Tickled
Directed
by: David
Farrier & Dylan Reeve.
Tickled is the type of story
that documentaries were made for – mainly because if this wasn’t a documentary,
you wouldn’t believe the story it has to tell. Its directors are two New
Zealand reports – David Farrier, who is the on camera person, who has made a
career telling “human interest” stories, and his producing partner, Dylan
Reeve. Farrier stumbles around online looking for stories, and finds what is
described as a “Competitive Tickling” video – which basically consists on
several young men – they may been teenagers – strapping or holding down another
young man and, well, tickling them – the result is what you expect – the person
being tickled giggles and squirms. For something called “Competitive Tickling”
there is no real indication of how they are competing against, or how you “win”
– but the videos are odd enough that Farrier decides he wants to do a story
about them. He sends a request to the company making them asking about doing
that story – and receives a response back saying they don’t want to be
associated with a homosexual journalist like Farrier – he wants more
information, and the responses get nastier. He and Reeve decide to make a
documentary about all this – and three representatives from the company fly all
the way to New Zealand to talk to them – although all they say to them is stop
what you’re doing, or you’ll be sued. For what? Does it matter? They have money
– Farrier and Reeve do not. Even if it is a frivolous lawsuit, that costs
money. Many people would give up at this point – but not Farrier and Reeve, who
end up going to L.A. to find out more information – and eventually to Michigan
to interview some of the people in those videos, who have horrible stories to
tell. And to talk to a different person – who makes similar videos – who is all
too happy to let Farrier and Reeve see what he does – and seems like a
perfectly nice guy, and even the man he is filming doesn’t seem to mind either.
So what the hell is up with the first company?
Spoilers
to Follow
When the film debuted at
Sundance earlier this year, a lot of reviews alluded to the shocking twists and
turns the film takes as it progresses. Personally, I didn’t find too many of
the revelations in Tickled to be all that shocking – for one thing, it’s very
clear from the get go that this is not really “competitive” tickling – but are
really fetish videos. For those of us who don’t have a tickling fetish, the
videos seem goofy and silly – like pretty much all fetishes that one doesn’t
have, even if to those who do, it they can be very powerful. For another thing,
I’ve seen Catfish – which was a film about someone pretending to be someone
else online – which is what happens in Tickled as well, as the woman who is
most runs this company, but remains in the shadows, will eventually be outed as
someone else entirely – a result that isn’t shocking, as much as it rather sad.
I’m not entirely convinced the filmmakers themselves are that shocked by the
revelations either – while I don’t doubt the story, I do have a few doubts
about the way they presented them (for one thing, it seems odd that they start
working on a documentary when the supposedly know nothing – but whatever).
Yet, even if the film isn’t
quite as shocking as it sets out to be, it’s still fascinating. It’s a film
about sex and money and power and privilege, and how those things can be
abused. The film isn’t as shocking as Catfish was – in part because Catfish had
already been made, but also in part because while I’m not convinced Farrier and
Reese were quite so ignorant of what kind of doc they were making from the
start, I think the filmmakers behind Catfish knew even more – and played
everything up to make it even more “SHOCKING” than it otherwise was.
Tickled is a sold doc – about
the sordid areas of the internet that most of us never go. If it wasn’t for the
abuse behind it all, it would be rather amusing – other people’s fetishes
always are. But the film ultimately ends up being more sad than anything else.
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