Netflix · Norman Mailer · Wine
Plus: A school sexual assault narrative that doesn't go where you'd expect
the true crime that's worth your time
Could Netflix cut its true crime content due to the Gawker effect? That’s what the Hollywood Reporter thinks might happen, based on a piece from late last week. Writing for its THR, Esq. vertical, legal editor-at-large Eriq Gardner reports that “the streamer is facing more active libel suits than any big news organization,” including defamation claims from Operation Varsity Blues parents, a prosecutor in the Central Park Five case, Alan Dershowitz and the “Panama Papers” law firm.
A lot of the problem might be of Netflix’s own doing, too. That’s because as a distributor of content (as opposed to a creator), Netflix would typically not be the focus of suits disputing how documentary figures are portrayed or over liberties in a dramatic adaptation. But a recent ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Pamela Pepper called Netflix out for the credit it accepts for these shows — credit acceptance that likely put a target on its back.
She said that a suit from Andrew L. Colborn over how he appeared in Making A Murderer put the streaming platform at risk. “For example, the fact that Netflix accepted awards for Making a Murderer for writing and editing,” she said. “Netflix accepted those awards … There were Netflix employees who have made statements to the press regarding their roles in producing the programs. There is, of course, reference to collaboration with [filmmakers Moira] Demos and [Laura] Ricciardi.”
Snip:
It’s important to realize just how historically bizarre it is that Netflix is defending these suits. Think about it this way: Movie theaters never get sued over motion pictures that are exhibited on their screens. Should AMC or Regal really be responsible for a potentially defamatory documentary? Yet, Netflix is winding up in court with alarming frequency for content including Making a Murderer, Operation Varsity Blues and Messiah that it’s not even producing — just distributing.
That raises an interesting issue with respect to libel laws.
“Let’s say there is something in a book or newspaper that is actionable,” says Eugene Volokh, who teaches First Amendment law at UCLA. “Can a plaintiff sue the bookstore or the newsstand? The answer historically is, ‘Yes, but …’ Yes, you could sue, but they would have special defense: They are the distributors rather than the publishers. That reflects the reality that the bookstore owner can’t be expected to read everything.”
Obviously, Netflix has all the money, so for now a suit here or there is unlikely to have an impact on its programming strategy. Then again, no one thought a lawsuit from a wrestler could shut down the company behind some of the internet’s most popular websites, and yet, here we are. — EB
Boyd Holbrook will play Jack Henry Abbott in a new series. Deadline brings casting news about Executioner, an upcoming series about Norman Mailer’s relationship with author/convicted murderer Abbott, who wrote a book about life in prison with Mailer’s help, was paroled with Mailer’s help, then killed a waiter over a bathroom dispute just a few weeks after his release.
Holbrook is a likable actor who hasn’t quite found his niche yet, so this could work well — and the story of Abbott’s release, attack, manhunt, and trial is definitely deserving of an adaptation. What I’m wondering is why they decided to call it “Executioner,” when the series isn’t even about (except tangentially) Mailer’s book with that word in it. Abbott’s book is called In the Belly of the Beast, which seems like a promising series name. Or, hell, just Beast — then, we have the multiple means of Beast as prison (the belly of which Abbott was presumably in) and, arguably, Abbott himself.
No one else appears to have been cast yet, including Mailer (who would have been 58 at the time of the series). There’s also no word on where the series will eventually be available for streaming/broadcast — these are early days yet. Early enough, they they can change the series’s name, right? Because Executioner is dumb!
Who’d you cast as 58-year-old Norman Mailer? — EB
One of the most popular wines in Northern California is attracting criticism for capitalizing on incarceration. The Prisoner Wine Co. launched in St. Helena 21 years ago with a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel with a label portraying a shackled man. It was a huge, influential success, Esther Mobley writes for the SF Chronicle, as
Big wine conglomerates took notice. Many of them rushed to bring their own ripe-tasting red blend with an edgy label to market. Today, popular red blends like 19 Crimes, Bodyguard, Tall Dark Stranger and Freakshow “are all here because of what the Prisoner started 20 years ago.”
Wine conglomerate Constellation Brands bought the brand in 2016, opening a tasting room a couple years later laden with shackles, chains, torture instruments, and jailhouse bars. It’s an odd, troubling thing, fetishizing jail and incarceration, and the tasting room isn’t the only place the tone seems off to anyone who is paying attention on 2021: a look at their website shows bottles named The Snitch, Unshackled, Derange, Eternally Silenced, and Blindfold.
Erased, a bottle that depicts a black, bound hand, includes this marketing copy: ”Like smoke from a magic lamp, bubbles rise from your glass, enchanting and enticing, bringing with them a wish, a chance to dream and be anything. Be ERASED.” Looking at that bottle and reading that copy, it’s hard not to think of the New York Times’s piece “1.5 Million Missing Black Men,” a piece on how incarceration disproportionately impacts Black males.
