Anyone who watched the then-WWF’s professional wrestling as a child in the 80’s and 70’s will undoubtedly be familiar with the camel clutch, the pre-Hogan all-American Bob Backlund, and of course, Hulk Hogan himself. Most likely one would also recognize Khosrow Vaziri’s, or as he’s better known, the Iron Sheik.

Igal Hecht’s documentary, The Sheik, chronicles Vaziri’s life from his upbringing in Iran, through his position as the Shah of Iran’s bodyguard, his escape from Iran, his position as a coach on the United States Olympic Team, and ultimately his role as a coach with the University of Minnesota. More than just a heel in the realm of sports entertainment, and the impetus for the rise of Hulkamania – he was the ultimate villain that allowed Hogan’s popularity to flourish – Vaziri was a real wrestler. And a real Iranian.

Like other films have done (most notably Beyond the Mat), this one delves into the seedier side of professional wrestling, particularly the fates of those wrestlers that helped the industry to explode in the 1980’s. Addiction to pain pills and other narcotics is commonplace, are the references to sleepless nights and years that require 300+ days on the road to make a living and the penultimate relegation to some arbitrary, virtual-backyard, independent circuit of wrestling.

However, the most fascinating facet of The Sheik is how it illustrates the World Wrestling Federation cum World Wrestling Entertainment as global-filtration system for its spectators.

The rise of the Iron Sheik came from the WWF’s effort to “play off the core Islamaphobia” incited in this country by the hostages that were taken at the U.S. Embassy in Iran in 1979. Such a rise was one surrounded by vitriolic hated spewed from the spectators that crammed into each arena. One needs to remember that, up until the 1990’s, most teenage fans – and some adults – “still believed [wrestling] was real.” The squared circle was a place for feuds and grudges. It represented a sanctioned violence through which to work out world affairs.

While entertaining, wrestling varied from any sort of dramatized depiction of ethnicities, races, and cultures one finds on television. The TV itself creates a divide between reality and fiction. It provides a natural separation between the viewer and the content. However, being part of an audience that cheers and boos un unison as wrestlers approach the stage fashions a group-constructed reality that can’t be matched – or at least couldn’t at that time – on television.

And in this, Vaziri embodies the line between the reality and fiction of which wrestling entertainment is comprised. On the one hand, athletic ability is – most often – needed to put on a show for the masses. On the other, the outcomes of each match are pre-determined, as are the storylines. However, aiding the fiction of the Iron Sheik’s nefariousness is his true Iranian ethnicity. His accent is authentic. His look is authentic. His Farsi is authentic. He becomes the “epitome of what a bad guy should be.”

By all accounts, the Iron Sheik was a revolutionary force in wrestling entertainment. The hatred aimed toward him in the early eighties grew the sport and opened the door for Hulk Hogan to become Hulk Hogan. Ironically, a low point in Vaziri’s life also become an eventual high point in the wrestling industry.

Cruising around late one night with Hacksaw Jim Duggan, Vaziri and Duggan get pulled over. The first problem is an eventual DWI charge. The second is that, as a heel, Iron Sheik should not be seen consorting with a baby face wrestler, or, a good guy. The questions that arose the next day in a number of papers was whether professional wrestling was all a ruse

In the long run, this worked out perfectly for the then-WWF who were able to get more ridiculous with storylines while embracing that people knew they were coming to see a soap opera, not necessarily real life played out on stage.

Ivory Tower is a documentary that exposes the perils of investing so much money in higher education. At that same time, it fosters credence in the faulty belief that everyone should attend college. There are moments within that offer alternative arteries to education. One is at an isolated “college” in an agrarian setting in California. The other is through an education-driven coop led by Peter Thiel, the founder of PayPal.

Of course, there are also references to Mark Zuckerberg, who famously dropped out of Harvard and became, well, Mark Zuckerberg. However, these success stories are often mentioned in passing, and the lament throughout the film is that students leave college buried in much more debt than they will be able to pay off. While true, the film makes student debt look mandatory and its nefariousness is often amplified by placing it next to the earned salaries of the presidents of Ivy League schools, or, most specifically, Jamshed Barucha, whose salary is near $750,000. As president of New York City’s Cooper Union – a school that up until a few years ago was free to all students that were accepted – he earns almost as much as Drew G. Faust, Harvard University’s president.

