Originally Posted by AsianDivaGirlsWebDude
(Post 11823882)
If you ever wander into a stranger's house and see Chris Hansen lurking about, it's time to call a lawyer. The gotcha "journalist" behind "Dateline" NBC's "To Catch A Predator" series has created a huge buzz by exposing and shaming Internet predators to the delight of millions of Americans, parents' groups, and even a swooning Oprah Winfrey.
Nowadays, the "To Catch A Predator" website is, oddly enough, even hyping the fact that former Representative Mark Foley at one time praised the program--making the show seem like a twofer, I suppose: "To Catch A Hypocrite!"
The premise of the award-winning series is simple: Hansen, along with a group called Perverted Justice, lures would-be predators to hidden cameras by posing as 12- and 13-year-olds online. When the men (and they are always men) show up at the fake 13-year-old's house, an adorable "decoy" (a young-looking adult) greets them before Hansen pops out with a litany of questions like "Did you bring condoms?" and "Is that appropriate for a man your age to be asking those questions of a 13-year-old boy?"
Once Hansen is done probing the inner psyche of the predators (about two minutes), the men leave--often thinking the incident is over--just to be body-tackled by a waiting cadre of police officers who book them for various offenses against a minor, such as attempting to molest a child or sending a child pornography. (Of course, there never was a "child" to begin with, but never mind; a detail like that might prevent you from fully enjoying the capture of these sleaze balls.)
Hansen sets the show up as a supposed resource to inform parents of the dangers lurking on the Internet. But, after 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. 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.
Just take a look at Perveted Justice ("PeeJ"), the group behind the "Dateline" busts. At first blush, their efforts seem commendable. By collecting every online conversation with a would-be predator, verifying the predator's intent over the phone, and meticulously cataloguing every interaction, the edgy, mostly twentysomethings on the PeeJ team assemble "cases" that they then practically gift wrap and hand off to the police.
In fact, the PeeJs only ever do the in-person decoy routine when the press comes calling. As "Red Baroness," a PeeJ contributor, puts it in an interview on the Perverted Justice website, she and her colleagues see their work as a mission: "[T]he goal of this site has never wavered, and we continue to fight the good fight. We're glad to testify and make sure that these monsters are nowhere near the children of their communities."
But if 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.
It all seems perfectly noble--if a little odd--on the face of things. But the site quickly devolves into a tasteless blend of X-rated punishments and tacky consumerism. You, too, can join the fight against Internet predators by purchasing a sweatshirt or baseball cap. The site even sells camisoles, boxers, and thongs with nifty slogans like contents aged at least 18 years and at perverted-juctice.com THIS is what a 13-year-old girl looks like, and, my favorite, a baby-doll tee with this simple message splayed across the chest: perverted-justice.com, preying on the predators since 2001. The site encourages "ladies" to buy "this little number" because "We're trying to get the URL into areas of high visibility." Wink, wink.
Although the members of Perverted Justice deny that their work is vigilantism--they do not incite violence against the predators, they acknowledge that they are not above the law, and they work closely with law enforcement--they certainly do dispense justice via the court of public opinion. It takes a strong stomach to click on the Perverted Justice "Wankers" page.
It is just what it sounds like: a collection of masturbatory pornographic videos sent to the PeeJs when they were posing as kids. The site adds snarky titles to each video, like "How low can he go? Meet a limbo-master of nastiness"; "Mike is looking for love in all the wrong ages"; and "Richard loved exposing himself for me, so now it's time to expose Richard." Nice.
It's clear that "Dateline" loves convicting its prey by embarrassing them just as much as the PeeJs do. In one particularly nightmarish episode of "To Catch A Predator," a youth-center rabbi is confronted by Hansen. Believing that Hansen is a police officer, the rabbi solemnly admits he was up to nothing good and inquires as to what happens next. It is only when Hansen reveals that the man is being filmed for "Dateline" that the rabbi really loses it, lunging at Hansen and screaming "Oh, no!" The threat of the law is nothing compared with the threat of exposure.
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.
*****
Sacha Zimmerman writes "Inner Tube" for TNR Online and is the author of For America: Simple Things Each of Us Can Do To Make The Country Better.
ADG Webmaster
|
