrities.
#CrimeSceneNetflix is broadly about the Cecil Hotel, a massive space of 700 rooms in L.A. where, over nearly a century, some crazy stuff has happened, partly because it's a short stroll from Skid Row.
Except #CrimeSceneNetflix isn't really interested in the Cecil Hotel.
It's more caught up in misrepresenting the mental health struggle of Canadian student Elisa Lam, who died after climbing into the hotel's water tower.
The series won't tell you this until the fourth part.
It's more caught up in misrepresenting the mental health struggle of Canadian student Elisa Lam, who died after climbing into the hotel's water tower.
The series won't tell you this until the fourth part.
It takes 3 hours of #CrimeSceneNetflix filmmakers talking to internet conspiracy theorists, creatively editing interviews w/ police and witnesses, speculating about a murderer and dabbling in asinine supernatural theories before getting to "The Hard Truth."
How is this ethical?
How is this ethical?
Asking viewers to crawl through three hours of lies to learn about a woman's bipolar disorder is, at least to me, pretty unfair to Elisa Lam's family.
And its unfair to the people who sat down with the makers of #CrimeSceneNetflix, presumably to set the record straight.
And its unfair to the people who sat down with the makers of #CrimeSceneNetflix, presumably to set the record straight.
Netflix has done this many times with their true crime docs. Admittedly, I don't watch many of them for this reason.
But they're wild successes on the service, which qualifies its victories on how many minutes people watch.
These are the new tabloids.
But they're wild successes on the service, which qualifies its victories on how many minutes people watch.
These are the new tabloids.
https://twitter.com/dfriend/status/1207822397723828226?s=19
Did anyone catch the error where the graphics creator on #CrimeSceneNetflix appears to have mislabeled a CBC News Alert tweet as "CBS," but kept the CBC logo and Twitter account name?
Here's my 2019 look at how "The Jinx" and other documentaries have been walking a razor-thin line between fact and fiction in hopes of generating buzz.
thestar.com/entertainment/…
thestar.com/entertainment/…
Since everyone is still breaking down the choices of #CrimeSceneNetflix, it's worth questioning why the filmmakers showed clips of the American "Dark Water" instead of the original version with a Japanese cast.
Mentioning the film at all seemed unnecessary to me.
Mentioning the film at all seemed unnecessary to me.
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