While few complain about Faust’s salary because, one, it’s Harvard, two, the annual tuition is over $60k, and three, it’s Harvard, Barucha’s earnings are heavily scrutinized because the Cooper Union found itself in deep debt and was forced to charge its students tuition for the first time in its 100-plus-year history. Despite a student occupation of the President’s office, and a blatant protest at commencement, Cooper Union maintained the tuition requirements, Barucha still hold the position of president, and Cooper Union continues to rile in debt.

However, the largest misunderstanding here is that everyone should be admitted to college.

At one point, there is a frightening statistic that 65% of students fail to graduate in four years. The next statistic declares that 44% fail to graduate in six years. The fact that the first stat might be skewed on account of students double majoring or switching majors is not really accounted for, but neither is the standard belief that the students should have actually been there in the first place.

There is a utopic view of college creating the illusion that admission to college = a degree, and subsequently that a degree = a job. To tackle the for equation, the endemic expectation that student move from elementary school to high school to college sets up the belief that college is the next and necessary logical step. However, in recent years, it’s been shown that the average high school graduate leaves with a less-than-3.0 GPA (source). Given the wonkiness and inconsistency of high school curriculums, and the tendency for seniors to take easier courses as they approach graduation, this GPA is rather frightening and hardly prepares students for the assumed rigors of college curriculums.

Doubly complicating a student’s entry into college is the financial burden assumed once they enter the doors. The trite cliché is that you get what you pay for. However, this is inappropriately applied to a college education. There is no guarantee that the sometimes-massive tuition bill you rack up will result in the assumed education or in success. Thus, the assumption that one should go to college sets the expectation that the debt accrued automatically results in the degree desired.

This is further murkied by linking the college life with social activity and the notion that part of college is experiencing life.  This is most blatant when the list(s) of top party schools in the country is release through numerous platforms (source, source, source). While the connection between social life and college is apparent, the published overvaluing of social interaction skews the reason to attend college and can also be factored into the success rate of students in college. Ivory Tower discusses this somewhat false advertisement, but does not investigate the student’s wonky desire to attend college as much as it blames the university for advertising itself as such.

Ultimately, these complications also create a speed bump for those who believe that a degree = the ideal job. While this isn’t unattainable and impossible, it’s idealistic and problematized by colleges flooding the job market with experts that are not. In part, this stems from the difficulty for an educator to fail a student. As a former professor, I can speak to this. It’s not that I feel more of my students should have repeated the course, but it’s not easy to convince them – or upper administration. Colleges and universities are a businesses and without students, they have no consumers. Without student retention, funding is impacted. When one honestly feels that a student needs to repeat a course in order to truly grasp the material beyond the low threshold of 59.9% understanding, there are often meetings with department chairs to prove – most helpfully in writing with Excel spreadsheets and work samples – why the student, whose parents (if not him or herself), are paying a hefty price just to get three additional credits to move closer to graduation will need to pay more money and delay their graduation just to make up this class.

To Ivory Tower’s brief point, this might be why so many of the popular educators on Rate My Professor are emphasized on account of their easiness.

All in all, Ivory Tower offers a valiant fight for the future of our children and the potentially crippling debt that they might incur. However, the multiple issue surrounding education in the United States are too convoluted to summarize, much less remedy, in a 90 minute film. Unfortunately, this compression of concerns casts all of the blame on universities and almost sides with the students who honestly believe that admission to college is a byway for the educations process.

First and foremost, Blackfish, the 2013 documentary from  Gabriela Cowperthwaite, makes me regret visiting Sea World when I was nine years old.

More importantly as a documentary, Blackfish exposes a large tourist attraction as little more than a shady zoo for aquatic life and humans alike. Orca whales are the main attraction in both the documentary Sea World. In particular, Blackfish focuses on the 12,000 pound orca, Tilikum. A larger than life whale with sperm worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, Tilikum was captured in 1982 as a calf and brought to Sea World to grow alongside the audience looking to watch whales perform and get splashed in the process.

