Weekly Wrap: Primetime and The History of Concrete

In Our Time is a world-class seminar every week. Why was Jeremy a lonely snail? What were lines doing in York in the third century? I'm Misha Glenny and every week I'm joined by expert guests to explore the ideas that shape our world. It's one of the first times really that you consistently see someone painting teeth. I know that sounds bonkers. If I was going to define mathematics, I would say it's the study of structure. In Our Time. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello to all of you. Hello, hello. Hello. It's nice to see you. Let's set the mood, shall we? Let's set the mood by starting with this trailer. Have a listen to this. Who are you? You should have a seat right there. I'm Chris Hansen with Dateline NBC and we're doing a story on adults who try to mute teens online. You see how this looks, right? I don't really like your shirt. I don't really like your show. But America loves it. So I need to move you to Catch a Predator. 9 p.m. Primetime. Okay, that is a bit of the trailer for the new movie Primetime. Robert Pattinson is playing the TV host and journalist Chris Hansen here from the show To Catch a Predator. Jackson, very briefly, what should people know about this movie? I mean, if you weren't around, I guess, in the world, there was a show in the 2000s called, or a program series in the 2000s called To Catch a Predator. Chris Hansen would get his team to go online. He would go online, pose as children. Men would say they want to meet up. The men would show up at that house. And then Chris Hansen would walk out of a bathroom or a closet and say, what are you doing here? Cops would swoop in. That person would get arrested. This is a movie about that show and a very particular thing that happened. And if you know, you know. And if you don't know, you can find out from the movie. The movie itself is less a true story than it is. This is what I kind of want to say about what this show, this show did to our brains. Yeah, I think that's right. I think that specific idea of, okay, we are in a moment where we can look back at the existence of a show and talk about the ways that it created a new kind of expectation from culture. And I want to get into that in a moment. But Roxana, I really appreciated the way that Jackson just cast it. He said, if you weren't around in the world. Yeah. Which is another way of saying, if you were young, you know, if you were young at the time when this show happened, To Catch a Predator, hosted by Chris Hansen, it was a. basically a part of the NBC show Dateline. So like a part of Dateline that, you know, every once in a while they do a To Catch a Predator episode. And America would go, we're locked in. Let's do this. You watched the series when it aired. Do you want to talk about like why it was such a big deal? Yeah. I mean, I think we were at a point in culture where like Cops was on. We had this weird fascination with when teenage girls were turning 18. Like we had like countdown meters for the Olsen twins. It was like sort of a rancid cultural. And I think it allowed for something like To Catch a Predator because like this grew out of a concern for what are your children doing online? And the segment started with Chris Hansen being like, there are threats on the web that you are unaware of as a parent and I'm going to explain them to you, like make the threats real for you. So it sort of started, I think, from this place of like, everyone has this concern and we as a news magazine are going to have to deal with it. And then it really grew into sort of like a voyeuristic thing that I think we were used to getting used to in the time in television culture. And what the movie does, which is very interesting, is it sort of links it to the period of like the invasion of Iraq, the invasion of Afghanistan. What were we doing culturally that made us like want to watch bad people get punished? And so I think like when I think about that time, I do remember a lot of that. Like the immediate thrill of watching someone get punished was very much part of the show and how popular it was. I do think that like there is a lot to mine from that cultural moment. There's a lot to mine from that cultural moment in general. To Catch a Predator's popularity specifically, obviously a lot to mine there. Lance Oppenheim is the director of this film. Sarah Tai, in taking To Catch a Predator and giving it the film treatment, what do you make of the movie? Is it successful? Well, I'd like to thank Roxanna for literally, just reminding me from the recesses of my mind that I was watching Cops as a child. I was watching To Catch a Predator as a child. Dark times. I really, I think the film is so interesting and compelling in terms of like the form and the tone. Even when I wasn't fully convinced about what it was trying to say about the way it was telling the story about Robert Pattinson, who is at like peak affectation here. But I think it has this really interesting tone that moves from very uncertain, unsettling to darkly comic and back again. And I think that a lot of audiences don't know what to do with that, which is kind of letting those more uncomfortable moments sit in the air and take them in without like running to the catharsis of laughter. I love the way it looked. Oppenheim was shooting in this like boxy, almost claustrophobic frame with these grimy, blurry, textured VHS kind of visual aspects, these saturated colors, intense lighting and super close, push-ups to Robert Pattinson's face. And I loved all of that. I love a dramatic, intense film. And I really loved how they also lean into like that texture and physicality of late 2000s media formats. But again, the story of the characters, I'm not sure. I always loved Merit Weaver and I loved her here. And it was, of course, a treat to see my biological father, Bokeem