aTypical Joe: a gay New Yorker living in the rural South

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Dateline and the wankers

Sacha Zimmerman writing in The New Republic looks at Dateline’s “To Catch A Predator Series:”

[A]fter eight shoots and 15 hours of broadcast episodes of one predator after another--after another, after another--it’s clear this is no longer informative; it’s just lurid. [Gotcha “journalist” Chris] Hansen is not the heroic investigative reporter he pretends to be; he’s an entertainer, creating a black-and-white world of good and evil that allows the audience to cheer as bad guys are taken out, while simultaneously appealing to viewers’ own twisted perversions.

Dateline performs this feat with the help of Perverted Justice ("PeeJ"), the not-quite-vigilante anti-predator online organization that poses as underage victims to lure in the would-be perverts:

[I]f enticing would-be predators to “Dateline“‘s hungry cameras seems a little, well, predatory, it is. Meet Xavier Von Erck, PeeJ’s founder. The 27-year-old Kevin Smith look-alike, a self-professed “Childless Atheist Libertarian,” told Radar magazine that he dropped out of community college when a “‘productive Internet addiction’ ruined my studies, which I were [sic] not all that interested in anyways.” That “productive Internet addiction” is, of course, posing as young girls and boys on MySpace as a way of outing predators. Funny thing about that: “Age play” is it’s own form of fetish. But, then, why shouldn’t Von Erck enjoy himself while saving the world from predators?

And saving us is very gratifying indeed. According to “Beef the Troll"--"Red Baroness“‘s husband and a three-year PeeJ employee who thinks that his background in “theatre” and “improv” combined with an “overdeveloped sense of justice” make him a good fit for the job of seducing pedophiles--there is nothing like sitting down to watch a “‘Dateline’ piece and enjoy the satisfying sight of seeing 50+ men who thought they were meeting a child for sex instead be confronted with TV cameras and hauled away in cuffs!” Viewers evidently agree. The show is a ratings bonanza for NBC.

She points to the Perverted Justice Wankers Page, “a collection of masturbatory pornographic videos sent to the PeeJs when they were posing as kids.” I went and it was sad and pathetic. These guys looked every bit like the perverted losers they were cast to be.

Though Hansen and Perverted Justice maintain that they always leave punishment to the proper authorities, these strange bedfellows never reflect on the fact that exposure is punishment itself. Take Hansen’s reaction to the harried pace of interrogating one predator after another as scheduled “dates” begin to pile up throughout the night: “It would be easy to start to feel sorry for some of these guys, but it’s almost as if there’s not enough time,” He wrote on his behind-the-scenes blog. “There’s always another guy on the way.”

It is almost as if the folks at “Dateline” have been seduced themselves. Without even a whiff of self-awareness, “Dateline” recently aired an interview with Debra LaFave, the statuesque platinum blonde teacher who was convicted of having sex with her 14-year-old student. But, unlike the men on “To Catch A Predator” who are whisked off to law enforcement after being stunned by Hansen’s sudden appearance and who barely have time to get their bearings, LaFave was presented as a complex woman. Raped at 13 and later diagnosed with a bipolar disorder, she possessed myriad factors that led to her present circumstance, and “Dateline” took the time to address them. While the program never denied her responsibility--and LaFave herself admits to full culpability--it did present a more complete portrait than Hansen could ever hope to convey.

So “Dateline” is at least capable of looking more deeply at a story than the easy headline would suggest--or it is when an attractive blonde is at the center of the account. But, back in hidden-camera land with Chris Hansen, the middle-aged male predators that PeeJ ropes in for the program just aren’t sexy enough to be treated fairly. On “To Catch A Predator,” the world is a stark place where evil men are brought to their knees for our enjoyment. By all means, get these guys away from our children, but serving it up as entertainment is gross--and it certainly isn’t journalism.

WHILE ON THE TOPIC: Say No to Prop 83 in CA, and even if you’re not in CA take the time to read danah’s excellent listing of the reasons why.