Tilikum is also the central figure in the February 2010 death of trainer Dawn Brancheau. Tragically, Brancheau was dragged underwater and drowned during a show. Subsequently, her death set off investigations by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) into the safety of trainers at Sea World. In 2012, a judge ruled that trainers were not permitted to be in the water with orcas during shows, although Sea World has appealed this ruling.

In addition to Brancheau’s tragic death is the shameful that Sea World has responded to it, placing the blame on Brancheau for having her ponytail too long. Unfortunately, this is  microcosm of the ignorance with which Blackfish indicts Sea World. According to the film and  handful of former trainers who are interviewed throughout, the trainers have no formal training in any sort of marine-biology discipline. Rather, they are skilled as trainers, but not in aquatic life. The testaments about the aquatic creatures’ long, healthy lives in captivity are inaccurate. While the company line is that whales in the wild live to about twenty five years old, this totem of fiction is debunked when it’s revealed that free whales often live to seventy-five or one-hundred years old. More disturbingly, the trainers’ lack of knowledge allows them to believe that when orcas aggressively lunge or nip at their trainers it is just an occupational hazard, as opposed to a symptom of deeper problems with the whales being held in captivity.

Blackfish goes beyond creating a narrative about evil humans and benevolent whales. Rather, they depict the whales as aggressive creatures belonging in the wild. The viral video of three orcas methodically forcing a seal from a sheet of ice so that they can eat it for lunch is featured in its entirety. At the same time, the orca is illustrated as close to human, with a heightened sense of emotions, intelligence, and reasoning that rivals those of its human captors. More than just illustrating that the orca has feelings, Blackfish demonstrates how orcas focus on family, with the offspring never leaving their mothers throughout their lives. No more is this painfully shown than when the calves are taken from their mothers during an expedition to capture young orcas in Puget Sound, or when Sea World management decides to separate the mother and calf. In these scenes, the grief is palpable, and the fishermen and managements’ reactions become inhuman.

And it’s with this exposition of events in Puget Sound that Blackfish limns the entire process as a veritable slave trade, where the captor poaches the young and strong, keeps them in “20’ x 30’ dark modules,” “where they spend 2/3 of their lives.” In tandem, the trainers become indoctrinated with the fictions that captivity is better for the whales and that the “70+ killer whale / trainer accidents” is just an unfortunate occupational hazard.

Blackfishis necessary, not just for those who follow PETA, denounce the wearing of fur, or prefer Birkenstocks and canvas belts. Blackfish is an expose on the relationship between corporations and their employees, a fine look at how we gauge humanity.

After Tiller is nearly as difficult to watch as it is to write about. This 2013 documentary begins with the assassination of Dr. George Tiller, one of only four known doctors who would legally perform third-trimester abortions. Tiller, whose office has previously been the target of bombings, has previously been shot in the arm, and was ultimately shot and killed in his church.

It’s impossible to say that the film is not situation on one specific side of the Roe v. Wade argument. It is clearly pro-choice, but the ultimate goal of the film is to explain that late-term abortions are not commonplace procedures — they “account for fewer than 1% of all abortions in the United States” – but that they are also last resorts.

After Tiller’s death, there are only three known doctors in the country who will legally perform late-term abortions. Each of these doctors is interviewed and follows as they encounter various patients and scenarios that might lead to the decision to perform a late-term abortion. At times it is difficult to agree with each decision – whether on it is the patients’ or the doctors’, but the film does it’s best to explain why the doctor will or won’t provide the procedure.

The most popularized information in the documentary centers on the belief that procedures will only be performed if the child’s or the mother’s life is in danger. Exceptions are also made if the children will be born “with horrific fetal abnormalities,” like total paralysis or completely undeveloped brains.

It is not my intent to offer an analysis of what constitutes quality of life; nor is will I debate the Nebraska Abortion Law that prohibits late-term abortions on the grounds that there is “substantial evidence that an unborn child has the physical structures necessary to experience pain.” This is a job best suited for the film.

My concern with the film is the existence of an issue that is too easily glossed over. At one point, a pregnant women who has decided to abort her fetus because it will have serious physical abnormalities asks what she should tell people when she returns from the clinic, as she was pregnant when she visited the doctor and she won’t be when she gets back home.