Woodbine, as a Republican cop, which is something I thought I'd never say. But I do think there's a, I think there's a seediness to the film that isn't being owned by Oppenheim in the way someone like a Todd Haynes would own that. The idea of also like wanting that seediness, I think is like an interesting thing to sort of look at this film and go, well, we could push a little bit deeper into this. Jackson, what about you? Did primetime work for you? I loved it. It's like Nightcrawler vibes in that seediness, I think. But also like what it does is I think. Shout out Nightcrawler. Thank you. I think it subverts something that I'm seeing a lot of. There's this queer theorist by the name of Lee Edelman. He had this book where he wrote about the idea of reproductive futurism, which to be short, it's that basically all of politics and pop culture has revolved around the idea of protecting the child, which is like this kind of ethereal idea we have of this nonspecific child. So like every policy position just boils down to who can say I am protecting a child. It's for the children. Yeah. And that's kind of what this movie is discussing, exploring, except from a vantage point of people that in the movie's argument don't necessarily actually have real children's best interests in mind. There's almost no kids actually in this movie other than Hansen's kids who are basically ignored and like shepherded around in a weird way. And there's a segment in India that also children are used for voyeuristic purposes. And the movie itself is kind of positing, okay, we saw all of this content that made us feel good that we would be able to be very violent and perform our hatred of this group. But like how much good were we actually doing? And I liked that a lot about this movie. I want to come back to that in a moment because like that is a part of the controversy. That is around this film. But Roxanna, let me ask you, like you watched that original series and then you watched this film. If the film is trying to sort of refract how you experienced that series and say, actually, this is the thing he was doing to our culture. What did you make of that message? What did you make of like what the movie was trying to do? I mean, I think it is very much trying to say like this was gross and we shouldn't have made this entertainment and making it entertainment basically ruined the, you know, good meaning message from, from the start. And there is this like very strong undercurrent within the script that is like, we have to get bigger whales or like bigger men because we are needing bigger ratings and we want to dominate and NBC needs to be at the top. And so I think that is very much within the text, which is like they got caught up in their own hype and whatever impetus to like save the children or do whatever they thought that they were going to do. It ended up being like a means of entrapment to a certain degree and a means of like normalizing that kind of treatment of until that point, like we don't know what these men are going to do necessarily. And so to create this expectation within us that these men are already guilty and already worthy of being like shoved out of society. Like I think the movie is saying all of that was bad actually. And we haven't figured out the way to recognize, reconcile that within our culture. And did it make a difference? Did it make a difference is a big question. And there's not a good answer for that. I'm compelled by all those questions. Like for me, like I'm going to watch this movie this weekend because I'm really interested in all this. And fundamentally, Sarah Tai, I'm interested in art that says, it's not about Chris Hansen. It's not about to catch a predator necessarily. It's just about like posing the question over and over again of what happens when a society's fidelity is to its own entertainment. When you take the most serious issues in the moment and say they can be run through the filter of entertainment and it will be fine. However, there is some controversy around this film and its real-life muse, Chris Hansen. Do you want to explain a little bit of what's going on there? So Chris Hansen is upset specifically about the way the movie is using his work and his personal life. One of the large narrative threads in the film is his family and his failures as a father and as a husband. And in his opinion, he thinks that it's inventing and distorting a lot of these major events that we see in the film that Jackson alluded to earlier. And then on the other hand, the film team is kind of presenting the film as this dramatization of the ethical questions around predators, things like this, and having them on reality television and the media sensationalism of it all. I do think that some of Hansen's concerns are valid in theory. I do think Pattinson does play Hansen in a slightly deranged way. Slightly. This is not a straight-up, super serious drama. And I think the film likewise enacts its own kind of sensationalism. But that said, of course, at the same time with Hansen, there's this kind of hypocrisy and this unwillingness to see how his own show was sensationalized in the same, if not even more, bananas way. Why were we all watching it as children? Chris Hansen has been quite famously pretty defensive about the show. Defensive about the show and the importance of the show and the significance of the show. Roxana, Chris Hansen declined to see the movie ahead of its release. In an interview this week, I just want to redo the statement because he said he plans to see the movie when it came out on Thursday along with everyone else. He said he plans to turn the trip into the movies into a content for his podcast, which is called Have a See with Chris Hansen. But he did. Here's a quote from Chris Hansen. He said he called the movie an insult to thousands of men and women who worked hard every day to