How can true crime docs talk about the unspeakable?
thinking through Quiet on Set and The Program
cw: mention of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse of children
I hesitate to suggest such content can be “spoiled,” but this newsletter discusses specific details of the two series
If you’re even a little bit online, you’ve probably heard talk of HBO Max’s four-part docuseries Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV. It’s understandable why. The episodes reveal a truly jaw-dropping culture of misogyny, verbal abuse, and criminal neglect of the (female) staff, (female) writers, and child actors working on and for showrunner Dan Schneider at Nickelodeon. His reign of terror (early to mid-2000s) was after my kids TV era, but I imagine for those millennials who grew up watching shows like iCarly, The Amanda Show, and All That, learning of this ugly underbelly to beloved programming must have been how I felt learning that Bill Cosby was a serial sexual predator. Such upsetting revelations make you re-examine beloved pop culture texts through a completely different lens; I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say the experience is deeply disorienting and unpleasant.
Of course, that distressing process of re-evaluation is nothing compared to what those adults and children who suffered the abuse went through. Treating their stories with respect and discretion is of the utmost importance in docuseries like this one, and, unfortunately, I’m not sure Quiet on Set always hits the right balance between reporting the information and honoring the privacy and agency of the victims. Because the documentary is operating in a true-crime media environment where, I think, we’ve been conditioned to expect primary footage of the abuse (which docs about violent narcissists like Keith Raniere, Lawrence Ray, and Amy Carlson can provide because, well, narcissists), the directors felt obligated to include such visual confirmation of the offenses. But Dan Schneider didn’t record his writers room harangues or on-set tantrums, so instead we are subjected to the same photo of an un-identified staffer giving him a massage multiple times, and watch a victim of his verbal abuse uneasily ask for permission not to talk about an episode described by another interviewee in which she was forced to simulate sex. One victim’s mother, but not the victim herself, is extensively interviewed about a PA on All That and All That (later convicted of two felonies) who engaged in grooming behavior with her daughter. The victim herself does not appear, and neither her mother nor the show itself indicates whether she consented to her story being shared. I assume she did, but affirmation of her knowledge and blessing would have been welcome. I know text on the screen isn’t elegant, but it can do a lot of important work!
The moments I felt most unsure of the directors’ choices were in their handling of the element of the documentary that is getting the most media attention: an interview with Drake Bell, a musician and child actor on Nickelodeon series The Amanda Show and Drake & Josh. The last two episodes of the series are largely devoted to telling his story, and his presence and candor indicate that he was willing to cooperate with the filmmakers, and perhaps ready to publicly name and indict his abuser (a dialogue coach employed by Schneider on several kids shows). However, I was a little put off by the way the interview was introduced. The second episode ends with several adult interviewees expressing surprise and dismay that one of the actors they knew was abused by the coach, and then the closing seconds show Drake Bell sitting down silently before the screen goes to black. Using the revelation of a victim of child sexual abuse as a cliffhanger between episodes felt unseemly and salacious to me.
Bell’s interview is shaped and guided by his words and choices . . . for the most part. There is a moment where Bell, visibly uncomfortable, delcines to describe the details of his repeated assaults, instead suggesting instead the interviewer (and the audience), “imagine the worst thing someone could do to someone as sexual assault.” When, moments later, the screen is filled with copies of the victimizer’s police report, with the specific behaviors he is accused of highlighted, it feels like a betrayal of Bell’s wishes. I certainly hope that he gave his permission for the report to be shared and simply didn’t wish to articulate the particulars himself, but again, it would have been nice to have reassurance that was the case.
Despite these criticisms, Quiet on Set is important for the content of its revelations even if it falls short on the delivery. Actors, especially children, along with writers and production staff, deserve to be protected and listened to even when their abuser is “a genius” like Dan Schneider was purported to be. And perhaps I was particularly critical of this text because I recently watched another docuseries that also attempted to deliver stories of abuse in a way that centered the victims and avoided retraumatizing them.
I think The Program: Cons, Cults, and Kidnapping rises above its clickbaity title to achieve these crucial objectives more successfully. Written and directed by a former victim of the “troubled-teen” industry the series exposes and condemns, the three episodes foreground Katherine Kubler’s empathy and deep understanding of her interviewee’s stories and experiences. Though there is primary footage of the abuse the series documents—the administrators of the “school” she attended abandoned the campus and left behind hours of security camera footage of beatings and verbal abuse—it is parceled out carefully, with care for both the audience members and the victims themselves, who discover and watch the footage along with her. When one former inmate becomes visibly shaken describing the mental and physical abuse he suffered in solitary confinement, Kubler reminds him, “this time, you can leave.” His entire body relaxes as he agrees “that is such a dope feeling,” and they embrace. Most of the first episode takes place in the abandoned campus itself, and watching the fellow detainees Kubler films literally take back the space with their graffiti, their stories, and, at times, their laughter, is genuinely moving.
I find myself returning frequently these days to an argument made by Sarah Weinman that links developments in technology to developments in true crime. The prevalence and affordability of devices with which we can record ourselves and others seems to be one way that tech is shaping how true crime narratives are packaged and consumed, and how to responsibly and respectfully employ that footage is new ethical territory that creators are learning how to map in real time.