The doctor advises that the patient tells her family “the baby was sick; the baby didn’t make it.” All in all, this is the truth, and it’s a way for the patient to avoid lying to her family. At the same time, it’s a lie of omission and it is such because of the stigma attached to late-term abortions. Often, the procedure is depicted as a capricious one, one chosen out of fear, laziness, or irresponsibility. I won’t attempt to convince you otherwise, but I will suggest that burying the event in ambiguous language only makes it more nefarious. In this country, many rapes go unreported because the woman feels ashamed or feels that she will be dejected if she confesses to be a victim. Often, the onus of the blame ends up on her shoulders. The same can be said for the way in which late-term abortion – or abortion in general – is discussed. The woman – because it is her body – is riddled with the responsibilities, and, in turn, if she elects to have a late-term abortion, she is responsible for the fetus’ demise – regardless of the reasons for her choices. Perhaps they are irresponsible, though the film suggest a number of times that these procedures are not done willy-nilly. Perhaps the reasons are to prevent a child from growing up in a near catatonic state or in a world with no quality of life. Most of us will never know, but it is, in part, because we saddle someone else with the responsibility to choose and then refuse to hear about their actions or the factors that impelled them.

The new documentary Roman Polanski: A Film Memoir, which is available on iTunes, Xbox, Sony, Google, Amazon, and YouTube is a curious addition to the celebrated fugitive’s genre of his own creation. In 2009, Polanski was arrested in Zurich on a decades-old warrant from 1978 stemming from a charge of raping a thirteen-year old girl in 1977. Living in exile in Paris for over three decades, Polanski had not entered the United States since fleeing the country to avoid jail time in the late 1970’s.

As the first Polanski documentary, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired posits, Polanski was the victim of judicial misjustice, namely that for his crimes, probation was recommended, but he wasn’t viewed as a further threat to society, and he was “not required to serve any additional time” beyond the time he spent to undergo a psychological evaluation in prison.

However, as told in both documentaries, Judge Laurence Rittenband changed his mind and would sentence Polanski to prison unless he “agreed to deport [himself].” So, Polanski did what anyone faced with the option of jail or freedom did. He fled.

Because of this, he becomes a polarizing figure throughout both the film industry and the world at large. From his perspective, his “perception…varies depending on the side of the globe,” and even Samantha Geimer, the young girl he raped in 1977, has stood up in support of Polanski and against the judge and the media for the way she has been treated over the past thirty years.

This is all old news though.

So, my question about the current documentary, which is really more of an interview between Polanski’s friend and colleague Andrew Braunsberg, is why now? For the most part, the feeling is that this film is simply trying to minimize Polanski’s rape conviction by making it a minor moment in his life that has unfortunately defined the director for the better part of the last thirty years. Prior to 1977, Polanski has been nominated for two Oscars, had been famous throughout Europe and broke into the United States consciousness with Chinatown. Since this time, his name is associated first with rape, second with the murder of his wife Sharon Tate, who infamously died at the hands of Charles Manson’s family, and third with anything he’s done in Hollywood, including winning Best Director for The Pianist, an award that he was unable to accept because he would have been arrested as soon as he deplaned.

In truth, the film makes every attempt to humanize him, relaying to us his youth in Nazi-occupied Poland, his life in a concentration camp, and his mother’s jettisoning to the gas chamber. There is no denying that these, as well as his wife’s murder, are horrific moments that would not be wished on anyone, but these moments are also designed to overshadow, and it seems absolve Polanski, of his misdeeds in 1977. My intent here is not to vilify the man, demand that he serve his time, or demand that the charges be officially dropped – though they pretty much have given that Switzerland refuses to extradite Polanski, and he always has a home in France. The issue has been covered, covered again, and distorted so many times that it’s difficult to discern the truth from revisionist history and perhaps even some ennui.

Regardless, Polanski is defined by the success of Chinatown and Tess as much as he is defined by Tate’s death, his Oscar win, and encounter with Geimer. Each documentary will remind us of these moments, but will most likely be unable to erase any of them from consciousness.