protect children from predators. They turned something that is very positive, very challenging and not without risk into what is essentially a horror film. He also threatened legal action. Roxana, what do you make of his response? I mean, I'm not really surprised by this because his whole brand has. Been about continuing to make different versions of the show and continuing to sort of elevate him as the one person who can do this work. So a statement that is about, you know, the thousands of men and women who are doing this. It's like the movie isn't criticizing the thousands of men and women who are doing this. That's not what that should be about. You know, like the movie is criticizing one specific series at one specific moment in time. So I'm not really surprised by this response. But I also think like critiques of the show. Have existed for a while. The documentary Predators, which came out a couple of years ago, was also very critical. So part of me just has to say it's like it feels a little bit of a defensive maneuver and a frustration that he wasn't involved in the making of the movie rather than the critique of the movie itself. I want to move on to the history of concrete in just a moment. But Jackson, maybe this will be the last word is that Chris Hansen does actually have a pretty solid track record of playing ball with some representations of him. He played himself on 30 Rock. Played himself on The Simpsons. Yes. He was fine with the way that he was spoofed on South Park. What do you make of him not, you know, not being consulted on this film and his response to that? Well, I mean, that though those representations are why Lance Oppenheim made this movie. He said in a number of interviews is like the inspiration came when he like grew up liking Chris Hansen, liking to catch a predator. And then on his birthday, I think his girlfriend or wife got him a cameo of Chris Hansen. And Chris Hansen said, like, why don't you take a seat? Happy birthday. And the dichotomy of, OK, he's arguing. He said he's doing serious altruistic work, but he's playing into a bit and like doing this campy performance of what should be serious work. And if you are doing this work and you are consuming people's souls live on camera for entertainment, how much of it is altruistic? How much of it is I want to be famous? And that's kind of what he's doing in this documentary or this movie rather documentary and doing a fictional movie. And out of that, if you want it to be cutting, if you want it to be true, then you can't really have him involved because that's going to be brand building. Yeah. I think that is a good place to leave it. But we should also just say primetime is in theaters now. We'll be back in just a moment. Hey, it's Danielle and Callie, your hosts of In 3, Canada's number one entertainment news podcast. I've spent more time with Taylor Swift than most other people. We're media pros. We hosted the Verity screening. Besties. Howie has become the hottest Backstreet Boy. Said no one but you ever. Ever. And insiders who have seen it all. I.R.L. Oscars, Golden Globes, you name it. We have been there. With access to the biggest talent. Welcome to In 3, Patrick J. Adams. Thank you for having me. The fun starts in three. You know who's not going to survive this? Dad talk. Oh. New episodes Mondays and Thursdays. OK, we are back. I'm Elamin Abdelmahmoud and this is Commotion. Sarah Tai Black is here. Roxana Haddad is here. And Jackson Weaver is here with me in studio. Do you ever think about concrete? No, I didn't. Do you ever think there's too much concrete in the city? Sorry. OK. Have you ever actually seen anyone spit out their gum? No. So we come and vaporize that gum. And that gum is busted. That gum is busted. You want to try? Me? Yeah. Where did the gum go? It's busted. That gum is busted. That is the trailer for the history of concrete. Yes. A movie about the stuff that is just the stuff that makes the pavement. Sarah Tai, a thing happened in all of us when that trailer started, which is we all kind of began smiling. Do you want to talk a little bit about the premise of the history of concrete and why he got that smile out of everybody just to hear the trailer? Yes. I mean, the film gave us so many stems, so many stems. The history of concrete is comedian John Wilson trying to make a movie about concrete. Obviously, he's not going to make a movie about concrete. He is struggling to turn this very ordinary, unglamorous subject matter into something that people would really want to watch. And it becomes this really funny, very unexpectedly personal film about cities and infrastructure and living together and decay and the anxiety of trying to make art and just to live. And he's also trying to frame it as a Hallmark movie. So it's technically about concrete, but really it's about, you know, like how we build things often together, what happens when we're not sure to do next. And it's funny and it's silly and it's so poetic as well, which is one of my favorite tones for a film or a show to be able to manage. I, uh, the, the, just the, the, the words becomes unexpectedly personal. Those could be on John Wilson's business card. That's the thing that he does, right? So like he's probably most famous for his HBO docuseries, how to John Wilson, where the, the, the most ordinary things become unexpectedly personal. That's the thing that he kind of does for a living. Uh, I should also say. I should also say how to with John Wilson, like it's just him going through New York, trying to do ordinary stuff. And then these little street conversations become something so much bigger. Uh, Roxanna, when you watch this film, what, what, what, what's the relationship between how, between how to with John Wilson and the history of concrete? Definitely a supersized episode with John Wilson. I mean, because I think they start from