‘Predators’ Oscar nominee reveals impact of ‘To Catch a Predator’

MTV Documentary Films has become a major player in Oscar competition, earning nominations for non-fiction feature films. Black box logs, Eternal memory, Ascent and the shorts I’m ready, director; Hunger roomAnd St. Louis Superman.

Although the future of MTV’s documentary division must be considered uncertain given the acquisition of Paramount by Skydance Media (which includes MTV, of course), it is fighting again this year with an explosive feature-length documentary: Predatorsdirected by David Osit.

The film, which premiered last January at Sundance, offers a critical examination of a show that has become a television staple: To catch a predatorbroadcast under the banner of NBC Data line news magazine. The show’s producers teamed up with a self-proclaimed surveillance group called Perverted Justice to set up sting operations that trapped men trying to hook up with what they thought were underage girls or boys (the actors were cast as online bait for potential predators). After a mark showed up at a home and began having a flirty conversation with the alleged minor child, To catch a predator host Chris Hansen appeared from behind the scenes to question the alleged culprit.

Hansen usually began with, “Just sit over there,” conveniently guiding the alleged predator to a chair with a perfect view of him. Data line cameras. (Our interview with David Osit has been edited for length and clarity).

DEADLINE: I attended the world premiere of the film at Sundance at the Ray Theater and it was a very powerful screening. I think the audience was sort of stunned and silenced. How did this premiere go for you?

David Osit: It was an out of body experience at the Ray. The Ray is like the darkest theater you’ve ever been to. No light enters it, which is ironic and appropriate for a film like this. It’s so big and it’s like a Colosseum and just looking up and seeing so many people who had no idea what was in store for them, it was just a thought that I couldn’t stop thinking while I was watching. And I could just feel the energy of everyone behind me. I was truly grateful for the response we ultimately got, but those screenings were some of the most confusing and rewarding moments of my career.

DEADLINE: Do you remember roughly how old you were when you started watching To catch a predator?

DO: I was in my second year of university, which would make me 19 years old. And I watched it, a lot of people did at that time, with a lot of fascination, with a lot of laughter, and with a little bit of disgust and loathing, both at what was happening and at what you feel when you watch it. But the original show was appointment viewing, it was the era of Must See TV.

He did something nothing had ever done before, which was to create entertainment through a combination of law enforcement and journalism working together. And it was entertainment, but it never became pure entertainment. It’s always been sort of surrounded by the aura of journalism, and that’s of course how they’ve been able to do all the gray area things that they’ve done in terms of revealing people’s identities. And that’s what gives the series its shock value, is the fact that we’re watching someone’s life and on TV, right after an episode of Friends.

Less than 20 episodes of the series were broadcast over three years and we are still talking about it 20 years later. Few things have had such an impact – perhaps Rootsit was perhaps the only thing I could think of that also had this kind of generational impact, but in a very different context.

DEADLINE: One can imagine that NBC is very interested in the ratings and yet they want to hide them in this journalistic, quasi-law enforcement enterprise, “We’re taking the bad guys off the streets,” but at the same time they don’t want to be held to a legal standard.

DO: It was ultimately in the same vein as something like Unsolved mysteries Or 911 Rescue more than current, but it could be hidden behind the first amendment.

DEADLINE: Chris Hansen as host is interesting because he’s not loud, but he’s convincing. Part of what I found fascinating about the film is the rhetorical device it uses carefully, and for legal reasons, I suppose, it creates these “trap” moments. Because of social conventions, because of social pressure, people feel obligated to say, “Oh my God, I have to stay and submit to this interrogation.” »

DO: The last words out of his mouth are usually: “You’re free to go”… The first things out of his mouth are: “Help me understand. Tell me why you’re here. I just want to know.” It’s an invitation to share something that’s no longer private, it’s no longer just something ugly in these men’s closets. And the majority of these men feel a deep sense of embarrassment because somewhere inside they can see themselves from the outside and realize that they’ve been caught doing something horrible and they realize it. And that’s where the pain comes in and that’s where the audience enjoyment comes in.

DEADLINE: These suspects, these alleged predators, are not being read their rights. And so they don’t realize, apparently many of them, that anything they say can and will be used in court against them.

DO: They are not read their rights while Chris questions them. And the problem is that these men are eventually arrested and the police make them aware of their rights, but not before. In many cases they’ve had a confession, a sort of coerced interrogation, which allows the cameras to come out and then be told you’re being broadcast around the world.

These men don’t know what’s going to happen, they don’t know who Chris Hansen is. They don’t know if he’s a father, if he’s an FBI agent, if he’s a neighbor. I think the last question they usually ask at this point is: Is he a journalist? But in many cases, he then works with law enforcement. This is never said openly.

This movie isn’t about whether it’s wrong to catch child predators. I’m certainly not defending child predators. I would never do it. That’s not the point. The fact is that this gray area has slowly, slowly, slowly moved to the point where how we’re going to treat these men and what’s going to happen to them is tied to how much it entertains us.

DEADLINE: One troubling aspect of the series is the issue of entrapment. It’s one thing for law enforcement to do it… but that doesn’t mean law enforcement is putting out a lure at the end of a line. It is a journalistic entity. So these things wouldn’t have happened the same way without NBC putting it all together.

DO: It’s a remarkable fusion of many different things. There’s NBC, which is a company, a journalism company that works under the direction of the producers and Chris Hansen who wants to do some of these investigations. And then there are the people who were doing the work when the show aired, which was a vigilante group called Perverted Justice, an independent nonprofit organization that was hired by NBC to do these things, to talk to the men online. All this was extrajudicial, all this took place outside the scope of the law. And these discussions would take place, the discussion [logs] were then handed over to the police, and the police, their role was essentially: “Let’s wait outside for the guys to arrive.” So there was a three-headed dragon doing this.

Not every party is necessarily doing something wrong. Law enforcement is there to detect a crime, a crime that is happening. Journalists are there to report on crime, which is a crime that is happening. And the vigilantes — let’s not call them vigilantes for the sake of this conversation, there’s a lot of judgment about the word vigilante — but the type of independent watchdog group made up of civilians does this work because they have a vested interest in keeping society safe and the police are not equipped to do that kind of work right now. [back] in 2005, 2004. So overall it creates a dynamic that is it bad to catch child predators? No, I wouldn’t dispute that. But what happens when a show’s ratings, when there are cultural incentives, when there are spinoffs that go in the direction of what To catch a predator That was when it was just about creating a product, selling it, and that’s what happened.

DEADLINE: Chris Hansen now hosts Getting Down with Chris Hansena show streamed on the TrueBlu platform where he investigates and interviews alleged predators. You interviewed him for your film. How was it?

DO: I felt midway through the interview that I had to resist the urge to be pedantic or pull traps for Chris because I had spent an entire movie, in my case, trying to be fair to everyone I was talking to and being curious about where everyone was coming from. That was the rule for me. I couldn’t make this movie if I tried to look down on everyone I was filming. I was really curious about where people came from, why they did what they did, why they felt the way they felt. And if I wasn’t going to do that with Chris, then I became Chris.

DEADLINE: I’m curious about Chris Hansen’s reaction to the film.

DO: Chris watched the film before Sundance and loved it. He thought it was – the word he used was “brave” – and he had questions and thoughts and things he didn’t agree with. But I think he ultimately thought it was right, which is the biggest compliment I can get from anyone. If someone who appears in my film says, “That’s right,” that’s high praise as far as I’m concerned.