FRONTLINE: the pbs documentary series not the flea medicine

oof. yeah, i don't know if i couldn't handle this either, unless i have like a week to spare where i just mope around getting nothing done.

frederick wiseman has a six- or seven-hour documentary called "near death" about a hospice. can't bring myself to watch that one, either.

holy shit the Putin episode

not sure what i was expecting but damn

that NRA episode was good.

i watched 10 min of the one about dying and then proceeded to freak out for at least an hour
it wasn't so much the stuff about death that scared me, it just totally pressed some of my other freakout buttons and i started crying :(

i would like to warn anyone prone to intrusive thoughts about death to consider avoiding it tbh
(i'm ok now but watching it was not worth the trouble it caused for me)

i fully recognize it might not be as intense for everyone

who's getting psyched for THE TRUTH ABOUT CHICKEN?

Nooo it is like the only decent protein source left to me

i know i'm not happy about it either
frontline is getting a little out of control with the fear-based programming
i like it when they balance macro fear with more micro stories about the misery of human existence
the horror is a little unbalanced atm no?

i guess i just want more david sutherland programming
he has a lot more movies than i realized! http://davidsutherland.com/films

the chicken-industry footage i've seen in the past is the only bleeding-heart stuff ever to actually give me nightmares

i like it when they balance macro fear with more micro stories about the misery of human existence

this makes me want frosted mini-wheats

<3 David Sutherland

2 things --
a. the one about ebola was really good. I had no idea about the children and the tree full of bats.
b. tonight: CHICKEN http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/trouble-with-chicken/

this week, the making of the CIA's Hollywood propaganda film

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/government-elections-politics/secrets-politics-and-torture/watch-how-the-cia-helped-make-zero-dark-thirty/

ooh!! that sounds good.

Totally

oh hey yes

i watched a little bit of it last night and decided to save the rest for later
i'm saving chicken for possibly never

Chicken truth is a truth we cannot afford to hear

My dad called at the end of last week, horrified by that chicken documentary.

I actually found the chicken documentary less horrifying than I expected! Salmonella is a bitch but relative risk analysis = a million other things will get you before it does. The chicken lobby is a fright, tho.

the meat industry is horrifying

looked at preview online of upcoming "rape on the night shift" and just kind of said to myself, holy shit, noooo

the one on growing up trans was v good

Agree. It was interesting to see how the emotional vocabulary of the kids featured in the movie is soooo much more rich than when I was growing up. Even the boys who suggested to Alex that he burp more and ignore girls. It was really good!

i think they deliberately chose, not only kids who were especially articulate, but -- perhaps more cynically -- kids who were unusually attractive in/as their 'new' gender.

it was very powerful and raised some very difficult questions. the psychologists (psychiatrists?) were very supportive and sensitive and yet i couldn't help but detect a kind of cheerleading that, seen from a different perspective, might seem troubling.

i think the key point in the documentary was the dad (?) who said that they were making the best choices in the absence of a lot of solid answers (answers that science may one day provide).

interesting that the doc essentially offered two endings, one notably ambivalent and the other brightly optimistic

the perspective of the somewhat older dude who admitted its really tough to gauge/appreciate irreversible changes as a young-er person was interesting, like that juxtoposed w the eagerness these kids have to take hormones is def kinda unsettling

xxp yea the clinician cheerleading too

the perspective of the somewhat older dude who admitted its really tough to gauge/appreciate irreversible changes as a young-er person was interesting, like that juxtoposed w the eagerness these kids have to take hormones is def kinda unsettling

― johnny crunch, Sunday, July 5, 2015 4:16 PM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes, and you have to contrast this perspective with the fact (?) that undergoing these hormonal treatments in adolescence can make the transition easier than undergoing them in adulthood.

what's interesting to me is the seeming consensus among psychologists that gender dysphoria is a "thing"--that is, some kind of irreducible, discrete, empirically observable phenomenon that can't be reversed or placated. which it might be, but the psychiatric profession has a history of deciding such things when they turn out to be, at least, much more complex.

there's also the issue--which wasn't really broached in the documentary--about the relationship between gender and sex. is it just that people who have a sexual dysphoria inevitably express it in terms of the dominant cultural signifiers of that gender?

the mix of culture and biology here is so fraught....

that is, is it possible to desire to be another sex w/o assuming the dominant cultural characteristics of the gender generally associated with that sex? or does the desire to change one's sex (via hormones, surgery, etc.) follow from the desire to achieve those characteristics?

i'm not a hardcore cultural constructionist though and i'm comfortable with the idea that some of the cultural manisfestation of gender are a more or less natural, or rather evolutionary, extension of sex. but that assumption definitely flies in the face of some of the more radical implications of the queering of gender that a lot of activists have been invested in for a long time.

If you're interested in the topic, Andrew Solomon's Far From the Tree has a chapter about transgender kids (and their parents). The book is indispensable as an empathy-generating force. It's really great.

heeeeey http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/immigration-2/rape-in-the-fields/female-farm-workers-awarded-17-million-in-florida-abuse-case/

Exxon that climate change was real in 1977. Hope this expanded into a full hour-long episode.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppfpFZ92JAY

Inside Assad's Syria is on in just a few

RIP Robin Poor Bear/Kind Hearted Woman
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/robin-poor-bear-1977-2015/

Oh wow, so sad.

i know, i can't stop thinking about it
if you haven't checked out David Sutherland's other documentaries, they are all great. i've wondered and worried for years about the kids in Country Boys
i hope Robin is at peace

Oh nooooo :(

Shit.... :( :(

I'm trying to watch "Separate But Unequal" about the resegregation of public schools, and I know I should be able to at least listen to this as I fold laundry but I just want to punch every one of these white men in the fucking face.

you should occasionally glance at the screen so you know what they look like -- that way if you see them irl you can punch them in the face :)

Did anyone watch the one about Netanyahu?

this supplement one was good & like theyre doing a gambling/fantasy sprts ep

its cool they have the entire transcript - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/supplements-and-safety/transcript/

I haven't seen a Frontline episode in a few years. I eat chicken seemingly every day so I will not be watching that, lol. Netflix used to have many episodes, but I've seen them all. Are they shown anywhere else, like Hulu Plus or something?

The Frontline website has them all, or at least almost 200.

They also post transcripts for virtually all of them there too. It helps my students take notes while they watch.

I just watched a couple on MRSA-type infections in hospitals while doing repetitive work at work, but found them to be kind of thin... could not bring myself to watch the ISIS ones though, despite strong interest in the subject. Too grim. Which is silly of me, since, you know, Frontline.

Frontline also podcasts the audio of their episodes with the descriptive subliminals. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/podcasts/