the same place of him having this sort of question of like, what should this movie be about? And then really letting that question unfurl in different directions, which is very much how to with John Wilson. Like, how can I answer this question and I'll go wherever it leads me. So the film sort of diverges and starts itself again a couple of times to like find a new subject. And, you know, the, the concrete part of it is really this analysis of the infrastructure of our cities and how they are crumbling and how they don't have funding. There is. This one very horrifying segment where someone talks about like the BQE in New York and how it is going to collapse. And there's this like horror movie segment where we drive under it. And I think it's interesting that his work does have real world relevance. Like the New York mayor, Zoran Mamdani, has announced that he's going to work on the BQE. Unclear whether Zoran saw. Unclear. We can't quite credit. Yes. Yeah. But I do think it's one of those things. Where it's like Wilson is picking up on these things that we're sort of aware of, but not aware that we're aware of and then turning them into things. So, yeah, the doc is like a big episode of the show. Let me ask you, Jackson, how do you feel about the doc? I will say I don't know what I was expecting, but I was genuinely surprised like halfway through like, oh, this is actually about concrete. It's not like it's literally about concrete. Much of this is. But I love the title. Yeah. I don't know why I was surprised, but whatever. But exactly what Sarah Tai was saying. This is. I think it's a poem in video format. And it is very interesting to be able to watch this and come out of it with different interpretations of what was this actually about? Like, I see it as as about the idea of permanence and the saw the fake aspect of permanence and connection and all these kind of other things. I will say it's kind of an acquired taste to like the Nathan Fielder's, the Tim Robinson esque removed sort of comedy. So parts of it I struggled with to. To actually connect these different diverging parts. So I don't think I was as much of a raving fan as many people are. But like, I also struggled with friendship from Tim Robinson. So some of this stuff isn't exactly my vibe, but I could. I love it's a poem. It's absolutely a poem. Sarah Tai, the overlap between all of these things is Nathan Fielder, right? There's a Nathan Fielder, which was Jackson just mentioned. So Nathan Fielder makes a cameo in the history of concrete. He executive produced how to John Wilson. Nathan Fielder was also a consultant on primetime and Lance Oppenheim, who's the director of primetime, time he co-directed the documentary that's about to come out that with with nathan fielder about elizabeth holmes everyone in this room cannot wait for that documentary to be out here in this world but also like the wider thing here is that clearly nathan fielder is having a moment what where do you make of the idea that nathan it's the nathan fielder essence sorry about that i don't feel good about it either uh i'm not sure if i would call it that word which i won't but i do think he's definitely part of this ongoing and relatively recent trend of docudrama and the logics of that that is taking something completely ordinary and finding all the weirdness and anxiety and sometimes the beauty underneath it and i think different folks find that in different places i prefer the john wilson approach it feels a bit more human to me but that's just me and i i think you know when we look at something like prime time i think you can make the argument about it and i think it's a good idea to do that i think it's a good idea to do that about like that crossover of interests in terms of media and performance and the ethics of and i think it's a good idea to do that and i think it's a good idea to do that turning people's real lives into entertainment um with fielder himself i think that the logic and the approach of his comedy creates this distance and this intimacy at the same time yeah um and it can make things feel unstable uh and that that's why so many folks thought that newest clip from you can see everything was a fiction movie and not a documentary and i think it's a story of style a style of storytelling excuse me and image making that feels so right for the times we look for the times we live in right now yeah i i often find myself the the primary feeling that i have when i'm watching a nathan fielder project jake jackson is stress i'm i'm stressed out as i'm walking up to the project yeah i'm a little bit tense and i and i i actually think i don't mind that feeling i mean i know quite a few people who are like i would do anything not to feel that particular way i don't mind that feeling but i do i kind of register it as i'm walking up to this thing but if we can just kind of connect the dots because we've got a whole bunch of projects working in idioms that are just close to the other thing right so if you've got prime time that is a film that is about a docu-series right whereas you've got how to with john wilson uh you've got you got the history of concrete it is a documentary that is also trying to perform the work of a Hallmark movie and then you've got you can see everything which is a so from what we've seen so far the Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim project it looks like a documentary that and then every shot that you watch you go there's no way this actually happened or it happened like this and this makes me feel really deeply uneasy what where do you make of the ways that all of these different documentary formats are in conversation with each other and what does that tell us about where documentary is right now I mean go Canada because we invented documentaries nathan field is canadian he is going back to john grierson the nfb that's