While often amusing, it’s unclear what AJ Schnack’s new documentary Caucus does except reaffirm the silliness of American politics. As the documentary begins, we’re informed that “Since 1972, Iowa voters are the first to take part in the voting process.” From the media blitz that accompanies the Iowa Caucus each election season, it might seem that fate is written in this central state, but as we hear Iowans declare that they’ll start paying attention after the contingent of politicians has whittled itself down to two candidates and learn that only about 16,000 people vote in the straw poll, we realize that it’s only meaningful in the celebritization of potential government officials, and the media are the ones who decide who’s popular and who’s not.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who has watched politics on television over the last twenty or so years – we could stretch this influence all the way back to the Nixon-Kennedy debates as well – but with the wealth of media outlets today, it’s easier to see just how inconsequential yet influential the Iowa Caucus really is.

What I mean to suggest is this: Michelle Bachmann “emerged as something like a rockstar on the right,” but this didn’t carry her very far in the race for the nomination. While she beat out Santorum in Iowa, a candidate who finished dead last in the state after the straw poll vote, she bowed out of the race well before he did in his head to head battle with eventual candidate Mitt Romney. However, Bachmann’s popularity soared on the basis of her initial win – as did Herman Cain’s before the handful of sexual harassment claims came to light.

The common denominator between these two candidates is the spectacle that they provide. As Bachmann promises air conditioning, food, and Randy Travis, Cain releases his baritone signing voice on the audience to a round of cheers. All of this only suggests that issues are secondary or tertiary to pandering to the crowd. Therefore, at play in Caucus, is a look at how little is actually said about politics aside from convenient sound bytes about defeating Barack Obama and being a real American. This is certainly apparent in the depictions of Bachmann and Cain, but is also apparent in the scenes dedicated to Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. While anyone who watched the Obama-Romney debates knows that not much was said on either side – and when it was, it was generally off topic – it’s frightening that people who say so little progress so far in a political race.

The most fascinating part of Caucus is the look at Rick Santorum. Politics aside, it’s clear that Santorum had the most relevant talking points, but the least crowd appeal leading up to the straw poll. While Bachmann has a luxury bus and speaks to auditoriums and tents filled with people – as do Cain, Romney, Gingrich, and Perry – Santorum is relegated to speaking – ironically – in chain restaurants like Godfather’s Pizza. 

The lead up to the straw poll sets the stage for Santorum’s unlikely underdog victory in the actual Iowa caucuses. This victory at the same time shows that diligent campaigning through every Iowan county can draw attention to issues that matter. However, there is still a political disconnect between the results of the most famed caucus and the eventual winner of a party’s nomination or a presidential bid.

Caucus also, for a moment or two, pulls back the political curtain to show the candidates – at one point or another – acting as humans, not performers. Everything they say throughout Caucus is not fodder and bits for headlines, just what they say to mass crowds of voters.

Directed by Bill Siegel (The Weather Underground), The Trials of Muhammad Ali is a brief film that plays more like a precis of Ali’s life than a profound look at the transformative people’s champion. This is not to say that the film isn’t worthy of a watch. But, it is to suggest that the film does more to inspire further research into Ali’s life than it does to inform the audience.

Jumping from one moment to another, Trials doesn’t spend enough time on the chaotic era through which Ali struggled. Instead, we hear that he wins gold as Clay, denounce his slave name, Clay, and joins up with Malcolm X and Elija Muhammad. Within a frame, X parts ways with Muhammad – X’s brief explanation that Muhammad’s senility becomes a summary of his rationale – and Ali parts ways with X. Shortly thereafter, we learn that Malcolm X was assassinated.

While the film is not about the political strife and chaos in the Black Muslim organization, this tumult plays a large part in the development of Ali; however, this development is little seen as the film speeds to Ali’s refusal to fight in the Vietnam War and ultimately his literal trial in the Supreme Court.

Amidst the speed-of-light retelling of Ali’s life, there are moments that deserve to be highlighted much more than they are. In particular, his reason for refusing to fight in Vietnam: “I can’t go over there and shoot them people and come back home and be a nigger.” It is in this line that the true power of Ali rests. As the champion of the world, he was a target because of his race and stature, but he was also privileged to be in close proximity to a microphone, a freedom of speech unfelt by many African Americans. In other words, he was a voice, and he was – at various times – detested because he had a voice.

