Predators Review
It was a show that gripped America. Actors posing as children would lure predatory men to a house filled with cameras. Soon after they turned up, urbane host Chris Hansen would appear, to inform them that they were the stars of the latest episode of To Catch A Predator. Outside the house, the police were waiting.
Although it only lasted from 2004-2008, the legacy persists, with amateur imitators still all over YouTube. And last year, Hansen reinvigorated the concept on his new venture, Takedown. The desire to watch predatory men humiliated on screen seems undying. Predators examines the unnerving phenomenon, asking why it continues to be so popular, if the collateral damage is worth it, and if anyone involved in the process is really getting what they wanted.
Predators is split into three chapters. In the first, the original show is examined in depth. Filmmaker David Osit chats to various people involved in the making of the cultural juggernaut, discussing their feelings at the time, and if they’ve changed today.
The most enlightening interviewees prove to be the ‘decoys’; the actors who were 18 or 19 during filming, but could conceivably have passed for younger, who were the last faces the men would see before their lives would change forever. Though they weren’t technically children, they were still very young, and it’s soon apparent they were not given the mental health support to deal with such an emotionally taxing job. Two decades later, many of them still struggle to contend with their conflicting feelings, especially the decoy who was on the job when one of the marks, Texan politician Bill Conradt, died by suicide. It’s darkly ironic that a show centred around saving young people left so many of them with lingering trauma.
The second chapter focuses on the YouTube copycats, primarily one ‘hosted’ by an actor who models himself after Hansen: ‘Skeet Hansen’. His show is so deeply childish and inept (his catchphrase is “You’ve been Skeeted”…) it would border on comic if it weren’t for the vulnerable people involved. It was dubious enough that a professional TV production working hand-in-hand with the police were effectively given the power to declare themselves judge, jury and executioner. A group of amateurs like that? Terrifying.
In the final chapter, we’re back with Hansen and his producer as they film his new To Catch A Predator spinoff. Osit questions him about his feelings on the copycats. Hansen replies that they’re doing it “for clicks and profit – what I do is for a greater purpose”. Soon after, we see him and his producer revelling in the numbers their latest episodes have achieved.
While Predators never condones or excuses the paedophiles – Osit himself is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse – it also sees that shows like To Catch a Predator do far more harm than good in tackling the problem. Rehabilitation was never even a subsidiary goal, nor was understanding why these men are the way they are. However much Hansen and co profess to care about the victims, those concerns always come second to their audience figures.
It’s perhaps said best by the mother of an 18-year-old featured on Takedown, charged with intending to meet a 15-year-old (an age-gap legal in some states): “I just don’t know how the worst day of my life could be something that people were getting snacks for”.
★★★★★