where it comes from um but i think like we always talk about you know the death of truth and a politician that might have introduced that but i think it's maybe more similar to this idea of hyper normalization which is the idea that when you're so socialized ingrained in a society you're so dependent on those different structures if they break down if they stop making sense you cannot even acknowledge it because you're so dependent on them. So it's kind of like the double thing of 1984, where your world doesn't make sense. You say that it makes sense and keep going as much as you can. And some of these documentaries, I think they're reflecting the fact that our world, our systems, our old standards have totally failed. The world feels scary and unsure. Nothing is familiar. So they're pushing the boundaries of what truth is, what reality is, and making us live in this like dichotomy that there's this cognitive dissonance state and it's like is it real is it fake i don't know is anything real or true is anything comfortable no it's not and also here's some crazy comedy about people drinking their own pee and old nathan fielder stuff that specific feeling you're describing that cognitive dissonance is actually useful right because it's useful in the sense that like i don't know about you but for me roxanna it breaks me out of reality it makes me it breaks me out of the world that i existed and go like oh i actually have the capacity to ask questions that i didn't really have before and i say this as someone who watched that new trailer for you can see everything the elizabeth holmes documentary i think i watched it five times in a row trying to go like what how did they how did this happen why would elizabeth holmes say this on camera what is going on what when you when you watch that trailer what was your reaction what are you hoping for out of that film i mean i think hope is a is an interesting word to apply here because i think like on on one hand i think the defining elizabeth holmes document already exists and it's liz mary weathers the dropout but then you know on another point i do think it is fascinating to see how mercurial and chameleon like some of these people are and i think it's useful to see that behavior in action and to like extrapolate it to other parts of our lives like as jackson was saying like this is like a symptom of like a broader cultural thing that has been happening for a long time like the back rooms of vacation all of our lives and so i am i am sort of interested most to see nathan who can be a very uncompromising figure what he does to like prod and poke at that affect and that performance I'm curious to see, like, how far Nathan goes. I guess that's really the question. How far will Nathan go in this? Infinitely far. Yeah, you do watch that trailer, and you can kind of register in his eyes him breaking kayfabe for a moment ago. Oh, I've met someone a little bit crazier than me. That is kind of the reaction that you keep seeing as he registers, you know, as he kind of keeps looking at Elizabeth Holmes. Okay, before I let you guys go, I would love to get a recommendation from each of you. Jackson Weaver, why do you want to start? I mean, everyone has been recommending, as Roxanna mentioned, Predators, which is a documentary about creep catchers. So, I mean, about the To Catch a Predator, which you should watch that. But something different, shamed, a Canadian documentary about creep hunters, creep catchers, the copycat group of To Catch a Predator. Very good for free on TVO, YouTube, Canadian. Check it out. Let's go. Roxanna, what about you? I am going to recommend a book, an old book. She reads. Wow. I know. I'm so sorry. um i have been rereading john steinbeck this summer and i'm rereading east of eden and i just love it so much and i think if you have any interest in watching the netflix adaptation that comes out soon i think you owe yourself to read this like beautiful dense musing book about like the concept of free will and i think at this time especially when things increasingly feel like bleak and dark yeah it is somewhat comforting to read this book that posits that like you as an individual can make choices about your own life east of eden as a recommendation what a recommendation all right i'd love to see it love it sarah tithe 30 seconds to you pal what do you got i'm gonna recommend once upon a time in harlem which i caught at tiff it's a documentary built from footage that the late filmmaker william grief shot at in the 70s at a cocktail party at Duke Ellington's house with so many artists, intellectuals, political figures who were pivotal to the Harlem Renaissance movement. It's an amazing, amazing living record of these conversations about Black cultural, artistic, political life and shameless self-promotion. If you miss it at TIFF, you can catch it at the Paradise next week where it's screening as part of my screening series, Black Gold. Amazing. Thank you guys so much. This has been such a wonderful time. Thanks for coming on the show today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Good to have you guys. Sarah Tai Black is a freelance film critic in Toronto. Their work shows up in The Globe and Mail and right here on Commotion. Raksana Haddadi is a TV critic at Vulture and Jackson Weaver is a senior writer at CBC Entertainment. He was also right here in Toronto. That is it for the podcast today. This week, Commotion was produced by Stuber Berman, Ty Callender, Nathan Chisholm, Nicky Manfredi, and Jess Lowe. Our digital producers are Amelie Ekbal, John Lee, and Vani Mutabja. Our engineers are Emily Carvasio and Sam Hashmi. Our director is Daniel Grogan. John Perry is the senior producer. Our executive producer is Beza Seyfa. I'm Elamin Abdelmahmoud, and I'll see you on Monday. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts. to cbc.ca slash podcasts.