He was at once a symbol of peace – proclaiming that no true Muslim would carry a weapon – in a decade of war, but also a symbol of power, both in his physical stature and his ability to reach the minority masses.

Something else that’s missing from this film is the connection between the United States’ draft (a nice euphemism for conscription) and indentured servitude (a nice euphemism for slavery). While the two are not identical, they are similar when looking at the processes and procedures in the 1960’s. A few hundred years removed from the first glimpses of slavery, Ali provides the power and the means to fight back. In truth, his struggle contemporizes the racial discourse.

While the documentary ends with poignancy, asserting that Ali was / is an ever-evolving man, it moves so rapidly through the phases of Ali’s life that it’s often difficult to digest his importance. His shaking hands that held the 1996 Olympic torch in Atlanta was not just a symbol of strength and dedication because of his affliction with Parkinson’s. It was a symbol of the struggles that he went through as a young fighter. His silence on that stage was an ironic testament to the man that still exists behind the mostly muted tongue.

Ali deserves far more than 90 minutes of film. With any luck, the many silenced reels that are dispersed on a cutting room floor will one day be unleashed.

South Park’s first episode of season fifteen is titled HumanCentiPad. Riffing on both the recent release of the snuffy, visceral film Human Centipad and consumers’ willingness to get shat on, South Park centers Kyle’s stomach-churning fate on our general refusal to read the terms and conditions that we nearly automatically agree to with the simple click of a digital check box.

I’m not above this practice, and I’m fully aware that convenience and my need for rapid gratification impels me to cursorily skim the contents of an agreement, noting what I assume to be okay and avoiding anything that could be perceived as negative just so I can get that day’s crossword puzzle from the New York Times.

The gist of this episode, as most South Park episodes do, is to point out the extremes of an issue and point out that there are choices. Namely, there’s a choice to click and a choice not to. There’s a choice to read the terms and a choice not to. But what we’re really getting down to is: if you choose not to read the terms and conditions, then you don’t get to bitch about them.

The new documentary Terms and Conditions May Apply is the latest entry into the discourse of secrecy and privacy. Coincidentally released just a few weeks after Edward Snowden’s existence was made evident to most anyone with Internet access, Terms and Conditions posits that checking these boxes that assert “I agree” has allowed the government to spy on us, track our information, and use it for their own gain without our knowledge, until now.

The basic thesis of the film is hard to argue with. The government does keep an eye on us, and this should not be a novel revelation to anyone who paid attention to the last few terms of both George W. Bush and Barak Obama. September 11^th created a justification – rightly or wrongly – to ramp up national security. And, like the fear that Communists were trying to bring down this country or the fear of Nazi infiltration, wiretaps, selective searches, and eavesdropping exist in a fluctuating gray area of legality.

The doc’s position that we “get comfortable with the default” of systems is a reasonable one with which to agree. We are creatures of convenience. We want our apps when we want them. We want our angry birds. We want our streaming video. But this position breeds and irony. If we are so programmed to choose the default of convenience, perhaps we deserve to be monitored and sheltered. Now, the previous was not a ringing endorsement of wiretapping and its ilk, but Terms and Conditions bases most of its drama on the notion that Facebook, Google, Verizon, et. al. are in the wrong because they don’t make it easy for us to read the conditions they set forth.

One statistic offered is that we would each spend over 100 hours per year reading the terms and conditions that we agree to. Yet, I’m not sure that the companies for which we check these boxes can be blamed for this. In a society so prone to lawsuits that chain restaurants must post caloric content on their menus to avoid consumers filing suit in the future, can these social media companies be blamed for putting everything on the table before the consumer checks a box?

Yes, it is truly disconcerting that Facebook, Google, et. al. have changed their terms of service a number of times, and each of them has a variation on the following line: “By agreeing to our terms of service, you allow [company] to use your information to investigate or prevent illegal activities.” This certainly feels like something out of Minority Report. However, could you imagine the number of lawsuits that would be filed if a few parties were using Facebook to enact a plan of destruction and Facebook had to plead ignorance?