Perhaps anticipating these critiques, in August Constellation hired a new general manager for The Prisoner, Bukola “Bukky” Ekundayo. Ekundayo tells Mobley that “she wants to use the winery’s platform to advocate for prison reform,” but declined to give details. She also argued that “portraying the Prisoner as fetishizing imprisonment is misguided,” but that’s a tough sell when your tasting room is built to look like an actual prison…and even tougher when the brand makes Instagram posts like this one, asking followers to tag themselves in a post on “The Prisoner varietals as dog breeds,” next to wine bottles featuring images of chained and tortured men.
Maybe they don’t see what they’re doing? Or maybe they do and they just don’t care. You should read Esther’s story if you can (it might be paywalled, depending on your readership habits), as it pairs very well (fine, sorry!) with our ongoing conversations on ethically approaching true crime. — EB
Did anyone here watch The Raincoat Killer? The Korean/Singaporean series was released on Netflix on October 22, but for some reason its algorithm was all over me to watch it this weekend, weeks and weeks later.
I didn’t indulge, though, because every library book I has was set to expire at once and I was madly reading, but here’s what I know: The Raincoat Killer: Chasing a Predator in Korea (that’s its full name) is about Korean rapist/killer/cannibal Yoo Young-chul, who killed at least 20 people between 2003-2004 and, on his arrest, announced to the camera that "Women shouldn't be sluts, and the rich should know what they've done."
So, this is obviously the feel-good series of the fall, and appropriate holiday viewing for the whole family.
jk, this sounds like a pretty sad and upsetting show! Variety has more, writing that the series will
examine the events through never-before-seen archival footage and interviews with the people directly involved in the case, including the victims’ family members; the officer in charge of the case; other detectives and investigators; prosecutors; lawyers; and profilers Kwon Il-yong, Korea’s first profiler who interacted directly with Young-chul, Lee Soo-jung and Bae Sang-hoon.
(There’s apparently a feature film based on the case called The Chaser, starring legit dreamboat Ha Jung-woo, so I am suddenly a bit more interested in this yarn.)
The three-episode docuseries is on Netflix now, the platform has told me about 697967 times in recent days. Did you watch? Should I? — EB
Sarah listed some VF longreads for you yesterday, and now I have another for you to chew over. “Mr. Weber’s Confession,” a lengthy piece from journalist Nancy Jo Sales, isn’t what you might expect from its headline and lead — it’s a story about a sexual assault investigation at elite boarding school Exeter, but at its crux is an inappropriate act that the so-called victim says never happened.
It’s a strange and meandering tale, made stranger by the that Sales is the alleged victim who denies the allegations. It’s also a mystery: Who made the claim that Sales was inappropriately touched as an underage student, and why? I was gripped throughout. Here’s a snip:
The teacher who made me feel like everything was going to be okay was David Weber. He encouraged me to write. I started churning out short stories to show him. Often I would visit him in the evenings in his study at Dutch House, where he lived with his wife and young daughter—the door always open, by the way, with other female students coming and going as part of check-in; he was the dorm head. I guess part of me felt like my lowly status was raised a bit by having this kind and well-liked teacher as my friend. And he was a good teacher—in retrospect, I see he was a kind of early editor. He was a pivotal person in my life, and I remembered him with gratitude, although after I graduated in 1982, we hadn't spoken.
So that's why I was stunned when, on September 10, 2020, I got a call from Palmer, asking me brusquely, after a few pleasantries: "When you were a student at Exeter, did you have a sexual relationship with Mr. Weber?" She advised me it would be best if I could be brief, as she only had a few minutes for this conversation.
I felt a wave of nausea. I put a hand on the wall to steady myself. It wasn't Weber I was remembering suddenly, it was the college boy who had raped me in a dorm room at the University of Miami when I was 14 years old, an experience I had only just begun to process some 40 years later.
Maybe it was Palmer's calling Weber "Mr. Weber" that made me feel so infantilized, like I was a student at Exeter again, in trouble for something. I felt like I was going to be sick, and then I started to feel something close to outrage. It didn't seem right of her to call me up and ask me this without any preparation.
And at the end of the piece, I don’t know what to think or who to believe. The teacher, who confessed to the problematic incident? Sales, whose voice was silenced by the school in a seeming effort to performatively root out misconduct? What happened back in 1982, and who is benefitted by unearthing it all now? It’s not a pat, easy, or clear-cut story, but it’s one worth your time. — EB
Wednesday on Best Evidence: Sarah brings the goods to our paying subscribers.
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