And yes, it is strange that Google finishes my sentences before I type anything into a search bar, but we are in the most capitalistic country in the world. Google exists to generate ads and make sales. That is what makes it – and Facebook – so valuable. Free social arenas are the kitchens of friends. They are park benches – so long as you didn’t have to pay for parking, I suppose.

Facebook and Google are optional. Yes, they make life convenient, and they prevent us from wasting nanoseconds that we could use playing Farmville – or at least annoying friends into playing Farmville – but in the end of the day, they are voluntarily used services.

In the end, it’s not that Terms and Conditions May Apply doesn’t provide necessary and valuable information. The flaw in the film is that they present the information ominously as if we’ve been trapped. We haven’t been trapped. We’ve volunteered for this. We can’t want to be omnipresent and not sacrifice privacy.

Since 2009, an anti-homosexuality bill has made its way back and forth in the courts of Uganda. This bill threatens people in same-sex relationships with life imprisonment and threatens those who might know a homosexual with their own three-year imprisonment if they refuse to turn in said homosexual. In the original bill brought the Ugandan parliament, a death sentence was also imposed on any “aggressive homosexual,” terminology that is ever-so wrought with confusion and vagueness.

In 2013, the bill and continues to bounce back and forth. Supported by over 85% of the public, whose devout Christianity certainly plays a part, each new year brings the threat of its passing. As for now, pressure from the world outside of Uganda plays a huge part in the bill’s oppression. This is not to say that the rest of the world is openly condoning homosexuality. The divide in our own country (though winnowing) shows that this issue is not one that has been quickly accepted. However, it does  assert that much of the rest of the world – at least a majority of the UN – see Uganda’s draconian measures to suffocate homosexuality as an abject violation of human rights.

Call Me Kuchu is a documentary set in Uganda in 2010, in the heart of the battle over the anti-homosexuality bill. David Kato, a man whose murder in 2011 brought the most global attention to the issues in Uganda, is the central figure of the film. Along with a handful of other Ugandans, they form an activist group in hopes that the bill will be dismissed, tolerance will grow, and homosexuals will be encouraged to come out of the closet and live without shame and fear.

Kato’s courage is admirable and the treatment of homosexuals is disgusting, but to the film’s credit – despite his death and the abhorrent public reaction to his funeral – Call Me Kuchu perseveres, offering positives to offset the negatives, showcasing courage in the face of hatred, and promise despite the large majority of Ugandans who despise homosexuality.

Certainly, the documentary supports human rights, and for that it is applauded. At the same time, it digs deeper than just the discourse over homosexuality. In this country shows like Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and Will and Grace indoctrinated us with the existence of different life styles and choices, so, while the treatment the Ugandans believe is absolutely shameful and near foreign, these weren’t the most stomach-churning moments of the film. Those belonged to the irresponsible media, for which “hate mongers” would be the more appropriate term.

On October 2^nd, the Ugandan tabloid Rolling Stone, which has absolutely no connection to the American publication of the same name, published —  for its circulation of 3,000 readers – David Kato and another man on its cover, with the words “Hang Them” placed above, and the headline “100 Pictures of Uganda’s Tom Homos Leak.”

For much of the film, Rollings Stone’s managing editor, Gilles Muhame is interviewed about the published photos and the instructional epithet. And each moment he is on film, he morphs closer into a cartoonish villain than anything real. Alternately leaning back in his chair and energetically answering to the camera, he gesticulates to the paper with the wicked headline and advertisement, all the while defending his actions by suggesting that “Hang them” was an excerpt of a quote taken from priests condemning homosexuality from the lectern. To make his feelings toward homosexuals known, he notes that they should be hung, but after due process. In other words, they should be arrested, tried, and then hung.

In truth, Muhame is the nefarious intersection between media and religion. His self-proclaimed righteousness is amplified by his ability to disseminate information through print. Perhaps his intent wasn’t truly to have Kato and other homosexuals attacked or killed. But his publication allows for those to channel anger onto a face, a published persona, one that has little recourse because his or her lifestyle is attacked from all sides.

What’s most eerie is that, through this film, we are now privy to cultural stigmas held by our own country only a few decades ago, when AIDS was known as GRIDS or the “gay plague.” While hanging wasn’t decreed upon the gay population, they were the stigmatized ground zero that was infecting people around them. They were the personified disease.

Now our cultural righteousness has lessened – certainly not dissipated mind you, but lessened, and it’s our time to educate.

Hating Breitbart is a documentary aimed at debunking some of the stigmas that surround the Tea Party, a distributed proclamation that the old wave of media has become so partisan that it is inherently biased, and, most of all, a solid mass of irony.

As the newest political group attempting to become a legitimate third party pugilist in the war zone that is American politics, the Tea Party has been labeled racist, ignorant, and predominately white. The truth in these proscriptions is up for debate, just like any stereotypes affiliated with the asses and elephants that have occupied the Congress and the White House for the better part of our existence. But, debating the merits of any of these parties is not my intent here. And, full disclosure, it took three attempts to get past the opening credits of Haiting Breitbart, fearing that I was in for a two hour propaganda film about the merits of the Tea Party. Mostly ambivalent over politics in the last two elections, I had a hard time fighting the urge to simply toss the screener out the window, but then I feared it would fall into the hands of an impressionable youth still brimming with the eagerness for change and the belief in bipartisan politics.

Instead, I watched, and found that – while it certainly endorses the Tea Party movement – is not necessarily a public service announcement. In truth, the documentary tackles a blight in this country that has been caused by the conglomerates of media outlets that include CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, et. al. This is not to say that everything on the news in a sham, but this film aptly asserts that most things are sensationalized, edited, and shaped to create controversy. The statement “Breaking News” has little value other than to – most often – heighten paranoia and keep people leaning either left or right in the political spectrum.

Hating Breitbart also illuminates the wonky definitions we now have for journalism and ethical news reporting. Much of this discourse is fostered through the political scandals rife in the now-disbanded ACORN, a former coalition of community organizers that worked with low-income communities. In 2009, a man and a woman, representing themselves as a pimp and his prostitute, approached ACORN in order to find funding for a house they intended to use as a brothel. On hidden camera, they pled their cases to a number of workers at a number of ACORN locations, and were subsequently given advice on taxes, how to conceal their illicit activities, and the like.

As the documentary depicts, much of this was swept under the rug because it came from a form of deceptive journalism. Another reason was that its existence was then disseminated by Breitbart, owner of Breitbart.tv, BigGovernment.com, and Big Journalism.com. And while the Columbia Journalism Review doesn’t find the ACORN video journalism, this film forces us to ask what is, and where the line between deception and reporting is drawn.

Certainly Breitbart’s team had an agenda, one to expose ACORN as corrupt. However, this was not a novel concept; in the past ACORN had been caught in embezzlement and voter fraud scandals.

But, it’s difficult to deny that mainstream news outlets lack an agenda. Videos are cut and edited to depicts what is intended, not necessarily the whole truth. As examples we could look at the Shirley Sherrod scandal or the Reverend Jeremiah Wright debacle prior to the 2008 election. Both were caught saying some rather racist things, but these few minutes taken without the context of the entire videos are misleading…but perfect for media fodder and voter ire. For a more recent reference, just look at the Romney’s poll numbers after he was caught on camera declaring that 47% of the American public “are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims. … These are people who pay no income tax. … and so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

This too was caught on hidden camera and was disseminated to all of the major news networks, no?

That said, the downside of Hating Breitbart comes when it attempts to castigate mainstream media by acting like mainstream media. Breitbart, noting that he has only two modes “jocularity” and “righteous indignation” is no calmer than an MSNBC of Fox News demagogue, and the clever cutting throughout the film – at one point using a photo of President Obama standing with John Podesta, whom Breitabart calls an “an enemy” and “mortal nemesis,” – is eerily reminiscent to the sly excerpts and cunning editing jobs that Breitbart and his crew rail against.

Tossed about are quotes from Thomas Jefferson and Malcolm X – in an attempt to further show that the Tea Party is not racist – that highlight the potential nefariousness of media, but the documentary itself is often a weapon divined by that same mainstream media.